Two professors at the University of New Haven are spearheading an initiative to curb gun violence. The project is being supported by $1 million in federal grant funding.
“Gun violence is truly a public health problem, something that needs to be addressed from the ground level,” Dr. Karl Minges, UNH chair of the Department of Population Health and Leadership, said.
Dr. Lorenzo Boyd and Dr. Karl Minges are leading the investigation, which aims to cut down on incidents involving guns in New Haven and surrounding areas. The federal grant funding was announced last week.
One side of the initiative is led by the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences, which will partner with New Haven Police and surrounding departments to conduct training.
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“If we can get the police to go in and do trauma-informed interviewing, understand the trauma that happens in the community, and then go in with a little bit of a softer hand in order to get information,” Boyd, UNH Stewart professor of community policing, said.
By the end of two years, they aim to train 200 officers in interviewing people who have experienced trauma and building up relationships with local communities.
“The biggest thing we can do is build better relationships between the police and the community in general, but also the police and communities of color, because we've seen a disconnect for generations,” Boyd said.
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The second angle: the School of Health Sciences will focus on the healthcare side. It will study 20 focus groups to glean information on how healthcare providers are engaging in discussions about gun violence.
“Conducting focus groups with populations from community health centers, to EMS, to the hospitals, the emergency departments, to try to understand how health care providers are currently engaged with discussions around gun violence prevention,” Minges said.
They will then work with those providers to develop strategies for breaking the cycle of violence and the silence that often follows.
“One of the things that happens when someone enters the hospital with a gunshot wound is typically their family follows, their friends, people who are concerned, and they immediately want to think about retaliation efforts. And so through this grant, we will be able to devise strategies to kind of lower the temperature in those situations,” Minges said.
New Haven had a spike in gun-related incidents in 2020, according to data from the police department.
There were 20 gun-related homicides that year, compared to 14 in 2022, a 9% decrease. In 2022, there were also 110 non-fatal shootings. That is a 30% decrease since 121 firearms assaults took place in 2020.
“Like many cities across the nation, after COVID we've seen an increase in gun violence in our cities,” New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said. “We're making progress here on the number of shootings, shots fired and homicides in the city, but we still have a lot of work to do."
Elicker applauds the holistic approach to the gun violence reduction project and the ongoing partnership between the University of New Haven and the city. He said the new grant initiative will complement existing programs.
“This grant will help us improve the data so that we can track better what's working and what's not. And help facilitate more supports for people, make sure no one's falling through the cracks as well,” Elicker said.
It is multi-pronged work that the lead investigators hope could save lives.
"This is not about cops and robbers. This is not about good guys and bad guys. This is about understanding issues in the community,” Boyd said. “One person being shot tends to lead to a series of chain of events. If we can get a handle on the chain of events that's going to happen afterward, we can actually slow down a lot of gun violence.”
