Urban Peace Institute

Training and regional support - through The Urban Peace academy, The organization trains residents, peacemakers, and law enforcement officers in public health approaches to reduce violence including developing various strategies and ideologies to better operate within The field of community safety. Upi's trainings includes curriculums centering around developing and establishing a "license to operate" which is formed through relationship building efforts, strategies to conduct community outreach, mediation & conflict resolution, professional standards, trauma-informed practices, importance of self-care and worker wellness, and utilizing cultural ideologies to create shared community groups. To date, upi trained over 5,000 peacemakers, residents, community practitioners, and health outreach workers to support community health and safety. Studies have demonstrated that our gang intervention training has resulted in a 41% reduction in retaliatory violence and prevented 185 gang retaliations in los angeles over a one year time span. As a result of upi's regional support efforts, chicago has established its own Peace academy to train violence intervention workers, and sacramento experienced zero youth homicides for two years, crediting The Urban Peace Institute's support for this historic victory in saving The lives of its children. In addition, upi's technical assistance program trained over 70 violence interrupters, on-the-ground organizations and multi-sector partners throughout The country on community violence intervention strategies in 2023 alone.

Justice transformation (formerly smart justice) - upi works to develop alternative solutions to mass incarceration and juvenile incarceration facilities by developing strategies to disrupt The prison pipeline and provide holistic alternatives to limit The number of bipoc youth that end up in The justice system. We do this through a three-pronged system: training, advocacy, and power-building. Upi trains prison-based violence interventionists, or credible messengers, to provide youth development services and restorative justice programs within juvenile facilities, we work with The la youth uprising coalition (layup) to lead advocacy campaigns to hold probation officers and The county accountable for their mistreatment of The youth in these, often, unsafe facilities while also advocating for funds to be diverted from private prisons and be reallocated towards proven youth development services that focus on ensuring youth are not shepherded to The prison system as is often seen in The case of underserved black and brown individuals. Lastly, upi also empowers youth through youth leadership and liberation fellowships. Upi's advocacy has eliminated funding for harmful school-based probation services in los angeles county and has ensured The establishment of The new department of youth development, which launched in 2022.

Community health and safety - in los angeles, upi implements on-the-ground violence reduction programs, including three school safety collaboratives to increase safety for families and students, a leadership Institute to develop The civic engagement and advocacy capacity of black and brown residents, and spearheads The community safety partnership, a relationship-based policing initiative to prevent and reduce violence in ten underserved communities. While homicides are still high within these communities, due to efforts to establish initiatives focused on non-violent conflict resolution, in 2020, violent crime went down by 5%, compared to The previous year. In total, upi's csh program serves over 20 students annually in our leadership Institute trainings and engages over 60 residents within our three school safety collaboratives sites, working with leaders in their communities to establish and develop strategies to ensure students' welfare and increase school participation.