ST. LOUIS — The Save Lives Now! council met to go over some strategies to help in their region-wide initiative to reduce violent crime.
The council is made up of city and county governments, police departments and other agencies that will all work together.
From analyzing other cities that took this approach and the methods they used, the data shows a reduction in violent crime after about 18 months of implementing the program, council members said.
For St. Louis right now it's still a work in progress.
“It's going to take a collaborative approach. It's not just one thing that's going to help us reduce violence, and what we talked about today was several different methodologies of helping those who are at propensity to commit violence, to give them tools to choose a better path,” St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones said.
One of those tools is a different method of CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy, taking it out of a clinical setting or a therapist's office and bringing it directly to where people are, delivered by someone they trust.
“I think the idea is to help people develop some skills in particular, emotional regulation, right? Those two things pair together, give people the opportunity to slow down and think about what's next in their life,” Save Lives Now! director Brandon Sterling said.
Wilford Pinkney with the St. Louis Office of Violence Prevention said no matter what method is used, they have to be consistent for it to really work.
“It's about that relentless engagement, right? People aren't always ready. We think about addiction. People fail multiple times when they're in the throes of addiction, until they're successful. Well, it's the same way when you're dealing with trauma and trying to move people away from engaging in violence,” Pinkney said.
Once they have finalized the plan and the methods they want to use they will start the Save Lives Now! academy.
“The technical advisors will actually be helping us train street outreach workers in the skill of identifying and then locating people. So the focus deterrence portion of that, the folks that will be involved in that, they'll be working closely with law enforcement,” Sterling said.
Mayor Jones said they have set aside $2 million in ARPA funding to get the program started and hope to finalize plans or a draft in the coming months.