With strategic advising from the National Network, Baton Rouge Area Violence Elimination (BRAVE) is focusing on one area of the city at a time to reduce violence, gun offenses and arrests while involving the community to help spread the “no violence” message. The project aims to change community norms, provide alternatives for group members, and increase awareness among group members that the risk of sanction has grown significantly.
BRAVE engages in community and educational activities to increase the social cohesion of the community and forge the development of an authentic community-police partnership, coordination of social services, and implementation of a focused approach to policing.
Below is a September 23, 2014 "call-in" meeting at which Baton Rouge community members, law enforcement, and social service providers join together and use the National Network's method of communicating directly with active gang and street group members.
With the arrival of summer's notorious bloody months and the now-defunct anti-violence initiative BRAVE in the rear-view mirror, Baton Rouge's law enforcement officials are embracing a new method for violence intervention: showing up unannounced to the homes of those they believe are linked to the violence.
These home visits, coined "custom notifications" by researchers with the National Network for Safe Communities based in New York, are set up to demonstrate to these people — on a very personal level — that law enforcement is aware of their ties to potential violence, to warn them of the consequences of such violence and to offer them support if they choose a different path, said Baton Rouge Police Deputy Chief Herbert "Tweety" Anny.
Baton Rouge law enforcement, community and human services leaders met Wednesday with academics from the National Network for Safe Communities, beginning a partnership aimed at decreasing youth gang violence and domestic violence in the capital city.
Representatives from the New York-based John Jay College of Criminal Justice shared their violence intervention framework, hoping to jump-start the same strategies used in the now-defunct BRAVE program — which Baton Rouge leaders hailed for years as a success before its disgraced end in 2017 and have since revived in the Truce program — but also to pilot a revolutionary way to address domestic violence offenders.
John Oubre
"Two-and-a-half years after Baton Rouge launched a crime-fighting experiment aimed at convincing young gang members to walk away from their groups, 33 people have put down their weapons and embraced social services offered by law enforcement and community members, officials said."
BRAVE and a new Crime Strategy Unit in Baton Rouge.
Louisiana State University's sociology department is working toward reducing crime through the Baton Rouge Area Violence Elimination project.
Due to the initiative's recent success, the Baton Rouge Area Violence Elimination team expanded its' efforts to cover the second most violent area of the city. BRAVE now covers the areas that account for over 50 percent of Baton Rouge’s violent crime.
GVI efforts in Louisiana's two largest cities has produced a prominent national award for New Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro and East Baton Rouge DA Hillar Moore. DA Leon Cannizzaro’s work with GVRS and the Multi-Agency Gang Unit in New Orleans won recognition from FBI director James B. Comey and the 2014 Director's Award for Distinguished Service to the Law Enforcement Community. This marks the first time a New Orleans district attorney has won the Director's Award. Read the press release here.
Looking to the example of veteran National Network partner High Point Police Department in High Point, North Carolina, East Baton Rouge District Attorney's Office' DA Hillar Moore is hoping to adopt a new approach to target chronic domestic violence offenders, expanding on the tactics already in place for the city-parish's anti-group violence initiative, BRAVE, Baton Rouge.
Investigations and statistics have revealed that juvenile involvement in serious violent crime is on the rise. BRAVE is intended to reduce youth violence, gun offenses and arrests, while involving the community to help spread the “no violence” message.
