The city of Aurora is pleased to announce that its Aurora SAVE strategy has been awarded a federal grant in the amount of nearly $2 million.
Short for Standing Against Violence Every Day, SAVE is a violence-reduction strategy that focuses on groups and their associates (primarily ages 13-25) who are at highest risk for violent victimization and offending within the city of Aurora, with the intention to keep group members alive, safe and free (out of prison). SAVE is a collaboration between the Youth Violence Prevention Program (YVPP), Aurora Police Department (APD) and community partners with strong support from Aurora leaders.
“This is an important strategy for the city, as combatting youth violence remains a top priority for our city and our partners in the Denver metro area,” Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman said. “We are extremely grateful that our federal partners have also recognized the potential of the strategy by supporting us with critical funding.”
A few years ago, the Department of Justice launched the Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CVIPI), a historic federal investment in community violence intervention programs. This much-needed funding will add important resources to the city of Aurora’s continued efforts to reduce youth violence in our community.
The $1,999,702 CVIPI grant will go mainly toward boosting SAVE’s community support services on the support and outreach side of the strategy. Required by the grant agreement, these nonprofit street outreach and violence interrupters are credible, trusted partners and add critical voices in helping to deliver the message that continued violence will not be tolerated, but that help and resources are available should you choose to accept them. The grant will also fund a crime analyst and program administrator dedicated to SAVE within APD, boost victim services specific to SAVE, amplify content creation and marketing efforts, and support the work of SAVE’s ongoing research partner: Dr. Pyrooz and his team at the University of Colorado Boulder.
“I routinely hear from my constituents that youth violence, and how it has escalated in recent years, is a major concern in our community,” Aurora City Council Member Angela Lawson said. “Public safety is still a top priority for our City Council. I am elated that we have been able to secure additional funding to move us forward, and we need everybody — law enforcement, service providers and community partners — on board to make this work.”
Funding will support these services for three years; Oct. 1, 2024, to Sept. 30, 2027. With the new funding, SAVE will have full capability to build out the Group Violence Intervention (GVI) strategy informed by the National Network of Safe Communities (NNSC) and will have the full ability to measure the strategy’s success in decreasing group violence.
SAVE is modeled after the GVI strategy that focuses on the groups in a community at highest risk for violent victimization and offending. NNSC at John Jay College of Criminal Justice works with partners in communities and law enforcement to develop and implement the GVI strategy. NNSC strategies have been successful in more than 60 cities — including Los Angeles; Chicago; Nashville, Tennessee; and Providence, Rhode Island — over almost 20 years. The city of Aurora is the first Colorado city to implement GVI with the NNSC.
The Aurora SAVE strategy has been operational since September 2023. To date, SAVE has selected 121 recipients for custom notifications, attempted 115 of those and contacted 90 of those individuals. Custom notifications provide contacts with access to services such as job training, housing, education, peer support groups, and substance abuse counseling. The average age of custom candidates is 17-18. The city's first group call-in was held on Jan. 31, 2024.
“We meet with youth we’ve identified through different analyses who might be at risk of being a victim or an offender or someone who causes harm and we engage with them,” said Lisa Battan, Intervention Programs Manager for the city of Aurora and the Aurora SAVE Program Manager. “We ask them what kind of support do they need, and what support does the family need? We want to take an intergenerational approach that will speak to our longer-term success.”
“We know that focusing only on incarceration and arrest is not the answer,” said Capt. Mike Hanifin, who is the Law Enforcement Lead for SAVE. “It is our goal to try to get ahead of it and do intervention on the front end because this strategy is all about the double message of empathy, we’ll help if you let us; and accountability, we’ll stop you if you make us.”
The mission is to reduce the number of group-involved non-fatal and fatal shootings in Aurora as these statistics are both high per capita and increasing over the past years. This focused deterrence approach to violent gun crime reduction relies on supportive partnerships between law enforcement, social services and community moral voice representation.
The partnerships currently in place include City Council members, district attorneys, courts, parole and probation, school districts, federal law enforcement agencies, and various city departments such those that focus on human and social services, and local community-based organizations. The SAVE Governing Board held its third meeting on Oct. 23.
If you think someone in the community could benefit from SAVE, or if you are interested in getting involved, visit AuroraGov.org/SAVE for more information.