The Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency granted over $5 million to Penn Medicine to support gun violence prevention and intervention initiatives.
Penn Medicine News reported on Feb. 15 that state grants will fund anti-violence programs for over two years. Penn Medicine will distribute the $5 million to three programs dedicated to preventing community violence in Philadelphia and treating victims.
One of these initiatives will seek to promote the School District of Philadelphia’s Safe Corridors, which centralizes volunteer efforts to increase safety in school districts. Volunteers are tasked with reporting suspicious activities and patrolling common paths students take to school.
Another initiative supported by the grant is the Penn Trauma Violence Recovery Program, led by five Penn Presbyterian Medical Center employees. PTVRP seeks to mitigate the trauma that victims of violence in Philadelphia experience.
Penn has also launched internal initiatives to prevent violence on campus. Last December, the University appointed a new director of Penn Violence Prevention to serve as a primary resource for students experiencing interpersonal violence.
In January, the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency awarded $100 million to Governor Tom Wolf's administration for reducing community violence. The grants will support 127 projects throughout Pennsylvania.
"Reducing gun violence and making our communities safer has always been my top priority," Gov. Wolf said in a press release. "These grants will help give our communities — and the on-the-ground organizations making a difference across Pennsylvania every day — the tools they need to be even more effective when it comes to reducing violence."
Philadelphia mayoral candidate Helen Gym, a 1993 College graduate, told The Daily Pennsylvanian that she will address the rise in gun violence if elected by creating a collaborative network among city departments to protect the community.
“That means starting every Monday with a Cabinet meeting where every single department head is going to report on what they're going to do to improve safety in our communities,” Gym told the DP in December 2022.
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