Seeing gun violence as a public health issue: Q&A with Richard Garland
Gun violence is yet again in the public consciousness both locally and nationally, from the recent spate of shootings in Pittsburgh’s South Side to the May shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which claimed the lives of 19 schoolchildren and two teachers.
Richard Garland, an assistant professor in Behavioral and Community Health Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, and the director of the Violence Prevention Initiative at Pitt’s Center for Health Equity, looks at gun violence prevention through the lens of public health.
Mr. Garland has a unique perspective on violence prevention as a formerly incarcerated person himself. Growing up in Philadelphia, Mr. Garland became involved with gangs, was eventually arrested and spent 22 years in prison from 1979 to 1991. He received his GED while incarcerated and later pursued a bachelor’s degree in communications and a masters in social work with a focus on community organization, both from Pitt.
He has since dedicated his career to violence prevention and recidivism reduction through programs like Reimagine Reentry, which provides support for people returning home from incarceration, the Gunshot Recurring Injury Prevention Service, and One Vision One Life, a nonprofit aimed at crime reduction.
As a violence prevention expert particularly well-versed in community organizing, Mr. Garland spoke with the Post-Gazette about his research, the factors that contribute to gun violence and what everyday citizens can do to help.
Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Q: What do you see as the driving factors behind the increasing violence?
A: I can’t say enough about how much the pandemic has contributed to the rise in violence, because people are not as patient as they used to be, they’re very reactive, and the type of drugs that they’re using and pills that they’re taking only just exacerbate the whole issue of violence.
In that sense, social media for us is the devil. A lot of feuds have started on social media. When people were quarantined the first couple of months, they were really on their phones and on the internet, and it’s really made things worse. One of the largest aspects of this violence that I see right now that’s happening is mental health.
Q: You work at the School of Public Health. Can you talk a little bit about how violence prevention can be classified as a public health issue and how public health tools can help address gun violence?
A: Our public health approach is that we look at violence as a disease. For all the years that I’ve been
doing this work, it wasn’t until I got to Pitt that I realized that violence is a disease just like any other. When polio was here, we treated it. We’re treating a disease. We’re treating it in a way where we’re saying: no more shootings.
Q: What strategies have you found to be effective in reducing gun violence?
A: I use the outreach workers, people who are familiar with the streets and with the neighborhoods. I try to hire people from that community. And I usually use this slang saying: They have to have the juice, meaning that they got a reputation, they could have been formerly incarcerated, they could have been former drug dealers.
So they call us on a daily basis. “Hey, this little feud is going on in the streets here. We think that we can get the two entities together and we might be able to squash it before it gets out of hand.” Many of these people have kids, and they don’t want their kids to go through the things that they went through. So they are the ones that I use to stop the transmission of the disease, because they’re on the ground.
It takes a unique person. But it’s also a real big self-esteem builder for our outreach workers to do violence intervention because now they’re doing something good for the community, and they’re not tearing down the community like they used to. From somebody that used to be part of the problem, we made them part of the solution, and we transform their identity, which really helps us to change the narrative or change community norms from what used to be to what is new. That’s why this is so important.
I can get a guy to call from the penitentiary, and believe it or not, they can squash something that’s going on in the neighborhood. All these different relationships can work to our benefit if we apply them.
Q: Is gun control at all a part of your violence prevention efforts? A:
I try to leave legislation stuff to the legislators. And when we talk about gun legislation, it’s almost too late. There’s a lot of guns that are being stolen or being sold on the market. We can come up with all the legislation in the world. We still got a whole bunch of guns out there right now. That’s the reason why I’m saying, how about no more guns? If we had no guns, the rate of homicides would go way down.
Q: Where do you stand on the role of law enforcement in preventing gun violence? A:
We need the right kind of law enforcement. I think people in some places have gotten soft on crime. We’re real quick to talk about racism and things like that now, more so than how do we really stem the tide of violence? People will say that we need more officers of color, but the truth of the matter is many folks of color are not taking those jobs. They’re not even applying to be a police officer. We are hopeful that that will change, but we have to look at education, and how important education is. The more that people interact with law enforcement in a positive manner, I think that people will become even more supportive.
Q: How does your personal experience with violence and the prison system inform your current approach to violence prevention?
A: The reason why I do this work is because many of the guys that I was in prison with, we always talked about prison not being the place for us to be. It’s because of a lot of the men and women that are left behind that I think about why I’m doing this work.
I used to take pictures in the visiting room down at the penitentiary, so a lot of young people who used to come see their brothers or dads or cousins, they would see me in the visiting room. And [after I was released] I would see them guys, and they would show me love and allow me to do some interventions in between.
Q: Do you have any success stories of how your interventions in a community have measurably reduced crime or violence that would have occurred?
A: From 2002 to 2012, I ran a program called One Vision One Life where we had former gang members, former drug dealers work in the streets. These guys and girls were the problem before, and some of them are doing well now because they changed their life. When you can turn a guy who used to be making at least $1,000 a day sometimes to making what’s considered peanuts, the main thing is that he don’t have to look over his shoulder anymore, or he’s just waiting for a time before he can go back to jail. But when we give him something positive to do, we change that identity, what we call identity transformation, changing the narrative, by giving him a job and making him a productive member of society.
Q: When trying to help victims of gun violence change their lifestyles, what topics have you found resonated? A:
I’ve seen quite a few moms and dads that will say, “Man, it’s amazing that he’s transformed to the person that he is now,” because of what they thought he was. What is needed is I think that somebody shows these kids that they have a little faith in them, that they can do the right thing if given the opportunity. We just got to be willing to try to steer them in the right direction.
Q: Do you have any advice for people who want to help reduce violence in their communities or neighboring communities? A:
They have to be a little bit more present. I would love to see more programming going on in urban communities. We need more activities for kids — and adults. I’m talking about positive activities that they do. We forget that kids need to be kids, and they need to be kept busy doing positive things. When they’re kept busy to do positive things, that whole thing about getting involved in negativity goes away.
So we can always point to all the wrongs that have gone on in the community when we talk about drugs and alcohol and stuff like that, but we don’t talk about the good stuff that has gone on in some of these communities. We need to concentrate a lot more on those things that people are giving back, that do good work in the community and they never are acknowledged.