The Fresno City Council is working to find funding for the Advance Peace program, a regional anti-violence initiative. During budget hearings, City Hall staff were ordered to crunch the numbers to fully staff the program for the next two fiscal years.

Program Effectiveness

A joint study by UC Berkeley and UC Merced credited the program with helping reduce city gun violence by as much as 46% two years after its implementation. The report concluded that Advance Peace may be an effective strategy to reduce gun violence.

Advance Peace Program Manager Aaron Foster asked the council to fund the program at $1 million for one fiscal year. Councilmember Mike Karbassi praised the work of Foster and his team, which has been widely credited with helping Fresno police cut retaliatory street-gang violence to new lows.

Mayor Jerry Dyer, a longtime Advance Peace advocate, joined Karbassi in calling on the Fresno County Board of Supervisors to contribute funding towards the program. The council has been working to find the money to make Advance Peace whole since the Trump administration abruptly abandoned several grant programs, including the one that funded the program last year.

Original reporting: Fresnoland — read the source article.