GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The City of Green Bay is introducing its Community Safety Plan, unveiling a program that will put citizens on the street to measure the pulse of the community in an attempt to curb violence.
City leaders say it’s a holistic approach to crime prevention.
“No one thing works to address a problem as complex as community violence. And when Green Bay saw an increase in gun violence, along with the rest of the country a few years ago, we knew that multiple strategies would be needed to get us headed in the right direction,” said Police Chief Chris Davis.
Late last year, Green Bay launched the Office of Violence Prevention. The OVP team works to create a safe, free-from-violence community by trying to get to the root cause of the issues. And they’ll use “violence interrupters” to help with that.
According to Jerry “Street” Overstreet, the OVP director, “They’re going to be an integral part of what we’re trying to do because they will be in the community, having those conversations to hopefully prevent things from escalating, but more importantly, preventing that retaliation from occurring.”
As trusted members of the community with life experience, it will be the VI’s job to gauge the temperature in the community. They’ll have the tough conversations with both victims and perpetrators of crime, working to try and stop the cycle of violence.
“To be able to build some extensive relationships and bring people together that might not otherwise talk,” said Overstreet.
While the VIs will work in conjunction with police, if there is a problem, it’s their job to perform outreach and mediation — not enforcement.
“We’re not going to ask OVP to provide us with intelligence information or anything like that, because they have to be genuinely trusted partners in the community,” said Chief Davis.
Overstreet added, “We’re not sharing information back with PD. I mean, if there’s a 911 crisis, of course we have to do what’s right for the community. If you see something, say something. But we’re not here running around thinking about snitching on people.”
Community members are hopeful this approach will work, and confident the OVP team will have an impact on the younger generation — making communities safer.
“They need someone who can talk their language and closer to know what they’re going through or have been through and what directions they can go in,” said Tanya Westmoreland with the Seymour Park Neighborhood Association.
The Office of Violence Prevention has hired two violence interrupters so far, with a plan to add two more to the team soon.
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