Defund Baltimore’s shady, ineffectual ‘violence-reduction’ programs

OPINION:

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results each time, then Baltimore is certifiable.

The city, like many other Democratic-run urban centers, seems to believe that if something is not working, it just needs more money. That is how nearly $1.2 million in federal funds is making its way into Baltimore’s coffers to fund a twice-failed “violence reduction” program.

In May, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Maryland Democrat, presented a gigantic check to Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott to expand the 4-year-old Group Violence Reduction Strategy.

The program identifies people at greatest risk of committing violent offenses and then, as Jason Johnson, a former Baltimore police deputy commissioner, put it, tells them “the consequences of continued involvement in criminal activities and ways to get out.”

The mayor’s office bills it as a “proven plan” to reduce shootings and homicides.

Yet it may not be doing either and warrants a closer look, as do at least two other mayor’s office endeavors.

Launched in 2022, the Group Violence Reduction Strategy was preceded by two similar anti-violence programs that both tanked.

In 1998, Baltimore started Operation Safe Neighborhoods to target “violent groups in a drug market area,” according to a paper from Arizona State University. It was “dismantled due to political infighting, resistance to operational changes, and obstruction by some of the partnering agencies.”

In 2014, the city tried again. In Operation Ceasefire, “when outbreaks of gang-involved shootings erupted, a working group concentrated its enforcement capacity on holding the offending groups accountable,” and outreach workers tried “to convince gang members to stop shooting and take advantage of available services and opportunities,” according to a new National Bureau of Economic Research paper.

That would be a wise strategy if the top obstacle to violence reduction were a lack of logically persuasive argumentation, but it is not. Operation Ceasefire also collapsed, “amid missing components, fractured leadership and poor coordination,” according to Vital City.

Baltimore would have you believe the current initiative is working. Homicides in the city were down approximately 60% from 2022 to 2025, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research paper’s widely heralded findings.

Yet that is not the whole story. The same paper found that “the [program’s] effect on violent crime arrests, on its face, appears to be very large, but this estimate must be interpreted in light of the fact that … few of these crimes are cleared, and so the base rate is very low. … The effect of GVRS on violent crime clearances is best thought of as large in percentage terms but nevertheless as only a modest change in the probability that a violent crime is solved through an arrest.”

The paper also attests to criminals’ behavioral changes to evade the program’s attention. “After learning that they were ’on the radar’ for GVRS attention, interview subjects reported quickly changing their normal routines to evade possible law enforcement surveillance.”

In July 2024, approximately 7.5% of the 160 participants in the Group Violence Reduction Strategy had recidivated over the previous 2½ years, according to Fox 45. One was charged with homicide, another with home invasion, three others with using a firearm in the commission of drug trafficking and six others with illegally possessing a firearm.

Yet the Group Violence Reduction Strategy is not the only problem program under Mr. Scott’s purview. In December, Ivan Bates, the Baltimore city state’s attorney, announced that his office was cutting ties with the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, which oversees the Group Violence Reduction Strategy and other “anti-violence” campaigns.

Mr. Bates cited a “veil of secrecy” surrounding the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement’s Safe Streets program, which uses “violence interrupters” to stop crime. He said there is “no oversight with respect to the funding and operational spending associated with” it.

Last week, a “violence interrupter” was arrested after reportedly shooting a man. Antoine Burton has a criminal record that includes 11 convictions, and he was on probation at the time.

Yet the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement is requesting a 37% federal funding increase for fiscal year 2027, a jump of more than $8 million that would bring its budget to more than $30 million.

Federal funding to the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement and its programs should be frozen immediately, and the stalled inspector general’s investigation should be restarted. No more taxpayer money for shady, ineffective undertakings, period.