Milwaukee County partners with national nonprofit focused on gun violence prevention 

Milwaukee County leaders announced a three-year partnership Tuesday with a national nonprofit aimed at preventing gun violence. 

The nonprofit, Advance Peace, focuses on young people involved in gun violence with a fellowship program that lasts 18 to 24 months. The program partners fellows with mentors who help connect them to resources.

Ray Murphy, a pastor at Mount Olive Baptist Church on the city’s north side, will be one of the mentors in Milwaukee. Murphy said mentors will counsel young people in the program and help them establish life goals.

“That’s the ultimate goal, right, is change,” Murphy said. “Trying to make them see the best that they can be — where it’s not my goal for them, but it’s their goal for themselves. And then of course if you need some help to push you further, then certainly we do that.” 

The Advance Peace program started in Richmond, California, after the police department there told DeVone Boggan, the former director of the city’s office of neighborhood safety and the founder of Advance Peace, that fewer than 30 people were responsible for a majority of the gun crimes in the city. At a press conference Tuesday, Boggan said the initiative has since expanded to around 15 cities nationwide.

Boggan said the program is aimed at addressing individuals who participate in “retaliatory” or “gang-related gun violence.” He said it’s for young people who have “avoided law enforcement reach.”

“We also know that most of these individuals will never be prosecuted for their suspected acts of gun violence,” Boggan said. “Now they may go into the system, but it will be for a lesser crime, which means they’ll be back out into these communities where they are suspected to have … perpetrated a crime, a gun crime, only to be better prepared to get back into the gang war.”

Boggan said the goal is to intervene in those individual’s lives.

“We’re going to get them connected to every service provision available, accessible and ready for them,” Boggan said.

Boggan said the program does not partner with law enforcement.

A report from the the Center for Global Healthy Cities at the University of California, Berkeley, researched the program’s effectiveness in Lansing, Michigan, from October 2022 through March 2024. The report found the team of outreach workers and mentors there “prevented 41 potential shootings by mediating conflicts where guns were present.”

The report found the fellows in the program received “trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy,” as well as life coaching. 

Milwaukee County received a $2 million federal grant to help start the initiative. It will be run through the the children, youth and family services division of the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services. The county will also partner with the Milwaukee Christian Center to help run the mentorship program.

Kelly Pethke, the administrator for the county’s children, youth and family services division, said around 80 people, mainly aged 14 to 24, will take part in the program in the next three years. She said the main goal is to reduce gun violence.

“That’s where we’re really targeting all our efforts,” Pethke said. “But it’s also leaving those individuals in a better space than where they came into the program and its being able to make a bigger impact on a small group of people across Milwaukee County.” 

David Muhammad, the deputy director of the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services, said he believes the work will help save lives. 

“Advance Peace interrupts gun violence by investing in the development, health and wellbeing of those driving gun violence, those at the center of the crisis, in a way that alters their life trajectories,” Muhammad said Tuesday. “It keeps them from going to an early grave or an unnecessary jail cell, if we can intervene early enough.” 

Gun violence has plagued Milwaukee for decades. It’s also a top concern for some residents of the city in the upcoming election. 

Homicides, shootings and most other crime has been on the decline since hitting record highs on the heels of the pandemic.

There have been 115 homicides in the city of Milwaukee so far in 2024, according to crime statistics from the Milwaukee Police Department. That’s down 21 percent compared to this time last year, and down 37 percent compared to the same time period in 2022. There have also been 570 nonfatal shootings in the city. That’s a decline of 23 percent from this time last year.

Meanwhile, a new report found deaths involving firearms in Wisconsin have been on the rise since 2018.