Monday, Nov. 20th, Jeffrey Mosher was on the road to Southwest Lansing, and the Alfreda Schmidt Community Center, for a press conference put on by Advance Peace Lansing. Watch Part 1 & 2 of the press conference with details on the significant expansion of Advance Peace Lansing's efforts in 2024.
Advance Peace Lansing announces significant expansion for 2024,
as city-wide gun fatalities drop by 65% yet shootings continue to rise
What is Advance Peace Lansing?
● Advance Peace Lansing is a part of an ecosystem of organizations working to address gun violence and its impacts on Lansing’s youth.
● Advance Peace Lansing’s goal is a 40% reduction in cyclical and retaliatory gun violence by 2025.
● Advance Peace Lansing interrupts community violence by providing transformational opportunities to young men involved in lethal firearm offenses and placing them in a high-touch, personalized fellowship—the Peacemaker Fellowship.
“Advance Peace’s signature Peacemaker Fellowship is an intentionally designed developmental and healing-centered personal leadership and liberation strategy for those committed to solving conflict with a firearm. Controversially, it also addresses income inequality — it is unquestionably unique in the community violence intervention space.” — DeVone Boggan, founder of Advance Peace.
Lansing’s city-wide gun fatalities drop by 65%, though shootings continue to rise
● From October 2022 to September 2023, gun-related fatalities in Lansing have decreased by 65%.
○ Incidents with evidence of shots being fired are down by 3.5%.
○ Calls to 9-1-1 or police about shots fired are down 4%
○ But non-fatal shootings are up 7.5% city-wide.
○ This is one of the many reasons why we need to continue community violence intervention efforts, and expand them into additional neighborhoods.
● The timeframe of the decrease in fatalities also aligns with the first year of Advance Peace’s presence in southwest Lansing.
Advance Peace Lansing’s street team spent thousands of hours in Lansing’s neighborhoods
● In its first year of operation, focused on southwest Lansing, Advance Peace’s presence from October 2022 to now is significant for those participating in the Peacemaker Fellowship, Advance Peace’s cornerstone community violence intervention strategy.
○ Currently, there are 15 active Peacemaker Fellows.
○ The Advance Peace Lansing team has spent 1,666 hours engaging in 565 different ways with our 15 Peacemaker Fellows.
○ The Peacemaker Fellowship breaks the cycle of gun hostilities and alters the trajectory of these men’s lives through in-depth, daily interactions such as providing internship opportunities and helping Fellows navigate social services, including assistance with the transportation, housing, legal matters, cash assistance benefits and more.
■ In the past year, Fellows participated in 113 Cognitive Behavioral Therapy sessions, 202 Life Coaching sessions, 88 Job Readiness sessions, 17 Internships and more.
■ Fellows meet with an elders circle, consisting of community members who share life experiences, offering guidance on avoiding gun violence and achieving success in family, business and other endeavors.
○ Of the 15 Fellows, none have been killed and only one had a gun injury.
● Without Advance Peace Lansing, these numbers would be zero.
Community violence intervention programs save local municipalities, healthcare systems and legal system millions for each gun incident prevented
● There is a financial impact on municipalities and health systems when people are shot. Often the public health system subsidizes the cost of care.
○ Advance Peace reduces government and health care system costs associated with gun violence by tens to hundreds of millions of dollars, with each gun homicide costing upwards of $2.4 million according to the National Institute of Criminal Justice Reform.
Advance Peace Lansing announces expansion for 2024
● Advance Peace Lansing is one part of a much larger ecosystem that needs to grow in effort, approach and investment wholistically to make long-term impacts.
● Advance Peace Lansing is expanding significantly in the City of Lansing and Ingham County.
● Advance Peace is growing its presence in the southwest corridors of Lansing and initiating a new presence in the southeast neighborhoods of Lansing.
● In partnership with the City of East Lansing’s council and leadership, Advance Peace is expanding into East Lansing.
● Advance Peace is launching a partnership with Lansing School District to place Peacekeepers in Lansing’s Eastern, Everett and Sexton High Schools.
● Advance Peace Lansing is growing its Peacemaker Fellowship from 15 to 60 Fellows by the end of 2024.
● And by the end of 2025 Advance Peace will be operating at scale, able to have a presence and intervene anywhere data shows hot spots in Lansing and Ingham County.
What is Advance Peace Lansing’s budget? Who are the funders?
● Advance Peace Lansing has secured $4.1 million in funding to date in support of its launch, implementation and future expansion.
● The City of Lansing invested $265,000 in FY22-23 and has budgeted another $300,000 for FY 23-24. In total, the City of Lansing has allocated $565,000 to invest into Advance Peace.
● Ingham County is another key partner, having provided funds for operation of Advance Peace and evaluation totaling $986,081
○ This includes Congressional Budget Appropriation Discretionary Funding contributing $358,062 through February 2025.
● Advance Peace Lansing has received an additional approximately $3 million from the U.S. Department of Justice to support the work for four years. This includes:
○ U.S. Department of Justice Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program contributing $997,368 through September 2024.
○ U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative contributes $1,999,648 through September 2026.
● Advance Peace Lansing also receives private donations and funding from individuals and community-based organizations.
Who do I contact with Advance Peace Lansing questions?
● MPHI is the local operator. MPHI’s Advance Peace spokesperson is Paul Elam, Chief Strategy Officer (he/him/his). Elam can be reached for an interview by contacting Kelly Coyle, Director of Corporate Communications (she/her/hers), at 517-324-6042 or kcoyle@mphi.org.
● Ingham County is the primary funder and administrator. Ingham County’s Advance Peace spokesperson is Dr. Adenike Shoyinka, Medical Health Officer (she/her/hers). Shoyinka can be reached for an interview by contacting Victoria Coykendall, health communications specialist (she/her/hers), at (517) 331-7012 or vcoykendall@ingham.org.
● More information on Advance Peace Lansing can also be found at https://advancepeacelansingingham.org/.
DETAILS on Advance Peace Lansing Press Conference:- Paul Elam, PhD; Chief Strategy Officer; MPHI and Advance Peace Lansing.
- Adenike Shoyinka, MD, MPH; Medical Health Officer, Ingham County.
- Andy Schor, Mayor, City of Lansing.
- DeLisa Fountain; Director, Neighborhoods, Arts + Citizen Engagement, City of Lansing.
- Additional program partners, evaluators and expansion stakeholders.
This initiative represents a groundbreaking, evidence-based intervention model aimed at putting an end to the destructive cycle of retaliatory gun violence in urban neighborhoods across the United States. Advance Peace is a pioneering effort within the community, with the goal of achieving a 40% reduction in cyclical and retaliatory gun violence over the next three years.
Leading up to the press conference, Jeffrey Mosher welcomed back Dr. Paul Elam serves as the Chief Strategy Officer at the Michigan Public Health Institute, and is responsible for leading Advance Peace.
Hear Dr. Elam and Jeffrey discuss Advance Peace, their efforts over the past 14 months and the event set for Monday, November 20th discouraging gun violence in the Lansing Metro in the SoundCloud Podcast shared below:
Their conversation covered several topics:
1) Paul, welcome back remind us about your strategy work with Michigan Public Health Institute?
2) What is Advance Peace?
3) What are you hoping to accomplish through Advance Peace?
4) What successes have you accomplished since you implemented the Advance Peace Strategy?
5) Is there anything you would like to share about Advance Peace that the community should know?
6) You have an annual event next week, what are the details?
Dr. Elam did a recent editorial on the topic as well:
Cost of Gun Violence in Lansing is Too High to Ignore
Dr. Paul Elam, MPHI Chief Strategy Officer
Guest Writer, Opinion Editorial in the Lansing State Journal
When Lansing leaders are asked to fund initiatives to prevent gun violence, they are sympathetic and supportive. But the money is often slow to come. And our citizens continue to pay the high price for crime as bullets fly and people die.
The reality is taxpayers spend vast sums for what happens after gunshots are fired. Crime scene investigations, hospital bills, court costs and prison. We can and should reduce these costs — through community violence prevention strategies that have proven effective in interrupting cycles of violence.
How high are the costs? The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform conducted research to answer that question in several communities across the country.
In Detroit, the average cost of a homicide shooting is $1.6 million, according to the research. That includes $1.2 million for a 27-year prison sentence. Younger assailants are likely to live and be imprisoned many years longer, creating even higher costs.
Other shooting-related costs include a prosecutor, public defender and the courts. In the Detroit study, total criminal justice costs average $138,000. Hospital costs come to about $50,000. Victim support is roughly $27,000, and crime scene response about $5,500.
While a study in Lansing would be instructive, it is reasonable to assume costs are in line with Detroit. Studies in other cities paint similar pictures.
And that doesn’t quantify the costs of fear, of families devastated by the loss of a loved one, or the economic cost of businesses that choose to set up shop in places that are deemed safer.
It will take a multi-pronged approach to preventing gun violence. For instance, Advance Peace Lansing has been operating in southwest Lansing since October 2022, supported by city, county, state and federal funding, and operated by a non-profit partner. Four neighborhood change agents, who have had previous experience with gun violence, are supporting 15 Advance Peace fellows, young people who have been involved in gun violence themselves.
The results in Lansing and other communities are promising. Almost all of the Advance Peace fellows have stayed away from gun violence. The number of fatal shootings in Lansing has dropped from 17 between October 2021 and September 2022, to six in the first 11 months that Advance Peace Lansing has operated.
Community violence intervention programs like Advance Peace are bringing about meaningful change. They make us safer. They save federal, state and local tax dollars that are spent at the back end of shootings. Preventing just one fatal shooting can save $1.6 million or more.
Gun violence is the leading cause of premature death in the United States and the American Public Health Association has identified it as a public health crisis. We need our policymakers to not only invest more in gun violence prevention, but to be innovative and urgent in getting effective programs in place that will lower the high cost of gun violence and create safe cities.
Paul Elam is chief strategy officer for the Michigan Public Health Institute and has a Ph.D. in criminal justice from Michigan State University. He is a member of the Crime and Justice Research Alliance.
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