Safe Streets Baltimore, established in 2007, is an evidence-based, public health program to reduce gun violence. The program is modeled after the Chicago-based Cure Violence program, which employs outreach professionals to mediate brewing conflicts that could result in gun violence. Safe Streets workers focus on community outreach, public education, conflict mediation, and violence interruption within a specific geographic area. 

Safe Streets outreach workers and violence interrupters work on the frontlines to put themselves in front of a firearm to de-escalate situations and mediate conflict. Safe Streets staff members are screened, interviewed, and selected to work in specific target areas within the city in which they are identified as credible messengers. Safe Streets team members can connect and build rapport with individuals who are classified as high-risk, and connect them to life-sustaining resources. 

Reporting at the site level tells us that, when mediating conflicts, anywhere from 70-90 percent of incidents have a high likelihood of gun violence because one or both parties have displayed a gun or are known to carry a gun. Conflict mediation is the process of attempting to resolve a dispute or conflict by: 

• Listening to each party involved 

• Calming the situation down 

• Identifying ways to meet each side’s needs 

• Adequately addressing their interests so each is satisfied with the outcome 

Safe Streets conducted 1,283 mediations in 2024 across all ten sites. 

Our Partners 

In 2022, Mayor Scott initiated a new operation model for Safe Streets, Baltimore’s flagship violence intervention program, transitioning all sites from eight community-based administrators to two: LifeBridge Health’s Center for Hope and Catholic Charities.  

LifeBridge Health’s Center for Hope and Catholic Charities collectively offer services that make up almost every component of the CVI ecosystem, including victim services, hospital-based violence intervention programming, community outreach, life coaching, and mediation and violence intervention. These expanded partnerships will utilize the capacity that already exists and help to develop Baltimore’s CVI ecosystem more efficiently.   

How many people does it serve? 

Safe Streets serves the residents within its 10 catchment zones across Baltimore City, totaling 2.6 square miles. Find an interactive map of Baltimore’s CVI ecosystem, including all ten Safe Streets sites integrated into Baltimore’s Public Safety Accountability Dashboard.  

Safe Streets currently operates in these 10 neighborhoods: 

• Belair-Edison 

• Belvedere 

• Brooklyn 

• Cherry Hill 

• Franklin Square 

• McElderry Park 

• Park Heights 

• Penn-North 

• Sandtown-Winchester 

• Woodbourne-McCabe 

How has Safe Streets contributed to crime reduction? 

An academic evaluation conducted by Johns Hopkins Epidemiologist Dr. Daniel Webster examined the efficacy of the Safe Streets program from its inception in 2007. The evaluation found that the weighted average of program effects across all sites estimated a statistically significant 23% reduction in shootings associated with program implementation and that the estimated three shootings prevented (one fatal and two nonfatal) per Safe Streets site per year suggests social and economic benefits of $7.2 to $19.2 per every dollar spent on the program, depending on the method used to estimate the costs of shootings. 

Reporting  

In line with Mayor Scott’s Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan’s (CVPP) promise to identify, track, and share key performance metrics and our shared commitment to transparency, MONSE’s Safe Streets Annual Reports share both post-specific and programmatic data around incidents of gun violence, mediation, and community engagement efforts. The public can find these reports on MONSE’s ‘Reports and Resources’ tab.  Additionally, MONSE shares year-to-date Safe Streets mediation data on our social media pages.