American Civil Liberties Union

There was an excellent article in yesterday's New York Times about an innovative approach officials are pursuing in Los Angeles to curb gang violence.  The city's praiseworthy effort will actually result in an improvement of the lives of residents who live in neighborhoods with a long history of gang activity by fostering a greater sense of community, while decreasing crime and violence levels in the process.  The really impressive aspect to this approach is that it doesn't rely on heavy-handed enforcement tactics or harsh new sentencing laws, but instead the simple step of turning on a light.

(Originally posted on The Hill's Congress Blog.)

We know how to stop the violence.

And the full name of the solution says it all: the Youth Prison Reduction through Opportunities, Mentoring, Intervention, Support and Education Act, otherwise known as the Youth PROMISE Act.

This legislation breaks the cycle of violence by getting at its root causes. It will help to curb youth violence and gang activity by investing in proven, evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies that localities develop in partnership with the modern day village, namely our schools, nonprofits, community centers, parents and young people.

For too long, many of our communities have suffered the consequence of crime and gang activities. For too long, we have pursued policies that are neither smart nor effective. For too long, we have given up hope that young people caught up in the vicious cycle known as the school-to-prison pipeline will ever become productive members of society.

That needs to stop. We don’t have to continue to turn our backs on disadvantaged communities or the young people living within them.

Earlier this week, acclaimed actress Robin Wright was in Washington, D.C., for the premiere of a new video that supports the Youth PROMISE Act. This legislation, which is currently pending in Congress, seeks to address youth violence by providing resources to communities to pursue comprehensive, evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies to decrease juvenile delinquency and criminal street gang activity.