DAVENPORT, Iowa — Back in January 2023, Family Resources was awarded $300,000 from the Community Foundation in support of Davenport's Group Violence Intervention program.
The city's GVI program was rolled out in May 2022. Its initiative is to reach out to individuals with ties to groups known to be violent, using a proactive policing approach, addressing issues before a typical law enforcement response is needed.
The non-profit partnered with a team at St. Ambrose University to conduct research, looking at topics such as why people turn to gun violence. It's being used to find out what programs and resources are helping prevent gun violence and what support and services are further needed.
Melissa Sharer and Tee LeShoure are just two of the people involved in the research. Sharer is a professor and director in the university's public health program. She's also the director of research in the Institute for Person Centered-Care at St. Ambrose. LeShoure is the director of community violence intervention at Family Resources.
"Mostly Family Resources was talking with the police department, with the community, of how we can look at preventing gun violence and how we can make people put down guns or not pick up guns," Sharer said. "Can we do this research? Can we ask the individuals most affected and people who are on the front line of violence in our community what they can do, what we can do with them to help prevent gun violence?"
Since GVI began in Davenport, the police department said it's conducted 154 custom notifications. Part of that is to reach out and offer community resources and support. Police tell News 8 it's been an "extremely effective strategy." Nineteen people, or 12%, have reoffended with a firearm after being custom notified.
The custom notifications are where the gun violence prevention research starts.
"We just finished up the quantitative research, which was a survey where we asked individuals who were custom notified of what they can do to prevent violence," Sharer said. "These are voices that we haven't heard from yet, and themes that we haven't uncovered."
Sharer describes it as a barrier and enablers study. They look at what is helping the problem and what is hurting the program.
"How can we remove the barriers and increase the enablers to prevent community violence?" she said.
Education and prevention about gun violence in schools has come up as a priority.
"We did see like the longevity in people's life of the impacts it, so we've seen like trends of maybe it didn't start with just this generation," LeShoure said. "There's long histories of their knowledge or the awareness of a gun being in their lives ... What part that played? It could be for hunting reasons, it could be for a number of things."
Now that the team has its preliminary data from its surveying, it will start more in depth focus group discussions with people in the community who are most affected by violence. Family members will be included in those conversations too. It's about going to deeper to understand the problem, Sharer explained. It will help shape what new programs and support is needed and how they can help people connect to already existing resources.
"What we've learned is that people want support, they want to know about the programming and services, so that's why outreach is so important," LeShoure said.
"It's just been really inspiring to know that individuals who have been convicted or previously incarcerated want to be part of the solution," Sharer said. "That's very powerful because everyone wants a safe community."
Davenport Police say GVI, along with other initiatives, are yielding "significant results in reducing violent crime." From 2019 to 2023, the department reported a 54% decrease in shots fired incidents and a 27% increase in recovered firearms.
Comparing the first half of 2023 to the first half of 2024, Davenport police have reported a 22% decline in shots fired, down to 52 from 67. Non-fatal shooting victims declined from 19 to 7 and the department recovered four more firearms, 204 compared to 200 in the first half of 2023. Again, this data compares the reports from Jan. 1 to June 30 over the two years. It does not include any shots fired incidents in July, August and the first half of September.
"The data shows that our custom notifications have been powerful in ensuring that those numbers have declined," LeShoure said. "We're always looking for those support groups that we can do in schools as a prevention measure or intervention. We're looking for those opportunities to provide outreach and community events where we can stand out and connect to the community, as well as bridge a gap between those things that are missing. So it might be law enforcement in the community, it might be social services in the community and it might be connecting to those credible voices that are already existing in the community and have been heroes for years."
News 8 has reported seven homicides in Davenport in 2024, to date in September. Seven people died in shootings. In all of 2023, Davenport police reported nine homicides. In 2022, there were four and in 2021 there were 10.
You can learn more about the services Family Resources currently offers on its website, that includes group violence intervention and other resources such as mental health or domestic violence.