Vision

The York City Police Department (YCPD) believes that gun related violence can be reduced through support of community outreach efforts and an umbrella of proven law enforcement.

Mission

To facilitate law enforcement strategies that equally engage police with the community toward a common goal of reducing gun related violence.

Goals

Success of GVI is based on both qualitative and quantitative assessments.  Qualitative assessment is measured by the participation of community groups and individuals in the outreach portion of the strategy.  Quantitative measurement includes fatal and non-fatal shootings.

GVI Umbrella

GVI started as a means to address gun violence among chronic offenders who are also involved in group criminal activity. 

The difference between a group involved in criminal activity and gang involvement is that in groups we observe loosely created and often incohesive involvement.  Gangs are generally more cohesive in nature and have more defined structure.  A gang can also be considered a group.  However, by limiting ourselves to the definition of gang, I believe we are limiting the impact of our efforts through GVI operations.  The initial training by the National Network for Safe Communities out of John Jay College in New York City instructed that as successful law enforcement and support and outreach operations progressed, so to would GVI operations infiltrate other violent events. 

This has now occurred, and I describe GVI as an umbrella of academically accepted criminological theories of crime.  These are applied through precision law enforcement operations, and implementation of community policing, specifically the concept of problem-oriented policing.  This infiltration now involves all divisions of the police department in response to all gun related violence.  The law enforcement operations conducted have been used singularly throughout the United States as part of the United States Department of Justice programs from Project Safe Neighborhood.  The GVI project manager directs the balance between law enforcement and support and outreach operations. 

For a more detailed look at GVI watch the full presentation below.