After decades of being the state’s murder capital, Jacksonville is finally seeing real progress in reducing murders.
WHAT: ICARE 2024 Community Problems Assembly
WHEN: Monday, October 28 at 7:00PM
WHERE: Christ the King Catholic Church (742 Arlington Rd N, Jacksonville FL 32211)
WHO: 200 ICARE Members
Jacksonville, FL: After decades of being known as one of the most violent cities in Florida, Jacksonville is finally turning a corner. The number of murders in Jacksonville has been cut in half from last year.[i] Because of the drastic reduction in murders, 50 more people are alive today. 2024 is set to be a historic year for our city.
A successful approach called Group Violence Intervention (GVI) has been used in other cities like Cincinnati and Boston to reduce homicides by 30%-60%.[ii] GVI was introduced to Jacksonville in 2016 by Sheriff Mike Williams; however, the number of murders remained high for several years. ICARE pressed Sheriff TK Waters to improve Jacksonville’s GVI program to reduce murders. We are glad to report that Sheriff Waters and his team have done great work on improving the results of JSO’s GVI program and dramatically reducing the number of murders in our city. ICARE leaders met with Sheriff Waters on October 8 and congratulated his successful efforts to make Jacksonville safer.
On October 28, ICARE members will gather to celebrate the Sheriff’s efforts at the Community Problems Assembly. ICARE will also vote on a new community problem to address. The top three issues discussed in small group listening sessions were Housing and Homelessness, Health and Mental Health and Criminal Justice. ICARE welcomes anyone interested in addressing serious community problems to attend.
[i] Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Transparency Portal: https://transparency.jaxsheriff.org/
[ii] Braga et al. (2001): https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elin-Waring-2/publication/238302127_Problem-Oriented_Policing_Deterrence_and_Youth_Violence_An_Evaluation_of_Boston%27s_Operation_Ceasefire/links/548fd64f0cf214269f264020/Problem-Oriented-Policing-Deterrence-and-Youth-Violence-An-Evaluation-of-Bostons-Operation-Ceasefire.pdf
Engel et al. (2013): https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/reducing-gang-violence-using-focused-deterrence-evaluating
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