Long before gang violence in Syracuse killed 20-month-old Rashad Walker Jr., a group of agencies had already begun the long, tedious process of creating a comprehensive assessment of gang presence in the Syracuse community. It’s an effort Linda Wright hopes will lead to grant money to help authorities address gang-related issues specific to Syracuse – issues that have never been comprehensively looked at. Wright is the executive director for professional and community services at the Salvation Army of the Syracuse Area. “Law enforcement, the schools, and agencies all have data,” Wright said. “But we need to pull it together and look at a comprehensive report that we can take to funding sources and say, these are our issues, this is what we have to address, and these are the needs we have.” Wright has spearheaded an effort that has so far included Syracuse police and probation officers, schools and city officials, the United State Attorney’s office, Mothers Against Gun Violence, Weed and Seed, and law enforcement statistics Finn Institute to establish an assessment of gangs in Syracuse. The assessment will look at both hard data and statistics, like the number of shots fired in each city neighborhood, as well as the community feeling toward violence and gangs. “There’s not just hard data, there are also issues and feelings and sorting out the perspectives from the whole community,” Wright said. While many individual agencies have collected information over time to suit their needs, an accredited comprehensive assessment is required for some federal grants Wright had hoped to apply for last spring. “We have lots of data, but we didn’t really have full community assessment,” Wright said. So the next step was to get other agencies on board.
The group has met twice so far, Wright said, and is looking to involve even more local agencies in the effort. “It is a very, very complicated and complex issue,” she said. “From the impact of poverty, the involvement of drugs and drug trafficing, the accessibility of guns, and the hopelessness young people feel while surviving poverty.” Like any public health issue, Wright said, gaining a full understanding of Syracuse’s concerns, issues and obstacles will require “everybody’s commitment to make a change.” “A full understanding of what our community concerns are is a good start, but it’s not like we’re going to bulid one perfect strategy,” Wright said. “We can’t jump start and stop short-term plans over time, it’s got to be really concentrated effort.”