Credit: (Jo Christian Oterhals via Openverse)

Lawmakers are looking to create a specialized division in the attorney general’s office to boost violence prevention efforts and help crime victims.

The proposed division will include trauma-informed services to aid victims, along with violence intervention solutions that incorporate mental health services. A vote on a bill to create the new division and dedicate funding for it is scheduled for Monday.

“By using a trauma-informed approach, VIVA (the Division of Violence Intervention and Victim Assistance) would be able to better understand and respond to the needs of victims, which could help improve their mental health outcomes,” said Sen. Linda Greenstein (D-Mercer), a primary sponsor of the bill.

The push by legislators to create the new division comes at a time when gun violence and mental health concerns continue to grip New Jersey and communities across the country. There have been over 40 mass shooting across the country since the start of the new year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit formed in 2013.

“Establishing a new Division of Violence Intervention and Victim Assistance would be an important step as New Jersey continues to center community-based approaches that are working successfully to reduce violence and increase safety,” said Will Simpson the director of Violence Reduction Initiatives for Equal Justice USA, a member of the New Jersey Violence Intervention and Prevention Coalition. “As the bill makes its way through the legislative process, we also continue to call on the state to work in partnership with community leaders and frontline programs to ensure that existing community violence intervention and prevention strategies are implemented effectively,” he added.

VIVA up close

Attorney General Matthew Platkin would appoint an executive director to the new division, which would be organized into four offices: trial and criminal justice process, victim support and assistance, violence intervention and prevention, and victims of crime compensation.

While the state is creating a new division, organizations throughout the state have already been doing community violence intervention and prevention work. “Part of this is really important because the state is finally putting the public back in public safety,” said Solomon Middleton-Williams, the deputy director at the Newark Community Street Team. The team hires, trains and deploys outreach workers to prevent violence and also offers wellness services, among other resources.

Although New Jersey is progressive about community-based public safety, residents who survive a crime still have to jump through hoops to get access to care, said Middleton-Williams. “This office, we’re hoping it will create really a streamlined channel so that victims can then become survivors along their healing journey,” he said.

The Office of Violence Intervention and Prevention within the new division will oversee community-based and hospital-based violence intervention services and programs. Earlier this month, Gov. Phil Murphy and Platkin announced that $10 million in federal American Rescue Plan money will be allocated to 11 hospitals and community organizations across the state to continue to support the New Jersey Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Program.

Newark Community Street Team, in partnership with Newark Beth Israel Hospital, received $866,400 in grant money.

What other states have done

“Having dedicated resources to support community-based violence intervention strategies is a really important step in making sure that this kind of intervention is increasingly the norm,” said Daniela Gilbert, the director of the Redefining Public Safety Initiative at the Vera Institute of Justice, a national organization that works to end overcriminalization and the mass incarceration of people of color, immigrants and people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

New York, Connecticut and California are among the states that have invested in these types of programs, leading to declines in shootings and homicides, according to Gilbert.

“There is a direct relationship between creating resources that local communities can access to support and develop community-based violence intervention,” Gilbert said. “There’s evidence that these kinds of programs really can make a difference statewide and at the local community level,” she said.

If the bill passes, the Division of Violence Intervention and Victim Assistance would get  $4.5 million in funding, according to the legislation. Additionally, $1 million would be allocated to the Victims of Crime Compensation Office within the attorney general’s office.