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The Guardian
7 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Community groups helped shield youth from gun crimes. US funding cuts have put them at risk again
Most days, Fredrick Womack and his team can be found scattered throughout Jackson, Mississippi, talking to groups of young Black men and teens – whether they're working, which bills need to be paid at home and if any brewing conflicts are at risk of turning violent. Through these conversations with young men, who are both perpetrators and victims of much of the city's violence, Womack hopes he can help steer them in a different direction. Womack, 51, is the co-founder of the non-profit Operation Good, which, in addition to this work on the streets, hosts a youth summer program and trash cleanups, and helps teen boys find odd jobs, like cutting lawns, so they can earn a few dollars instead of resorting to crime for income. It also offers critical resources for the community, like buying school clothes for kids and paying utility bills for families that can't afford them through its It Takes a Village program. 'That is the main underlying factor for violence,' Womack said, 'people living in impoverished situations.' It's critical work in a city with outsize violence and poverty. Last year, 111 people were killed in the predominantly Black city of 140,000. That year, Jackson had a homicide rate nearly double that of the rest of Mississippi, and 16 times higher than the rest of the US. At the same time, more than a quarter of its residents live below the poverty line, more than double the national average. Womack's work has made a difference: in the years since the pandemic – which saw nationwide surges of gun violence – the homicide rate started to tick down, a change city officials have attributed, in part, to the work of community-based groups like Operation Good, and their collaboration with the police. But now that work is in jeopardy, as Operation Good is among the many gun violence prevention programs across the US whose work will be significantly hampered – or eliminated altogether – thanks to sweeping federal cuts. 'It's unfortunate because of the progress that's being made,' Womack said. In April, the Trump administration cut more than $800m in grants managed by the justice department's office of justice programs (OJP) to organizations that prevent and respond to gun violence, sexual assault and hate crimes; support foster youth; and provide re-entry services. Many, like Operation Good, work in underserved Black and Latino communities. Operation Good had a two-year $250,000 grant terminated, more than 20% of their annual budget. The money would have been used to support a summer program, transforming an abandoned building into a youth recreation center, offering stipends for teens and young men, and tracking the impact of the group's work. Operation Good has so far received $90,000 of the grant money before the cancellation. Supporting community-based violence intervention had been a priority for the Biden administration, which established the first-ever White House office of gun violence prevention and made hundreds of millions of dollars in grants available through American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act dollars. Trump's justice department, meanwhile, said the terminated funds will be reallocated toward law enforcement agencies and other 'Department priorities'. Earlier this month, five of the non-profits that lost funds filed a class action lawsuit to reverse the terminations. For Operation Good, receiving the grant had been a lifeline. It allowed the organization to hire new staff and run a summer program for youth – an initiative that Womack said has been crucial during the season when violence tends to increase across the nation. 'That was the best thing we had going for violence reduction,' said Womack, an army veteran who many in the community affectionately call 'Paw paw'. 'Kids are out of school and coming to our program was their only food source. It helped us try to prevent robbing, stealing and killing.' Now, without the remainder of the grant, the future of Operation Good's work is uncertain, which for Womack and his staff could mean a loss of their own livelihoods and a potential increase in the violence they've worked to address. David Muhammad, executive director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, which received federal funding and sub-granted it to smaller violence prevention organizations, including Operation Good, called the news 'terrible'. 'It's a perfect program for us to say, 'Please continue to focus on the good work while we help you build up the capacity,'' he said. Ira Henry, Operation Good's co-founder and program supervisor, said the news of the funding cuts 'broke us'. 'To me, it feels like they don't care,' he said. 'Do you want to stop crime in the city of Jackson? Do you want change?' Before Operation Good, Henry had been in and out of incarceration, with his last stint ending in 2010. When he came home, he saw young people lose their lives or face life-altering injuries over petty disputes, which led him to link up with Womack to try to stop it. The loss of federal funds means less money for things like gas for intervention workers to get to the sites of shootings and do their nightly drives through the neighborhood, he says. Even with the budget they do have, staff often dip into their own pockets for miscellaneous expenses, like food and school supplies for program participants and community members. Henry worries that he'll have to pick up more odd jobs to make ends meet for himself, which would take him away from the young people who've come to rely on him. 'If we don't do this work, we know what's gonna happen,' he said. 'We're gonna be doing balloon releases, we're gonna have to hear mothers and sisters cry.' Jaylin O'quinn, one of Operation Good's violence intervention workers, expressed the same concerns. 'It's extremely important for us to be here,' he said. 'The police don't really do shit and the people don't trust them. They would rather call us than the police. So if we stop, it's gonna get so bad.' Before he was a violence intervention worker, the 22-year-old was one of the young people at risk of being on either side of a gunfight. He says he can't remember a time in his life when he wasn't around shootings, and got his first illegal gun when he was just nine. After his best friend was shot and killed in front of him two years ago, O'quinn wanted to get retribution, he said Shortly after his best friend's death, O'quinn remembers his friend appearing in one of his dreams and telling him that he didn't want O'quinn to meet the same fate. This experience combined with support from Womack and Henry – who he knew because his father participated in community cleanups during the early days of Operation Good – led him away from revenge and toward a career that allowed him to help teen boys like himself who are headed down dangerous paths. 'I see my younger self in a lot of them,' O'quinn said. 'All of them have a great amount of potential, but they don't know how to direct their thought patterns. It's exactly how I was. So I try to mold them to be better than what I was and show them that there's a better way.' Operation Good's organizational growth in recent years came as Jackson, as well as the rest of the nation, was experiencing an unprecedented uptick in homicides, particularly shooting deaths. In Hinds county where Jackson is located, the homicide rate jumped from 31.5 per 10,000 people in 2019 to 52.2 in 2020, and continued to climb to 62 in 2021. In 2022, after the protest movement for racial justice that followed the murder of George Floyd, Jackson's mayor's office established the state's first and only office of gun violence prevention and trauma. It also began building infrastructure to address the violence through partnerships with hospitals and schools, while focusing on the root causes of violence, like access to illegal guns, poverty and unaddressed trauma. 'We tried to build an ecosystem,' said Keisha Coleman, a longtime violence prevention and community leader in Jackson, and former executive director of the city's office of violence prevention. 'It was about shielding and protecting the youth, because those were the ones most at risk of violence.' While Jackson's office of violence prevention did not receive federal funding, they did get support and training from organizations that did, like NICJR, to build the office up, expand their programming and help secure sustained funding for groups like Operation Good. Coleman cited the Biden administration's support of gun violence prevention in underserved Black and brown neighborhoods as the reason this work was possible. 'It was great because Mississippi probably wouldn't have had those opportunities under any other circumstances,' she said. 'It was for resources on the ground in our communities to respond in real time because we know that the state wasn't going to give it to us. The money was used in our communities fighting for the lives of Black and brown people.' Now, that work is being 'stunted', she said. Womack said that without federal funding, the staff he built up will likely be reduced to a 'skeleton crew' by September, and some of their programming may also slow. 'This hit us hardest because we're at the bottom of the pole,' Womack said. 'We're frontline workers and are probably going to suffer the most from these cuts.' One of Womack's staffers, Cleveland Colbert, survived being shot 11 times, and began working with the organization in 2020, as homicides were increasing in the city and around the nation. He takes youth on trips to the local agricultural and civil rights museums to give them experiences outside their neighborhood, runs group sessions and attends court with teens facing criminal charges. He also works Operation Good's night shift from 8pm to 4am, keeping an eye out for young people walking the streets or hanging out outside of stores so that he can tell them to go back home instead of loitering. This work has helped Colbert understand the reasons behind the robberies and drug dealing that people resort to, so that he and Operation Good's staff can step in. 'There's a lot of stuff these kids have in their minds and situations in their homes that we don't know until they open up,' he said. 'When we ask them why they do these things, it's usually because they're hungry or don't have money.' Colbert says that no matter what happens after the funding cuts, he's still committed to his work. 'I don't think we're gonna turn our back to the community or city,' he said. 'We did this way before we started getting funding.'
Associated Press
28-02-2025
- Associated Press
On 'Day 1 of Peace' in Jackson, Mississippi
The first 24 hours of '100 Days of Peace,' an initiative announced by Jackson leadership Wednesday, were marked by a solemn energy and a renewed dedication to making Jackson safer. In the course of the day, the mayor presented a large ceremonial check to local credible messengers – formerly incarcerated people who work with youth in the juvenile system to interrupt violence – on the steps of City Hall. Separately, kin to gun violence victims from across the state traveled to the capital city to mourn their loved ones outside the state Capitol building and call for gun control policies. Local police patrolled and responded to 911 calls as normal. And just as it seemed the day would end without wounds, a man was shot in the knee during a domestic disturbance at a Belhaven apartment complex around 8pm. 100 Days of Peace, also called 100 Days of Action, is a city-wide initiative which aims to find community solutions for crime reduction. The initiative is a partnership with credible messenger programs and will include community listening sessions and town halls, as well as trainings leading up to a Sneaker Ball – a formal gala with informal footwear – to celebrate the work in June. Benny Ivey, co-founder of Strong Arms of Mississippi Credible Messenger Program, said that he hopes to use his past as an incarcerated person and a former gang leader to mentor younger people who cycle in and out of juvenile detention. Strong Arms of Mississippi received one of three $50,000 grants Wednesday to build up the program's capacity. The organization's motto is 'rebuilding communities we once helped to destroy.' Credible messengers are people who have lived experience in the communities that they're trying to reach. 'Our mentorship program is about building those relationships so that they will listen to what you have to say, because you're listening to what they have to say,' said Ivey. 'We've learned that these young men will open up to us about things that they won't tell anybody, and that's the first step in changing the mindset.' Fredrick Womack, Executive Director of Operation Good, which also received one of the grants, said that unity within the community takes a village. He points to helping mothers in the community and getting people who are willing to work into job development courses at Hinds Community College to learn a trade. 'We're here to do what's necessary to heal the problem,' he said. 'Not just be a band-aid.' With the funds provided by the city, Womack hopes to host more community events and block parties to engage at-risk youth. He also said that crime prevention alleviates the strain on city resources used to investigate and prosecute crimes after they happen. 'I'm glad the city took on this effort in the reduction of crime on the community level,' Womack said. 'Each murder that we prevent in Jackson, it prevents the cost of upwards of a million dollars to the city.' The third organization awarded a grant is Living with Purpose, established in Byram last year by longtime peer counselor John Knight. The funds come from the city's Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery, launched in 2022 with a $700,000 grant from the National League of Cities and Wells Fargo Bank. The office is staffed by director Keisha Coleman and community outreach specialist Kuwasi Omari and operates largely as an umbrella, coordinating support for the three grantees who have been conducting youth mentorship and violence intervention on the ground for years. 'We want to be very clear, this 100 Days of Action and 100 Days of Peace is not geared toward what we call the 'bubble kids', the kids who are out here that are straddling the fence. It's geared towards those youth and those communities that are at the highest risk,' Coleman said. 'So yes, we are engaging gang members, we are engaging cliques, we are engaging affiliates, we are engaging anyone who's at high risk of shooting a gun or being shot.' At the press conference, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba said he has witnessed the credible messengers passing out food in under-resourced communities. When the water crisis peaked in 2022, the mayor said those men were some of the first who entered the frontlines to deliver drinking water to Jacksonians. Research has shown that hunger can be associated with increased risk of experiencing or perpetrating violence. 'I've seen statistics in a limited block radius where they've had nearly half of a year with no gun violence within one of the areas that had some of the most pronounced gun violence prior to their work,' Lumumba said at the press conference. The Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery did not supply reports or data on the success of the programs when asked, but Coleman directed Mississippi Today to the individual organizations' websites. Operation Good's website claims that while using its own crime intervention model, the organization saw a decrease in violent crimes, from 87 percent to 14 percent over a 3-year period, in the area it had a presence. But 'due to the majority of our members being ex-con they started to fade away,' the website states, and in their absence, Jackson's murder rate began consistently rising, peaking in 2021. Starting in 2021 under a new national model called the Cure Violence approach, Operation Good reports that it ushered in a 286-day period without gun-related deaths in its first year. In other cities that have declared periods of nonviolence, leaders have made specific calls to action. For many years in Birmingham, the city council has asked high schoolers to take a 100-day pledge to avoid violent situations, according to local reports. In Memphis, the mayor has successfully asked opposing gang leaders for a 7-day ceasefire in the city, CNN reported. In exchange, the gangs asked for access to well-paying jobs and training to secure those jobs. 'They need money in their pockets. That's the way you can change it,' Memphis Mayor Paul Young said in 2024, the local news station reported. During the 100 Days of Action, the city of Jackson said it will partner with the crime-invention groups to host job fairs. 'The reality is while they (JPD) are solving crime, crime is still taking place. You can't arrest yourself out of the problem. If you arrest somebody at 5 o'clock and you have done nothing to affect the conditions that led them out there in the first place, then they will be there at 6 o'clock,' Lumumba said standing outside of City Hall Wednesday morning. Later in the afternoon, half a mile away on the steps of the Mississippi State Capitol, dozens gathered from across the state for a day of mourning as part of the National Victims of Gun Violence Day, demonstrating that gun violence is a widespread problem for Mississippi, not just Jackson. Data shows that Mississippi has the highest rate of annual gun deaths at nearly 30 deaths per 100,000 people, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Jacqueline Alexander of Woodville, Mississippi, said she lost her nephew in a shooting nine months ago. For her, the wound is still fresh. 'I was bitter. I was angry. I was more hurt than anything,' she said through tears. 'My nephew was a vital part of my life, and there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about him. People don't understand, during the funeral times, you have all the love shown, but what do you do after the funeral is over?' Alexander criticized her local government, saying that there should have been a call to action to solve his murder, and four other unsolved murders in their small town. 'Nobody deserves to be gunned down. A 15 year old child – there should have been a call to order,' she said. 'The town should have been on fire.' Angenel Washington of Natchez, whose daughter was killed in 2020, said she hopes that city and state leaders will use their platforms to push for more policing. 'I'm hoping that leaders will see that this is something that is out of control, and they understand that if they don't do anything or don't talk about it, they give consent that they're OK with it,' Washington said. '… My daughter was willing to fight to help others, so they need to take their job seriously and get to the problem at hand.' Mississippi Impact Coalition, along with partners The People's Advocacy Institute, the Mississippi Poor People's Campaign, One Voice and The Sweet Spot of Jackson, came together to demand the Mississippi Legislature pass universal background checks. They also want to repeal open carry, and add restrictions to assault weapons and mandatory waiting periods for gun purchases. No such measures have been advanced by state leaders this session. 'This isn't just about laws. It's about lives. It's about justice. It's about breaking cycles of trauma and building a future where our communities thrive instead of mourn,' said Danyelle Holmes of the Mississippi Poor People's Campaign. Mississippi ranks 49th in the country for gun law strength, with no foundational laws in place such as one requiring a concealed carry permit or no carry laws after a violent offense. Mayor Lumumba said that the 100 Days initiative primarily focuses on interrupting violence before JPD is ever called. JPD employees, the mayor said, have unreasonably been expected to play a dual role of detective and psychiatrist. 'By the time the police have arrived, it has already gone wrong,' Lumumba said in his announcement. Reached hours after the city's press conference, Jackson Police Department Chief Joseph Wade said he was not aware of the '100 Days' initiative, though he later met with city leaders to discuss the community-led efforts. 'I'm for this initiative. I fully support it. I am about saving lives in the city of Jackson. I talk about it. I'm transparent to the community,' Wade said, adding that he and his commanders are hosting a public event at Christ United church in north Jackson Thursday afternoon to discuss patterns and strategies in addressing crime. 'I just need to know, like, what do the components look like?' After meeting with city officials Wednesday, Wade explained that the initiative is community-led – JPD does not play a formal role – but that the department will offer whatever educational support is requested. Day 1 of Peace was an otherwise typical day for the city's police force, JPD public information officer Tommie Brown said – squad cars patrolling, officers responding to calls and detectives working investigations. By 5pm, Wade said there had not been a homicide in the city and he was unaware of any shooting reports. The state-run Capitol Police force did not receive any violent crime reports by late Wednesday afternoon, Mississippi Department of Safety spokesperson Bailey Martin told Mississippi Today, but in the evening it responded to a gunshot victim at Pagoda Village Apartments on Jefferson Street in Belhaven. Martin said the shooting was the result of a domestic disturbance and officers arrested a 30-year-old at the scene for aggravated assault. Just after midnight, JPD responded to the shooting death of a 22-year-old Memphis woman at Studio 6 hotel in north Jackson. And Thursday morning, a 15-year-old boy who had been reported as a runaway was found deceased in south Jackson from a gunshot wound to the head, according to a briefing by Wade. Officers are searching for suspects in both cases. So far in 2025, JPD has investigated 11 homicides. This includes two shooting deaths in south Jackson over the past weekend, a woman accused of killing her husband and a teenager charged with killing his grandmother. 'Every single one were about people that knew each other – interpersonal conflicts, domestic violence situations. And we have a 100% solvability rate,' Wade said Wednesday, before the next two homicides occurred. 'Domestic violence situations that happen inside homes, or conflicts dealing with individuals who do not know how to mitigate conflict. So we really need help inside homes, inside residences.' Capitol Police, which responds to incidents in a central area of the city spanning from south of downtown to north of the Fondren neighborhood, have worked 3 homicides this year for a total of 14 killings in the capital city. This is down from 15 homicides this time last year and 21 in 2021, the year with the highest recorded homicides, according to WLBT. 'Data shows us that even though crime and gun violence is high in Jackson, it's a small percentage of people that's committing the violence, and so we are going to target that small population of people who are actually toting the guns and being on the other side of the gun and try to get them into these mentorship programs,' Coleman said. Coleman told Mississippi Today that the data she referenced was provided by JPD's data analyst, but the information doesn't exist in a formal, sharable report because the office 'is still developing a dashboard to synthesize the variables to support the raw data.' Later in the spring, though, the office plans to publish a community landscape assessment. Mississippi Today submitted a public records request for the office's data and expenditures. ___ ___
