Police Chief, Richard Landi, says there's been an increase in violence in his city in recent years and he knows most of it is caused by a small number of people. He wants to reach out to them, with the help of social workers, trusted members of the community, and police officers.
"You have an opportunity here where you can change your life, get your life on a different track, and here are the services available and having somebody there that can reach out and get that person there and connected to it and hopefully change their life so that they're not in jail, they're not dead, they're not becoming a victim themselves."
The goal is to be pro-active and not wait for someone to get involved in violence. There wouldn't just be one visit, people would be assigned to follow up and ensure that services are available.
He says Davenport started its Group Violence Intervention program a year ago and has worked with more than 80 people so far.
"Looking at it, if you figure, okay, we've done 80-plus notifications, of that, six have re-offended, you could say that we have what seems to be a positive result, because those individuals you've done notifications with haven't re-offended yet."
Chief Landi says the Rock Island program is just in the beginning stages of training people, including officers, parole officers, and judges. One sergeant will be assigned to coordinate the program and it will be based at the King Center.
