federal funding cuts are hitting yet another aspect of New Jersey life that advocates say is critical to serve the public good this time it's community violence intervention programs the funding that once came from the justice department has been terminated totaling totaling $3 and a half million dollars that went to programs in cities like Newark Camden and Trenton akquila Cheryls leads the community-based public safety collective which is a national organization that helps to mediate conflicts and build relationships in high-risisk neighborhoods where crime rates are often higher he's here now to share his thoughts on these funding cuts akila thanks so much for being with us today we know that there are millions of dollars in cuts coming from this Trump administration for programs like yours community violence intervention programs just help us understand what these programs actually do so community violence intervention programs are residentled strategies around um around public safety strategies so a community violence intervention is a community-based approach to creating safety in the community and it functions as a complimentary strategy to policing um that that's a really succinct way to say it we know that a lot of this is focused on prevention right the prevention of violence acts of violence retaliatory um actions when we talk about funding where does that funding go a and if we're facing uh millions in cuts here in New Jersey what impact does that have on folks going out into communities and trying to stop violence yes these dollars that are allocated from the federal government to support community violence intervention as a strategy in communities goes to pay u salaries of frontline workers who are leveraging their relationship capital in neighborhoods to prevent retaliatory violence these dollars go to community health workers who are embedded in hospitals who are providing wraparound services to victims and survivors of of violence and trauma um you know these dollars go directly you know to support programming and services that help to support um people healing from you know from trauma and violence these things are critical and they work handinhand with law enforcement um around creating sustainable safety in communities how much are we talking about could be lost so we're talking about close to $150 million you know for community violence intervention organizations there's about a half a dozen community violence intervention organizations who were funded through the community violence intervention prevention initiative in the state so we're talking about maybe you know 20 30 folks you know laid off right before the summer traditionally in some of our neighborhoods in the state we've seen spikes of violence for 25 30 years happen and so community violence intervention has played a really strategic role in those hot spots in cities with helping to tamper down the violence and again serving as a compliment to law enforcement so you know there are going to be critics who say "Look we can't afford to fund all of these programs."

And and sure there are lots of feel-good programs out there but government you know can only go so far with its funding is there a way and even we've heard some of that criticism from folks here in New Jersey who say we it's hard to quantify what these programs actually do i I think of it kind of like prevention in healthcare right you don't see it when you don't go to the emergency room how do you quantify the impact how do you actually demonstrate data to show that these programs are having any impact yes uh community violence intervention is evidence-based uh you know work um there's both anecdotal and um and you know evidence that that shows that this um community violence intervention has reduced violence and crime and sustained a reduction um the newer community street team in the next couple of months will be producing its first quantitative report showing that NCST and its staff has been instrumental in reducing violence and crime in the south ward of Newark with and without law enforcement support so this work again it's um it's not um a um a pet project you know it is a function of public safety family we cannot have public safety without the public law enforcement depends upon residents and communities providing intel leveraging their relationships you know so that they can respond to the more serious violent crimes that are happening in our neighborhoods and so it's important that community violence intervention is stabilized um and those um residents you know who have been trained as public safety professionals in conflict resolution and mediation and deescalation strategies can maintain their work um to make our communities safe um especially going into the summer months just a couple seconds left you have said that you're not going to take this laying down how do you fight for more funds just a couple seconds we're we're we're doing a couple of things um we've appealed you know the decision from the federal government the movement has actually filed a lawsuit uh because it's unconstitutional that these are dollars already appropriated by Congress and we're working with our philanthropic partners nationally where we're regranting dollars to our more vulnerable organizations across the country so we are um active we got to leave it there akquila Cheryl's co-founder and leader of the community-based public safety collective thank you so much for the time today thank you so much [Music]