Fight violence from the inside out

There has been a lot of publicity in The Baltimore Sun and other media about the challenges of stemming the tide of violence that continues to sweep across our city (“Davis says special deployments helped stall violence — and showed need for more officers on Baltimore’s streets,” June 19). A lot of solutions have been suggested — improving police-citizen trust and interaction, putting more police officers on the streets, continuing the Safe Streets and Operation Ceasefire initiatives, expanding access to jobs through the city’s Office of Employment Network, engaging youth in summer life and employment, recreation, and community service programs and the list goes on.

As good as these and other proposed solutions may be toward putting the brakes on our present crime wave, there has been surprisingly little discussion about the roles Baltimore’s 300 or so neighborhood associations could play in helping reduce crime. Neighborhood associations and the citizens they represent are really the city’s first line of defense against criminal activities. Serving as eyes and ears on the block and street, association members, with proper training and support of their Crime Watch networks, could be very effective in working in close coordination with the police to watch over their neighborhoods and report suspicious activities.

But to be successful, the leaders of these associations and their members need to be trained on how best to keep their neighborhoods secure. Fortunately there are three excellent programs in Baltimore where such training is available. The Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program is a first-rate training initiative that helps citizens to become first responders until the city’s professional responders can arrive. In the two-day training program, citizens learn about basic and psychological first aid, how to recognize and deal with a range of threats to safety in the neighborhood and how to provide comfort to victims traumatized by such events. Every neighborhood should have a CERT team.

The Community Law Center is great resource, not only on how to effectively lead a neighborhood association, but also how to deal with nuisance liquor stores and bars and other properties such as residences where illicit activities are conducted.

The third excellent resource is the Baltimore City Police Department’s Citizens Academy Program. This 12-week, 42-hour course is useful for all citizens of the city, but especially for neighborhood association leaders. The course emphasizes collaboration between police and the neighborhoods where they serve.

Strong, informed, and active neighborhood associations working in partnership with city leaders and other public/private/ educational actors in a coordinated, focused approach could reduce crime and transform Baltimore into a truly livable 21st century city. Jack K. Boyson, Baltimore

Baltimore needs an anti-violence summit

I read with great sadness about the lives cut short by violence on the streets of Baltimore every day (“Recent homicide victims in Baltimore include mother of bullied boy, bartender at Ryleigh's,” June 14). The Sun reports about the important efforts by various individuals and groups working each day to try to make a dent in this terrible bloodshed. Every effort seems to be a drop in the bucket when considering the steady march of violence reported on these pages.

We have in Baltimore tremendous brain power through the vast resources of world renowned institutions such as Johns Hopkins University and The University of Maryland Medical Center, as well as several excellent universities and colleges; dedicated public servants at the city, state and federal level; world class non-governmental organizations such as Catholic Relief Services and Lutheran World Services, to name a couple; dedicated community organizations, public safety members and religious clergy and most of all our ever resilient and committed citizens. Why not organize a Baltimore wide summit on violence, perhaps led by our truly engaged Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen, that would have national prominence involving the far reaching talents of these stakeholders to examine strategies to prevent, manage and curb the growing violence in our beloved city?

Imagine what could be learned through the synergies of all these forces working together and the energy projected as a national model of what could happen when a city truly comes together to address the homeland security issue of violence on our streets. Dr. Stuart R. Varon, Baltimore