To prevent another Stockton tragedy, invest in violence intervention | Opinion
Last month’s mass shooting at a child’s birthday party in Stockton that left four people dead, 13 injured and more than 150 guests at the targeted event likely severely traumatized, should have been a rallying moment for California’s political leaders.
In addition to calling for more gun control, elected leaders could have doubled down on support for crime victims — specifically by improving access to emergency financial assistance and trauma recovery services, as well as violence intervention programs. Available data shows these investment strategies to be effective in lowering crime rates.
Yet, by and large, California’s leaders have steered clear of these commitments. In a year in which the state has had to make one tough budget call after another, leaders have not shown any great enthusiasm for shoring up its violence intervention infrastructure.
Instead, in recent months, California’s efforts to address gaps in services and expand trauma recovery services for victims of crime have gone into reverse. In particular, the flexible assistance program, which would have created cash grants to help survivors pay for urgent needs — such as temporary relocation, medical services or child care in the immediate aftermath of experiencing harm — was cut from this year’s budget. This is a tragic mistake that must be reversed.
It appears that the Stockton shooting involved rival gangs. The devastating loss of innocent lives and the justified demand for accountability has further inflamed an already polarized political debate about where our scarce public safety resources should be directed. Community violence intervention programs, which data consistently show are effective at reducing gang violence, have lost critical funding and continue to battle public misperceptions fueled by tough-on-crime rhetoric.
Meanwhile, despite the loss of public safety dollars, law enforcement agencies continue to struggle with low case-closure rates and regularly call for additional federal resources.
Five years ago, the Alliance for Safety and Justice released a groundbreaking report, “Toward Shared Safety,” documenting a range of interventions with proven success in reducing crime, particularly violent crime. Those findings are just as relevant today as they were in 2020.
Researchers wrote: “Decision-makers need to require joint responsibility by local, state and federal agencies in safety planning. This means more collaboration, more data sharing and more community partnership. Criminal justice, health, behavioral health, foster care, housing and education systems must work together, and with communities, to leverage resources, evaluate outcomes and hold one another accountable. Community safety cannot, and should not, be the responsibility of law enforcement alone.”
And yet, when we examine Stockton’s spending priorities, we see little evidence of this kind of coordinated approach.
Instead, we see deeply underfunded violence intervention networks alongside a police department that receives the overwhelming majority of crime-fighting dollars.
In the upcoming fiscal year, the Stockton Police Department will receive approximately $192.25 million. By contrast, the city’s Office of Violence Prevention operates on a budget of less than $3 million. The County Board of Supervisors allocates just $2.5 million in grants to dozens of community-based organizations, including those focused on violence prevention. Even with a recent state commitment to invest up to $8 million, funded through savings from Proposition 47, Stockton still lacks anywhere near the resources necessary to meaningfully reduce violent crime.
Yes, police departments must be adequately funded to respond to crime. But if evidence-based violence intervention systems were properly scaled, there would be far less violence to respond to in the first place.
Imagine the impact if California guaranteed free mental health services for all young people 21 and under who are victims of gun violence. How many lives could be saved — and how many public dollars could be spared — if counseling and trauma care helped prevent cycles of retaliation before they escalate?
Imagine the possibilities if Stockton and other communities across the San Joaquin Valley had access to state-funded Trauma Recovery Centers, as many better-resourced cities in California already do.
Researchers with the Alliance for Safety and Justice estimate that a city the size of Stockton should be serving at least 3,000 vulnerable youth each year through mentorship, counseling and related support. Today, the four organizations providing mentorship services in Stockton collectively reach only about 850 youth. Despite recent investments, the city is still meeting less than one-third of the need identified by research.
What happened in Stockton was an unspeakable tragedy. As a state, we owe it to the victims, survivors and community to invest in violence intervention strategies that we know work, and to stop treating reactive enforcement as our only answer to preventable harm.
Tinisch Hollins is executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice, the state’s leading public safety advocacy organization and the flagship division of the national Alliance for Safety and Justice.