YORK, Pa. — The specter of violence and crime has hung over Pennsylvania cities for decades, but those cities are now fighting back.
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For years, cities have not had the tools to fight crime. But in the City of York, those tools came in the form of the city's Group Violence Intervention program, which has evolved since its 2016 conception into a community partnership with law enforcement that combines community outreach, services and traditional policing to give York residents alternatives to a life on the street.
"We know as police, we can't arrest our way out of it," said Lt. Matthew Irvin of the York PD, who coordinates with the GVI team. "We know that arresting isn't going to be the solution. So if we can find other ways to get people not to commit crime, other than the threat of going to jail or the threat of getting arrested, it's great."
The program has reportedly helped bring on a 75% reduction in homicides, a 63% drop in the number of people struck by gunfire and a 50% decrease in shots fired incidents from 2022 to 2023 in the city.
The funding for the expansion of the GVI program, along with increased staffing for the YPD, has come from the more than $6 million given to the city through the American Rescue Plan, which was signed by President Biden in 2021.
"We had the traditional funding that we asked for to be able to put additional boots on the ground with our GVI law enforcement team," said York Police Commissioner Michael Muldrow. "And then we were able to use some of the funding itself to support actually bringing additional officers, putting additional patrol officers on the street."
The result of the money was the hiring of eight to 10 new officers in the YPD, along with three new members of the GVI team, including a trauma counselor.
The money will also go to starting a drone program, purchasing new equipment such as tasers, and building a new rec center as part of an initiative called “REPROGRAM.”
Muldrow says that dollars freed up by ARPA funding helped fund the scholarships to HACC schools which have become a staple of GVI outreach.
"We could go to the individuals who have been shooters in our community, individuals who have been toting guns and causing problems in our community, and say, 'If you put your guns down, I'll give you this scholarship to go to HACC,'" Muldrow said.
Cities such as Harrisburg are now looking to York's GVI model as a blueprint for their own GVI program.