The National Network's approach has attracted significant media attention over twenty years. This page features the most recent coverage of our work and a searchable archive of media about the National Network's projects around the nation and abroad.
The National Network convenes regular conferences, working sessions and webinars to discuss and promote developments in its core areas of operation, showcase innovations, and set research and development priorities.
Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis credits NNSC interventions with reducing gun violence in his city. The approach has led to significant results in Peoria.
National Network Director David Kennedy recently paid a visit to partner city South Bend, Indiana as they continue to implement their group violence intervention.
"The urgent need for American justice and prison system reform took center stage at John Jay College of Criminal Justice on Jan. 29, as the second annual American Justice Summit brought together individuals who are working at both the policy and grass roots levels to find creative and effective solutions for a variety of pressing problems."
Following the tragic death of a high school senior in Rutland, Vermont in 2012, "city officials, police and neighborhood activists came together to create a grassroots organization called Project VISION" to combat the city's heroin problem. The group's membership now stands at nearly 300 people ranging from local officials, law enforcement, nonprofits, service organizations, state agencies, and church groups.
"Crime is down in Gary, a news release issued by city officials announced. Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson praised Gary police officers "for their untiring service to the Gary community," adding that "nearly all police and fire personnel received pay increases in 2015 and 2016."
"The YMCA of Metro Chicago project connects kids like Courtney-Clarks, who live in high-violence neighborhoods, with veterans who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan and who might understand what they're going through...The Urban Warriors program is built on the idea that these kids are experiencing trauma and need to process it, and that witnessing or experiencing violence can affect how they behave at home, react at school, or lead them to commit violence themselves."
"Federal law enforcement agencies are working more closely with big-city police departments in Connecticut to fight violent crime, the state’s top U.S. prosecutor said in an interview. Cooperation has been particularly effective in New Haven, where the police department has begun regularly sharing intelligence, U.S. Attorney Deirdre Daly said. Representatives from Daly’s office, federal and state agencies, New Haven police and other local departments huddle together daily in meetings that began this month."
"Officials from the Suffolk County Police Department, Suffolk County Probation, FBI and ATF today announced the creation of a firearm suppression team aimed at removing illegal guns from Suffolk County streets at a press conference in Hauppauge. F.A.S.T, Firearm Suppression Team, will target individuals who pose the most significant threat to the safety of Suffolk residents and will aim to remove illegal firearms from the county’s streets. F.A.S.T. will focus its attention on communities that are most affected by firearm-related crimes."
This article profiles "Kids Off the Block," a community initiative in Chicago that "provides a safe space for youth who experience gun violence as part of everyday life." The program, coupled with the Chicago Violence Reduction Strategy, is producing important results for young people in these Chicago neighborhoods.
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton discusses the important steps the NYPD is taking to combat crime in New York City as well as the results that were produced in 2015. In addition to generally positive crime trends, the NYPD has worked, with promising results, to decrease enforcement encounters including a 96% decline in stop and frisks since 2011. Commissioner Bratton writes that "the NYPD and New York City’s many diverse communities are supposed to be allies, but the way we have done business in the past has often kept us from finding common ground. We will find the common ground we seek on local ground."
"The Stockton Police Department released statistics Wednesday showing that the city’s crime rate hit a 15-year low in 2015, a sign of progress in a community that has been besieged by violence in recent years. Jones said the statistics validate policies put in place to reduce violent crime in Stockton, including the Marshall Plan, Operation Ceasefire and the Neighborhood Blitz Team."
Project Vision in Vermont has been working to effectively address the heroin epidemic sweeping the state. The NNSC has provided informal advising to officials in Rutland, VT based on our Drug Market Intervention and have been pleased to see it being successfully mapped to the heroin crisis that is affecting Vermont and many other areas across the country.
Commander Scott Tucker, who plays an integral role in Project Vision wrote a piece outlining the early success that the initiative has created.
Rosilyn Temple leads the Kansas City chapter of Mothers in Charge, a community support group for people who have lost children to homicide. After Ms. Temple's son was tragically murdered in 2011, she began working with Mothers in Charge to help mothers who were suffering under the same circumstances as her. She has been extremely active and important member of the Kansas City Community and the city's No Violence Alliance. 
Joe Ledford
New Haven rounded out 2015 with a significant drop in the number of "shots fired" incidents it reported. The total number of homicides stayed relatively constant but some New Haven leaders are crediting Project Longevity with aiding this impressive decline in shootings. Wes Duplantier -- New Haven Register
"The programs that have best managed to reduce gun violence target the young men most likely to be involved in shootings with a combination of assistance and policing. Almost all of them are modeled on Operation Ceasefire, an initiative that started in Boston in 1996 and ended four years later."
While national storylines are highlighting growing violence against police and a national crime wave, the data does not support those conclusions. Radley Balko writes about the importance of context in discussing these issues.
"Newburgh has long been a city in turmoil, but the Newburgh Police Dept., behind the capable and compassionate leadership of Acting Chief Dan Cameron, has impacted the high crime rate with an intriguing mix of programs designed to shake things up."
"Teams of Birmingham police officers, including Chief A.C. Roper, hit the streets in the western portion of the city [in December] to let both the criminals, and the residents, know they care and they are watching."
"Teams of Birmingham police officers, including Chief A.C. Roper, hit the streets in the western portion of the city today to let both the criminals, and the residents, know they care and they are watching."
"Kansas City’s No Violence Alliance said despite an uptick in the city’s homicide rate this year, its members are staying the course."
"Police are taking a new approach online and on TV to try and stop the shootings that seem to occur every day Savannah."
"As documented in last year’s report of the National Research Council, incarceration rates in the U.S. more than quadrupled between the early 1970s and 2009, the peak year in the prison build-up...Less well known, however, are the metrics of a distinct phenomenon — changing incarceration rates in American jails."
NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton published this piece in the New York Daily News as part of the outlets special report on group violence in New York City. Commissioner Bratton writes that the NYPD is up to this challenge and discusses initiatives such as NYC Ceasefire that are already in place to address this issue.
James Keivom
"Along with the mass killers and rifle-toting terrorists who are driving the nation’s gun debate are New York’s own gangbangers, who are behind the triggers of nearly half the city’s shootings, officials said. And when gunplay across the five boroughs turns deadly, gang members are quite often responsible, accounting for 130, or 40%, of the city’s murders this year, police said."
Nicolas Enriquez
