The police department says it has deployed three primary strategies: data-informed community engagement, data-driven deployment and focused deterrence. The first two aim to bring resources to areas most affected by violence. Focused deterrence targets high-risk offenders and features both swift sanctions for offenses as well as social services.

Police have also implemented the Teamwork to Evaluate and Analyze Management Strategies concept. TEAMS uses data to help identify root causes of performance issues within the department and guide managerial discussions, DiMartino said.

He also said it was important to note that violent crime goes beyond the department’s efforts. Several initiatives have launched in recent years including Partners for Peace and KC 360, a violence prevention strategy modeled off Omaha 360, which saw a 74% drop in shootings.

“These numbers occurred over the course of 15 years,” DiMartino noted. “I make that a point of emphasis not because we should wait 15 years but we won’t get out of this cycle of violence right away.”

Last May, Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves unveiled a citywide plan called the Violent Crime Reduction Initiative, described as an aggressive collaboration between police and a host of other groups.

The newer programs are in addition to longstanding organizations like the AdHoc Group Against Crime.

AdHoc’s president Damon Daniel said the roots of Kansas City’s gun violence problem can be traced back to generational trauma, economic divestment and institutional racism. Getting at these systemic issues is important, he said, but take time and investment. One potential route is a reparations program, which is currently being studied.

Other components include conflict resolution, particularly for youth, and gun legislation, though that has faced resistance at the state level.

More immediately, Daniel said, police need to arrest more suspects in nonfatal shootings and prosecutors need to file harsher charges.

“There hasn’t been much consequence,” he said, when it comes perpetrators of nonfatal shootings.

Daniel also said that he wants to ensure the $30 million allocated in 2023 by the City Council, to be spent over five years, goes to the most effective crime prevention strategies.

At this week’s Board of Police Commissioners meeting, the members approved a $318 million police department budget for the next fiscal year.

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