April 30, 2025
Homicide rates have dropped to historic lows in some cities, including Philadelphia, which has seen a 40 percent decline. Yet, tens of thousands of Americans still experience violence each year. Without sustained funding and continued intervention, recent public safety gains could be at risk—especially for communities and individuals most vulnerable to violence.
With federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds set to expire, ongoing state investment in Community Violence Intervention (CVI) is essential to sustaining progress. CVI relies on evidence-based, community-driven strategies to prevent violence.
As a national leader in CVI, Pennsylvania’s PA Peace Alliance has supported more than 240 organizations working to prevent and reduce community and gun violence. Established by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) in partnership with WestEd’s Justice and Prevention Research Center (JPRC) and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), the Alliance is the first statewide initiative of its kind. It equips violence prevention professionals with the resources, training, and support needed to build safer, thriving communities.
In this Q&A, PCCD Chairman Lt. Governor Austin Davis and WestEd’s Director of Justice Technical Assistance, Lori Toscano, discuss the PA Peace Alliance’s impact on community violence intervention, the importance of state investment, and the power of cross-sector collaboration. They also highlight how WestEd’s technical assistance and data-driven strategies are empowering community organizations to reduce gun violence.
The PA Peace Alliance is a first-of-its-kind initiative in the United States. What lessons has Pennsylvania learned from implementing this model, and what advice would you give to other states looking to build a comprehensive violence reduction strategy?
Lt. Gov. Austin Davis:
I think one of the things that we’ve learned is that many communities, regardless of where they’re located geographically, are experiencing similar issues. And the PA Peace Alliance has given us the opportunity to build community in this violence reduction space across Pennsylvania so that an organization in Erie can connect with an organization in Philadelphia and to make sure they can share best practices and build a community and build that collaboration that’s really sustainable.
I think we recognize that government makes a lot of investments in public safety, a lot of investments in violence prevention, but we can’t do it alone. And we need organizations who are not just going to collaborate with government but who are going to collaborate with each other and who are going to learn from each other and who are going to implement strategies that are working in different places. And I think the PA Peace Alliance has allowed us to do that very effectively.
With homicide rates dropping in cities like Philadelphia, we’re seeing how sustained investment in community violence intervention can save lives. As federal funding declines, what role do states play in ensuring these efforts continue, and what steps has Pennsylvania taken to secure long-term support?
Lt. Gov. Austin Davis:
I think we play a huge role in these efforts. And in Pennsylvania, the governor and I proposed in our last budget in February that we’re trying to enact in June a $10 million increase to our wildly successful Violence Intervention and Prevention grant program, taking us up to $50 million in terms of investment in these programs. And what we’re investing in is community-based organizations who are doing the work every day to eliminate violence in our communities, like funding violence interrupters in our communities to make sure that people defuse situations to funding after school programs that give young people safe places to go after school that are enriching to them from a learning perspective.
As we have seen the federal government become less of a partner, we as states have had to step up. I’m really proud that Governor Shapiro and I are standing up the first ever Office of Gun Violence Prevention and the Commonwealth to make sure we are coordinating all of our efforts across agencies to tackle these issues and to make our community safer. And I’d encourage leaders in other states to be putting their money where their mouth is to make the investments and making our community safer because we’ve proven here in Pennsylvania that it delivers real results.
Collaboration between state agencies, law enforcement, and grassroots organizations can be challenging. How has Pennsylvania successfully fostered partnerships across these sectors, and what lessons can other states learn from your approach?
Lt. Gov. Austin Davis:
Yeah. Look, I think the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency has been a meeting place where folks have been able to come together, not just to get funding but to collaborate with other organizations to do that through the PA Peace Alliance to really build a dialogue and work with each other and understand that everybody has the same end goal. We may have different ways to go about it, but our goal is the same. And I think we have to recognize that we have to take a comprehensive approach to these problems.
We’re not going to solely police our way out of it, while we need law enforcement at the table. We can’t only fund community-based organizations to do this work, but we have to have them at the table and fund them. We can’t just fund victim services after an incident has happened. We have to be preventative on the front end. So, we’re doing all of those things under the umbrella of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. And every other state has an organization like PCCD that has great organizations that are working in their communities. They just have to create a space for people to come together to listen to each other and to learn from each other and to work together.
You became interested in violence prevention at 16, so what advice do you have for youth who want to reduce gun violence in their communities, and what advice do you have for states in regard to elevating youth voices to inform initiatives like the Pennsylvania Peace Alliance?
Lt. Gov. Austin Davis:
I got involved at the grassroots level. When I started at 16, if you would’ve told me I’d be Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor by the age of 35, I would’ve thought you were crazy. But I got involved and started a youth-led violence intervention program in my community. It was a group of people who just wanted to come together and make our community a better place and who engaged with local elected officials. Now it takes elected officials being willing to engage with young people, but I think that’s critical. Their voices are just as important as any other voice in our community, and we have a responsibility as leaders to make sure not that we’re just making space for them at the table, that we’re creating ladders of opportunity for them to succeed, to make sure we’re investing in programs like the PA Peace Alliance, like the Boost Initiative for after-school programs that we’re doing here in Pennsylvania, to allow them to live the American dream, whatever that looks like.
So, I would say to young people who are looking to get involved, start in your community, start in your neighborhood. It starts with a small group of committed people who want to make a difference in their communities, and you never know where it’ll take you. It took me from the streets of my small town in southwestern Pennsylvania called McKeesport to the highest halls of power in Harrisburg and everywhere in between. And I think that’s a lesson that young people can take from, that they can emulate; and they should know that they have an enormous amount of power and that they should use their power to make a difference in this moment now more than ever.
WestEd has provided 800 technical assistance sessions to 135 community-based organizations in Pennsylvania via the PA Peace Alliance; how has your team tailored its approach to meet the unique needs of each group?
Lori Toscano:
Our initial approach is really getting to know the organization and their needs. I think, traditionally, technical assistance has been a little bit more prescribed in nature—that there’s been this checklist of things to go through. I think what we’re doing that’s different is we’re really getting to know the organizations and their staff and meeting them where they’re at.
By building that relationship, we can really focus on what they’ve identified as what their needs are and what their priorities are. Instead of us saying, “The Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency believes that you should be doing X, Y, and Z,” this is really coming from their (grantees’) expertise, their needs, their wants—what they think would have the most impact if we supported them in each specific way. One of the things that we really pride ourselves on is the co-creation of all of this work. So, we might have some ideas based on our knowledge and experience with regards to violence prevention and intervention strategies and programming, but we want to make sure that we’re doing this together, so that folks can really see the value of what we bring to the table in terms of technical assistance.
How does technical assistance help community organizations maximize their impact in reducing gun violence?
Lori Toscano:
I think there are many ways technical assistance supports violence reduction and community organizations. In my experience, we’re often so hyper-focused on daily tasks—especially when violence is actively occurring—that it can be hard to step back. We’re responding to incidents, supporting those most impacted, and constantly in motion. Having someone slightly removed from the day-to-day can help provide a clearer perspective and highlight strategies that might otherwise go unnoticed.
And It’s not just about thought partnership—it’s also about access to resources. When you’re immersed in the work, there’s often little time to seek out research, schedule peer learning, or build relationships with organizations beyond your immediate area. That’s where we come in—we offer support and tools that many don’t have the space to pursue on their own.
I am about 30-ish years into my career, and this (PA Peace Alliance) is my favorite project to date. I think it’s very exciting to be able to work with agencies and organizations at different points within the continuum of care, whether they’re prevention or intervention or reentry or transformation and healing. I think it’s given me a more comprehensive understanding of that continuum and ways to maximize partnership, ways to maximize funding opportunities, and ways to innovate the work.
What are some of the topics you cover with organizations that have proven most effective in helping those organizations implement violence intervention programming and strategies?
Lori Toscano:
There are folks that are doing prevention work, intervention work, reentry work, transformation and healing work, and so what their needs are might vary. But one of the overarching topics that we keep seeing folks being interested in, and wanting to really dig deeper in, is around data collection.
Like, how are you collecting data that is not only useful in operationalizing day-to-day activities? Are you looking at incident-level crime data and saying, “Okay, violence is clustering in this particular area at this particular time”? If I’m doing violence interruption, then I would want to deploy staff using that data. So, I’d want to use that data to operationalize my day-to-day activities.
In addition to that, it’s also about using data to tell the story of your work and what impact you’re having. And that might look a variety of different ways. It might be reductions in shootings and killings. It might be the story of a participant and the success that they’re seeing having gone through the program or working with the organization. It might look like the types of forms you’re using, the databases you’re creating.
But, ultimately, were seeing folks interested in better ways to use data so that we’re able to not only think about sustaining this work, expanding this work, innovating this work but also as an opportunity for folks to really drill down into what their actual impact is in terms of violence reduction or prevention.
