A ray of hope amid despair
20th November 2023 · 0 Comments
News about the carjacking at gunpoint of Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams and his 78-year-old mother in October brought attention to the intractable problem of carjackings that occurs too often in New Orleans.
However, there is hope and signs that the NOPD and others in Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s Violence Reduction Task Force will come up with strategies to find carjacking perpetrators and end this decades-long assault on residents.
Cantrell’s January 11, 2023, executive order created the Violence Reduction Task Force (VRTF). The duties of the VRTF included developing strategies, coordinating among all government and community stakeholders, apprehension of violent offenders, and ensuring comprehensive wraparound services were provided to those impacted by incidents of violence.
Specifically, the VRTF was tasked with preventing acts of violence by embedding themselves in the community and orchestrating a “full government response” to detect, deter, and intervene before an act of violence happens. They were also tasked with assisting Interim NOPD Superintendent Michelle Woodfork, the brave men and women of the NOPD, and all other law enforcement partners in apprehending violent offenders and ensuring wraparound services are provided.
Violent crime is down in New Orleans due to the combined efforts of relevant city departments, the NOPD, the district attorney’s office, juvenile court judges, nonprofit organizations, and the Orleans Parish School Board’s HH Policy initiative.
Councilman Oliver Thomas credited NOPD Interim Super-intendent Michelle Woodfork’s proactive policing strategies for reducing violent crime.
Thanks to the work of various stakeholders, New Orleans is no longer the No. 1 murder capital of the U.S. The city is now third on RoadSnacks.net’s list of “Cities In The United States With The Highest Murder Rates Per Capita” (based on FBI data), and it ranked 14th on WalletHub’s list of “Cities with the Biggest Homicide Rate Problems,” published October 18, 2023.
At a City Council Budget hearing earlier this month, District Attorney Williams acknowledged having the third-highest murder rate is not sufficient. He said his office needs more money to hire “elite” prosecutors to help reduce the backlog of criminal cases accumulated during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
However successful the task force and other violence reduction plans have been, juvenile crime is on the rise. However, there is hope for reducing violent crimes by juveniles in the form of the Orleans Parish School Board’s HH Policy.
The policy, which began this year, includes the use of a panic emergency notification system and an anonymous reporting system, dating violence education, safe storage of firearms materials, and student wellness activities.
Schools will use the RAVE Panic Button app, endorsed by the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and the Crime Stoppers app to allow staff to quickly request immediate assistance from first responders during a health or safety emergency.
School community members will be encouraged to report anonymous tips regarding potential threats.
However, the most promising aspect of the HH Policy is the Student Wellness Activities mandate. The requirements in this mandate fulfill the promises of Orleans Parish Schools Superintendent Dr. Avis Williams.
Upon accepting the position in 2022, Williams shared her vision of bringing a trauma-informed framework to the school system.
Based on information from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), trauma-informed schools infuse the science about trauma and its impacts into daily practice, program design, policy creation and implementation, and the culture of the school.
A trauma-informed school fundamentally changes the way it works to promote healthy, resilient educators and learners capable of disrupting the cycle of trauma in their lives and communities and creating more equitable outcomes.
The OPSB’s HH Policy mandates charter schools to provide students in grades kindergarten through twelfth age- and grade-appropriate classroom instruction relative to mental health. The education shall include, at minimum, information on the following:
• preventive mental health measures, including but not limited to proper diet, exercise, risk avoidance, and stress reduction;
• the relationship between mental health and physical health;
• brain health, emotional health, identifying trauma and stress, and the impact of trauma and stress on mental health and physical health,
• resources and services available to assist people with mental health issues, and
• violence interruption and conflict resolution.
Beginning with the 2024-2025 school year, charter schools shall adopt social and emotional learning curricula, programming, and/or activities to implement in their schools.
Creating trauma-informed school curriculums will go a long way toward addressing juveniles’ problems before they escalate into violence and/or criminal behavior.
The new policy includes the Youth Violence Interruption Program run by the Center for Restorative Approaches and mental and physical health services funded through a $10 million partnership with ThriveKids, a student wellness program run by Children’s Hospital New Orleans.
In New Orleans, 67 children had been shot by August 2023, and 18 died from their wounds, NOLA.com reported.
In October, the City Council took steps to create a Criminal Justice Community Advisory Task Force. Members of the Council’s Criminal Justice Committed discussed and voted on Councilmember Thomas’ motion authorizing the mayor to execute a Data Use Agreement between the City of New Orleans and the administrators of the Tulane Educational Fund. The agreement grants access to de-identified NOPD crime data (for fatal and non-fatal shootings) to Tulane University’s Violence Prevention Institute to support research-based violence reduction efforts.
As mentioned, concrete steps are being taken to reduce crime in New Orleans. We hope Mayor Cantrell and the City Council of New Orleans will agree on funding violence reduction initiatives, especially among the city’s juveniles.
If children are our future, shouldn’t we invest heavily in their protection, education, and well-being? Shouldn’t we invest in their future vocational and/or college careers while they are in high school?
Yes, city leaders must also invest in juvenile crime prevention. One report cites Jefferson Parish’s $15 million investment in adolescent crime prevention versus New Orleans’ $ 1 million.
The New Orleans City Council approved a $1.5 billion operating budget for 2023. Indeed, the Council and the Cantrell Administration can find more money to save the city’s children and invest in their future.
This article originally published in the November 20, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
