20
2017
1
$4.80 MILLION
Non-profit
United States
In the few short years since its launch in Chicago in 2000, Cure Violence has transformed approaches to violence prevention in cities around the world. The key to the organization’s success and scalability is its theory that violence shares the same trajectory as infectious diseases. Following this logic, Cure Violence applies a public health strategy to violence prevention. The organization stops violence transmission at the source by interrupting conflict, identifying high-risk behaviors, and altering norms so that fewer people become infected by violence in the first place. In practical terms, Cure Violence achieves this goal by applying an innovative model developed over five years at the University of Illinois at Chicago by its founder, epidemiologist Gary Slutkin. The organization identifies those most at risk and “treats” this core group using a staff of highly trained violence interrupters drawn from the...
In the few short years since its launch in Chicago in 2000, Cure Violence has transformed approaches to violence prevention in cities around the world. The key to the organization’s success and scalability is its theory that violence shares the same trajectory as infectious diseases. Following this logic, Cure Violence applies a public health strategy to violence prevention. The organization stops violence transmission at the source by interrupting conflict, identifying high-risk behaviors, and altering norms so that fewer people become infected by violence in the first place. In practical terms, Cure Violence achieves this goal by applying an innovative model developed over five years at the University of Illinois at Chicago by its founder, epidemiologist Gary Slutkin. The organization identifies those most at risk and “treats” this core group using a staff of highly trained violence interrupters drawn from the communities most affected by violence. These interrupters, among them former perpetrators of violence such as local gang members, disrupt conflicts before they break out and educate their communities about the consequences of violent behavior.
By reframing the problem of violence and using evidence-based methods to solve it, Cure Violence has achieved proven results, with a 16-34% reduction in shootings directly attributed to its programs. Today, Cure Violence interrupters intervene directly in a dozen countries and have provided training to representatives of many others. The organization’s approach continues to gain traction in many hotbeds of violence. Though it started as an academic project, Cure Violence exemplifies the true benefits of the nonprofit model. The organization is not only interested in efficiency and impact. It is also raising an important question: what other category of institution – governments or for-profit organizations, for instance – could do a better job?
Cure Violence Global envisions and works toward a world without violence. Our mission is to reduce violence globally using evidence-based disease control and behavior change methods.
Cure Violence Global represents a unique, interdisciplinary health approach to violence prevention. We believe that the problem of violence is solvable when we understand that violence behaves like an infectious disease and, therefore, treat it using disease control methods. Our approach to stopping shootings, killings and other violent events includes detecting and interrupting the “transmission” of these potentially lethal events; identifying and changing the infectivity (i.e., the thinking and behavior) of the highest potential transmitters (i.e., those involved in or most likely to be involved in violence); and changing community, city and region-wide norms and social expectations so that violence is no longer used in response to differing or conflicting views or interests.
Cure Violence Global envisions and works toward a world without violence. Our mission is to reduce violence globally using evidence-based disease control and behavior change methods.
Cure Violence Global represents a unique, interdisciplinary health approach to violence prevention. We believe that the problem of violence is solvable when we understand that violence behaves like an infectious disease and, therefore, treat it using disease control methods. Our approach to stopping shootings, killings and other violent events includes detecting and interrupting the “transmission” of these potentially lethal events; identifying and changing the infectivity (i.e., the thinking and behavior) of the highest potential transmitters (i.e., those involved in or most likely to be involved in violence); and changing community, city and region-wide norms and social expectations so that violence is no longer used in response to differing or conflicting views or interests.
Porte Brown, LLC
Cure Violence Global helps communities implement an evidence-based violence prevention approach that effectively reduces violence. Founded by Gary Slutkin, M.D., former head of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Intervention Development Unit, the Cure Violence approach is grounded in an understanding that violence follows a contagious process and can therefore be prevented using disease control and behavior change methods.
The first Cure Violence site was launched in Chicago in 2000 and was quick to produce results, with a 67% in shootings in its first year. From 2000-2008, Cure Violence expanded to 18 communities in Chicago and an additional 9 cities in the state of Illinois. In 2009, an evaluation of the Chicago program was published finding reductions in shootings and killings of 41% to 73% with 100% reduction in retaliation killings in several communities.
Starting in 2008, Cure Violence...
Cure Violence Global helps communities implement an evidence-based violence prevention approach that effectively reduces violence. Founded by Gary Slutkin, M.D., former head of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Intervention Development Unit, the Cure Violence approach is grounded in an understanding that violence follows a contagious process and can therefore be prevented using disease control and behavior change methods.
The first Cure Violence site was launched in Chicago in 2000 and was quick to produce results, with a 67% in shootings in its first year. From 2000-2008, Cure Violence expanded to 18 communities in Chicago and an additional 9 cities in the state of Illinois. In 2009, an evaluation of the Chicago program was published finding reductions in shootings and killings of 41% to 73% with 100% reduction in retaliation killings in several communities.
Starting in 2008, Cure Violence Global began working with partners in new regions in the United States to expand to several new cities, including Baltimore, New York City, New Orleans, and Kansas City. Several additional evaluations have been conducted on these replication sites, including in New York City (63% reduction in shootings), Baltimore (56% reduction in killings), Philadelphia (30% reduction in shootings), and others. Cure Violence Global also developed a hospital-based component and provides trainings to communities that implement this aspect of the approach. Currently, Cure Violence Global is working in close partnership with organizations in more than 75 communities across 20 US cities to implement the approach, with more than 8 additional cities implementing approaches inspired by the Cure Violence model.
Also in 2008, Cure Violence Global began its first international adaptation and replication of the methodology in Basra and Sadr City, Iraq at a time of active war. Since then, international programs have been implemented in Argentina (Rosario, Santa Fe), Canada (Halifax and First Nation Territories in Alberta), Colombia (Cali), El Salvador (San Salvador, San Pedro Mazawal), Guatemala (Guatemala City), Honduras (San Pedro Sula, La Ceiba, Choloma, Rivera Hernandez, Tegucigalpa), Jamaica (St. Catherine North, St. James), Lebanon (training for Syria work), Kenya (election violence, Nairobi, Rift valley), Mexico (Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua City, Culiacan), Morocco (Casablanca), Nigeria (in-country training), South Africa (Hanover Park/Cape Town), Syria (during war in multiple locations, including government controlled, opposition supported, and Kurdish controlled area), Trinidad and Tobago (Port of Spain), United Kingdom (London) and the West Bank.
Throughout these years, Cure Violence has also provided training in violence prevention techniques to representatives of the U.N., international organizations, governments, NGOs, and communities from dozens of other countries. These adaptations have addressed violence not only in other countries and cultures, but also multiple types of violence such as cartel violence, sectarian and tribal violence, and election violence, in settings including conflict zones, prisons, refugee camps, juvenile detention facilities, and schools, demonstrating that violence in most settings can be both seen and successfully treated - and that the epidemiologic approach can be successfully adapted across geographies and types or "syndromes" of the disease of violence.