Bill > S3309

Introduced Session

This bill establishes the New Jersey Violence Intervention Program (NJVIP) for the purpose of saving lives by investing in effective, evidence-based violence reduction initiatives focused on the highest-risk individuals in communities disproportionately impacted by community violence, with a particular emphasis on firearm violence. Specifically, the bill requires the Office of the Attorney General to establish, advertise, and administer grants through the NJVIP, conduct program evaluation to determine the effectiveness of the violence intervention programs, and provide written reports to provide transparency regarding the effectiveness of the programs, and hold public forums to gather community input regarding the programs. The bill requires the Office of the Attorney General to award funds on a competitive basis to municipalities, health agencies, law enforcement agencies, and non-profit organizations that serve communities with disproportionately high rates of homicides and other incidents involving the use of firearms. The bill provides that the Office of the Attorney General is to prioritize applicants operating in areas disproportionately affected by serious violence, whose grant proposals demonstrate the greatest likelihood of reducing the rate and number of homicides and other incidents involving the use of firearms in the community served by the applicant. The award applicants may apply either independently or jointly. The bill requires that grants awarded cannot replace current violence prevention funding being provided. The bill requires applicants to provide certain information to ensure measurable results when applying for the grant. In addition, counties or municipalities, including law enforcement agencies, applying for grants are required to provide plans in the grant application to distribute at least 50 percent of the grant funds it receives, pursuant to the application, to either or both of the following: (1) one or more non-profit, community-based organizations and (2) a public agency or entity that is not a law enforcement agency, but which has violence reduction as part of its mission. The bill permits the Office of the Attorney General to use up to five percent of the funds appropriated or made available, or such percentage as authorized if through federal funding sources, for the cost of implementation, administration, and evaluation of the program. The evaluations conducted are to be made publicly available. The bill requires that the Office of the Attorney General annually hold three public hearings: one hearing in each of the northern, central, and southern regions of the State. The public input are to be used to assess whether the grant-making metrics and process for issuing grants needs to be revised. The bill requires the Office of the Attorney General to provide a report to the Legislature annually on the activities of the program, descriptions of the initiatives and impact on communities served through the grants, and any other information the Office of the Attorney General deems to be appropriate. It is the sponsor's intent that the bill would support community-based violence reduction programs, such as Hospital-based Violence Intervention Programs (HVIPs), Street Outreach Work (SOW), Group Violence Intervention (GVI), and focused deterrence strategies, which have demonstrated effectiveness at reducing rates of homicides and other incidents involving the use of firearms. The first example of these programs is HVIPs, which work to break cycles of violence by providing intensive counseling, case management, and social services to patients recovering from firearm injuries, as research indicates that violently injured patients are at extremely high risk of retaliating with violence or being re-victimized in the near future. Evaluations of HVIP programs show that patients who receive HVIP services are four times less likely to be convicted of a violent crime and roughly four times less likely to be violently reinjured than patients who do not receive services. The next example is SOW, which is a public health-oriented strategy that employs trained, culturally competent outreach workers to detect and interrupt the emergence and transmission of violence. Several evaluations have found this strategy to be associated with significant reductions in firearm homicides and assaults. In New York City, researchers found the Cure Violence model of SOW to be associated with up to a 63 percent reduction in shootings. The final example is GVI, which is a strategy that coordinates law enforcement, service providers, and the community to reduce violence among a small, identifiable segment of the population that is responsible for the vast majority of firearm violence in most cities. Studies have found that GVI programs are associated with homicide reductions of up to 60 percent.

AI Summary

Linda Greenstein (D)*,  Lou Greenwald (D)*,  Eliana Pintor Marin (D)*,  Verlina Reynolds-Jackson (D)*,  Joe Vitale (D)*,  Daniel Benson (D),  Ralph Caputo (D),  Jamel Holley (D),  Mila Jasey (D),  Gordon Johnson (D),  Patricia Jones (D),  Yvonne Lopez (D),  Angela Mcknight (D),  Gabriela Mosquera (D),  Carol Murphy (D),  Annette Quijano (D),  Teresa Ruiz (D),  Bill Spearman (D),  Shanique Speight (D),  Britnee Timberlake (D),  Cleopatra Tucker (D),  Shirley Turner (D), 

Approved P.L.2019, c.365. (on 01/20/2020)