Miami's Little Haiti and Model City ("Liberty City") neighborhoods are predominantly Haitian and African American. Both have a variety of neighborhood assets, such as multiple schools and education centers, community organizations, locally owned businesses, faith and social service organizations, and social programs. However, there are virtually no social programs for young men over 14. Little Haiti and Model City suffer community development challenges due to equity gaps and increasing gentrification. According to a recent census, there are deep pockets of poverty within these two areas ranging as high as 59% to 62%, with an overall poverty rate of 34% in both neighborhoods. Unemployment rates are at 22% and above. 

As the second-largest city in Florida, Miami experiences a chronically high level of crime – particularly gun violence. Between 2019 and 2020, there was a 24.5% spike in gun violence incidents and a 132% increase from 2018 to 2020. Little Haiti and Model City accounted for almost 58% of Miami's gun violence incidents during this same period.  

The program goals for the project will drive the Miami BCJI objectives:  

• Design the City of Miami BCJI Project evidence-informed strategy to reduce serious violence in the targeted neighborhoods in the City of Miami.  

• Implement customized and tailored strategies to reduce serious violence in the targeted neighborhoods. 

• Develop a plan to sustain Miami's strategy beyond the life of this federal grant.  

The City of Miami is particularly interested in a focused deterrence approach known as the "Group Violence Intervention" (GVI). Through problem analysis, Miami will assess the extent to which a highly tailored and customized version of GVI might be appropriate for the violence dynamics in the City of Miami. GVI is a focused deterrence framework that falls under the umbrella of Community Violence Intervention strategies. GVI hosts call-in sessions to join community members with law enforcement and social service providers to deliver an antiviolence message to highly active street groups disproportionately involved in homicides and shooting violence. Engaging groups versus individuals is critical because the internal dynamics of groups drive cycles of violence that persist even as law enforcement works to address individual shootings or homicides.  

During planning, the Miami Police Department (MPD) will work closely with the BCJI Team to provide pertinent information for an in-depth problem analysis to inform the Action Plan. The analysis will include a group audit, a violent incident review, and an examination of crime drivers. Simultaneously, the BCJI Team will identify and convene a working group of law enforcement, social service providers, and community representatives with moral authority on issues of violence. This working group will provide input to the project's BCJI management team in the planning phase and support the design and implementation of activities in the implementation phase.  

The primary goal of the Miami BCJI Action Plan is to reduce the number of group-involved violent incidents in the geographic focus areas. To achieve these goals, the grantee site and its project partners will implement the following strategies:

• Designing an evidence-informed framework that focuses on the most vulnerable people 
• Acknowledging dynamics contributing to serious violence
• Prioritizing community safety
• Enhancing legitimacy of institutional public safety actors
• Engaging community members in the given framework
• Minimizing the use of traditional enforcement-focused policing tactics 

Specifically, through implementing the group violence intervention (GVI) model, the site will support the following sub-strategies:

• Call-Ins: Law enforcement, service providers, community members, representatives from the United States Attorney's Office, Miami Office (USAO), and the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office (SAO) will meet with group members at the highest risk of committing violence to deter future violence. 
• Violent Crime Intervention Team (VCIT): The Miami Police Department (MPD) Criminal Investigations Division will work with first responders and street outreach public safety professionals to follow up with 100 percent of contact shooting victims to deter retaliation. 
• Shooting Analysis: MPD and project partners will convene to conduct a shooting analysis of all shooting incidents to share information and determine appropriate responses. 
• Custom Notifications: Representatives from MPD will deliver individualized information weekly to community members at risk of being victimized or committing acts of violence. 
• Walking One Stop: Ummah Futures International (UFI), led by Wayne Rawlins, in partnership with multi-disciplinary stakeholders, will conduct door-to-door Walking One Stops to bring resources to neighborhoods that experience shootings or violence. 
• Hospital-Based Violence Intervention (HBVI): CVI public safety professionals working with UFI will follow up with shooting victims in hospital trauma units shortly after their injury to offer services and support to address trauma, connect victims with appropriate services, and deter retaliation. 
• Quarterly Block Meetings: The Miami Team will hold quarterly block meetings in the immediate area of each contact shooting to address gun violence and empower residents impacted by the violence to provide feedback. 

Ummah Futures International (UFI), U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of Florida