Peacemakers
Promoting Peace in Indiana
Peacemakers
Indianapolis has broken its gun violence record every year for over a decade. To pursue the goals under our Safe & Caring Communities initiative, Faith in Indiana sought answers to reducing gun violence — a proposition that could seem hopeless to many.
Yet, by implementing a proven Gun Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS) through a collaboration with the city government, Indianapolis realized a significant 30 percent decrease in gun violence from 2022 to 2023. That trend defied a surge in gun violence nationally — and represented the largest year-over-year reduction in IMPD history.
How did we do it? The answer lies in a combination of persistent grassroots organizing and the guidance of national technical experts on gun violence reduction.
Faith in Indiana’s clergy and community leaders persuaded the Indianapolis Mayor to contract with the National Institute on Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR) to assess the city’s peacemaker program in 2019. As the country erupted in a racial reckoning in 2020, Faith in Indiana called on the Mayor to fully implement the NICJR recommendations, now in hand. That year, Indianapolis made the largest gun violence investment of American Rescue Plan Act dollars in the country; $150 million.
Collaboration on shared values
Organized grassroots leaders, with the most at stake, was the glue that kept the collaboration on track. We worked with Mayor Hogsett, the Office of Public Health and Safety, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, and NICJR at every stage of implementation. We turned this one time investment into a permanent fixture of our city budget. We transformed our city’s response to crime.
We decided the project could be considered a success if we achieved a year-over-year reduction of at least 10 percent for murders and 10 percent for non-fatal injury shootings. With the city experiencing record-breaking numbers of homicides between 2015-2021, we were hopeful that we could reverse that deadly trend.
We exceeded our expectations. When many major cities experienced increasing rates of homicides in 2022, Indianapolis realized a 16 percent decline in murders.
Transforming our communities
The impact of reduced gun violence is far-reaching, particularly for Black communities throughout Indianapolis, which has the second highest rate of homicides involving Black victims in the country. The intervention strategy also impacts the incarceration rates of Black residents in Indiana — who are imprisoned at a rate more than four times that of white residents.
Our plan for the future
GVRS is a proven approach to reducing crime in Indianapolis. We plan to leverage the momentum in building safer communities by setting a new goal — for a 30 percent reduction in gun violence, effectively doubling the progress we made in 2022.
Read the full Report Indianapolis: Co-Governance in Action