The City of Albuquerque is hoping to soon partner with the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office to create a Violence Intervention Program for the unincorporated areas of Bernalillo County. 

City Councilor Nichole Rogers will introduce legislation at the next meeting to allow the city to apply for a $1,392,698 grant from the New Mexico Department of Health’s Office of Gun Violence. That grant would be used to support the joint effort and to expand the city’s program, whose goal is to end the cycle of violence proactively and to assist the county in starting its own program. 

Rogers said she is excited that BCSO wants to start its own VIP.

“The City of Albuquerque can’t handle the capacity for everything, so it’s so nice to have partners who want to work on this with us, because it’s truly, truly what we need,” she said. 

If awarded, the grant would fund one sergeant, three detectives, one “credible messenger”  – an individual who is able to connect with and motivate the most at-risk young people to successfully challenge and transform destructive thinking, attitudes, and actions  – three peer support workers, and seven community-based organizations, flyers and program information, door hangers, and contact information materials. 

Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen declined to answer specific questions about how the program would work for his office, stating that it was too early in the process. 

The bill is scheduled to be heard at the May 6 city council meeting. 

How the Violence Intervention Program works 

The Violence Intervention Program, which was launched in 2020, was initially run by the Albuquerque Police Department but it is now administered through Albuquerque Community Safety. Since the program’s start, 872 individuals have gone through it.

Rogers said the city’s VIP works with victims of gun violence to prevent retaliation by offering victims the resources they need to remove themselves from activities that would continue the cycle of violence. The intervention starts when a victim is in the hospital recovering from their injuries.

“All the research shows that if we get to them while they’re in the trauma, we can really have a better rate of keeping them from that, (the cycle of violence), because it’s fresh,” she said. 

The program has a running success rate of over 90%, according to Rogers, which means that participants have not engaged in gun violence in two years. 

The VIP focuses on peer support, social service referrals, and mediation. Individuals who continue to engage in violent criminal activity are addressed through the framework of focused deterrence, which tries to deter a person away from risky behavior that puts them in a place to become a victim of gun violence. 

Jasmine Desiderio, deputy director of Violence Prevention and Intervention at Albuquerque Community Safety, said the program uses the John Jay College-focused deterrence strategy to reduce gun violence. 

“This strategy relies on a unique partnership between peer support workers, community members, and law enforcement to intervene with the individuals most likely to engage in gun violence,” she said. 

Using the peer-led strategy to end the cycle of violence is why the VIP is important, Desiderio said. Peer-support workers who have removed themselves from similar circumstances can sincerely connect with individuals and understand their current lives. 

Zero recidivism

There’s also a school-based VIP at West Mesa High School. Desiderio said 40 students have been receiving continuous support.

The school-based program known as the SBVIP, is funded by a WK Kellogg Foundation grant. 

“The SBVIP is a peer-led violence reduction initiative that focuses on youth at the highest risk for engaging in cycles of violence, including gun violence. ACS’s SBVIP Intervention Specialist is placed full-time in the school,” Desiderio said. 

The SBVIP works by teaching kids de-escalation skills and conflict resolution that would keep them from picking up a gun to settle their problems. Since the program began at West Mesa High School, one participant went from a grade point average of 0.8 to 3.5 and disassociated themselves from gang activities. 

“SBVIP has had a zero recidivism rate on campus with participants since 2022,” Desiderio said. 

In August, Desiderio said they expanded the SBVIP to RFK Charter High School, and Rogers said the city would like to expand the program to other schools. 

Rogers said trauma-informed care is understanding how trauma shows up in people’s bodies, and emotions and how they process information, and taking that to the forefront in how they are cared for. 

People who sign up to be first responders or who work providing services to the community should be thinking about trauma-informed care, Rogers said. 

“We do have a lot of folks in trauma who have lived with trauma and who are just trying to cope and sometimes the trauma responses we should be sensitive to those and know how to navigate them so that we still can help them get treatment or get to mental health services so that they can live a better life,” she said.