Birmingham City Councilor LaTonya Tate, at microphone, co-chairs the BJC-JGP. (Provided)
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By Barnett Wright | The Birmingham Times
In the wake of a record-setting year for homicides in the City of Birmingham, a nonpartisan research organization has launched a partnership with area leaders and agencies to decrease violence and increase health and opportunity in Jefferson County.
Birmingham ended 2024 with 151 homicides, the highest number of killings in the city in nearly a century.
The Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama (PARCA) will serve as an intermediary for the newly formed Birmingham-Jefferson County Justice Governance Partnership which seeks to understand and address the conditions that give rise to crime in neighborhoods where violence is concentrated.
Birmingham City Councilor LaTonya Tate and Jefferson County Commissioner Sheila Tyson co-chair the BJC-JGP and convened the partnership’s leadership council last week at the Women’s Foundation of Alabama.
“You have to have every person a part of the ecosystem,” she said. “You have to have the health department, you have to have philanthropy, you have to have the city, you have to have the county, you have to have the state, you have to have the judges, you have to have the DAs – especially when you’re trying to transform peoples lives … if you’re telling people to put weapons downs or change their lives what am I going to replace it with?”
Other members of the JGP Leadership Council in attendance last week included Jefferson County Health Officer David Hicks, Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr, Bessemer District Attorney Lynneice Washington, Jefferson County Chief Deputy Coroner Bill Yates, as well as representatives from the offices of Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin and Sherriff Mark Pettway, and philanthropic leaders.
The Justice Governance Partnership is being launched with the support of the Aspen Institute’s Criminal Justice Reform Initiative (CJRI), a nonpartisan educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, DC.
Aspen’s Criminal Justice Reform Initiative brings together national experts in criminal justice, education, and budgeting with the aim of helping local communities develop more effective approaches to public safety.
“Without data we can sit up here and say we want to fight crime all day and decrease gun violence … [but] you have to have the data to introduce the evidence-based initiatives that’s happening around the country,” Tate said. “Those closest to the problem are the solution solvers.”
The launch of the JGP follows the release of the Birmingham Crime Commission Report, commissioned by Mayor Woodfin. The commission’s report called for the implementation of evidence-based violence reduction strategies, community engagement and investment, and sustainable governance to implement, monitor, and maintain short-term and long-term solutions.
