Center for Justice Innovation Launches the “Street Action Network,” a Cutting-Edge Community Research Program Led by People with Firsthand Knowledge of the Streets
The Street Action Network will leverage community safety research—conducted by and for people with lived experience in street networks—to deepen the Center’s nearly three decades of work to decrease gun violence.
Media Contact: press@innovatingjustice.org
May 31, 2024
BROOKLYN, NY — The Center for Justice Innovation today launched the Street Action Network, a groundbreaking research initiative led by a team with lived experience and high social capital in the streets, aimed at harnessing the power of youth and street culture to end gun violence.
The Street Action Network is built on the knowledge that the people and communities that experience high rates of gun violence are also the ones with the power and expertise to craft solutions and drive lasting change. Gun violence disproportionately affects Black and Brown neighborhoods in New York City, where young Black men are 88 times more likely to be shot compared to young white men, according to an analysis by Vital City.
Co-directors Javonte Alexander and Basaime Spate will rely on their decades of lived experience as gun violence survivors and members of street networks to lead the Street Action Network. Over the past six years, Alexander and Spate have helped run several large-scale gun violence research projects in Brooklyn, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Wilmington, Del., using an innovative participatory action research model, first coined by Dr. Yasser Arafat Payne of University of Delaware. The model brings the community into every aspect of the research, including designing research questions, recruiting participants, analyzing the data, disseminating the results, and taking action on the findings to bring about real, community-led change. Building on a foundation of this groundbreaking research, the Street Action Network will harness the power of youth and street culture to lead gun violence prevention research into a new era.
The Street Action Network was launched at an event today at Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Branch, featuring a conversation among Alexander, Spate, and Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams. The three men spoke candidly about their experiences growing up as Black men in New York City, why they care so deeply about ending gun violence, and how government and communities can work together to improve the health and safety of all New Yorkers.
During their careers, Spate and Alexander helped lead the Center for Justice Innovation’s large-scale participatory action research gun violence studies, including designing research questions, devising fieldwork safety strategies, recruiting participants, conducting hundreds of interviews, supervising participatory action research teams, analyzing data, writing reports, and disseminating findings. They have appeared on countless panels, media interviews, webinars, and podcasts – including WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show and NY1’s Inside City Hall – to discuss their research. They have also presented at national academic conferences, sharing their expertise drawn from a combination of their participatory action research work and their own experiences as gun violence survivors and members of street networks.
Spate previously served as a violence interrupter and outreach worker with Save Our Streets Brooklyn for five years. Alexander was that program’s first participant. While serving as security for a more traditional academic research team conducting a youth gun study that became “Gotta Make Your Own Heaven: Guns, Safety, and the Edge of Adulthood in New York City,” Spate was asked to help reimagine the study’s approach and question design to elicit more direct and frank answers from the young participants. Spate soon brought Alexander on to co-lead their ongoing four-city study on the reasons why young people carry guns. The first installment of that study, “Two Battlefields: Opps, Cops, and NYC Youth Gun Culture,” featured interviews with more than 100 gun-carrying young people in Crown Heights and received significant attention from media, policymakers, and community members upon its release last year.
Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams said, “Holistic public safety work should be informed by data and supported by community infrastructure. I'm proud to join the Center for Justice Innovation for today's launch of the Street Action Network, built on the strategies we know can work and shaped by the information we've learned across years of research and experience. Preventing violence means reaching youth with services, opportunities, and supports—and crucially, listening to them. No one wants to end the violence more than the people and communities feeling it most directly, and we need to answer that need with an infrastructure of involvement and empowerment.”
New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams said, “Holistic public safety work should be informed by data and supported by community infrastructure. I'm proud to join the Center for Justice Innovation for today's launch of the Street Action Network, built on the strategies we know can work and shaped by the information we've learned across years of research and experience. Preventing violence means reaching youth with services, opportunities, and supports—and crucially, listening to them. No one wants to end the violence more than the people and communities feeling it most directly, and we need to answer that need with an infrastructure of involvement and empowerment.”
“With another hot summer ahead of us, we need all hands on deck to end the crisis of gun violence. We are excited to launch the Street Action Network, which adds a crucial new team to the effort: community-based researchers,” said Center for Justice Innovation Executive Director Courtney Bryan. “As trusted community members with lived experience of the streets, the Network’s co-directors and their researchers will provide a more nuanced and accurate picture of gun violence, and will take their findings to a new level, by translating lessons learned into innovative policies, fostering the trust necessary to make lasting change."
“People from street networks have the wisdom and knowledge to help prevent gun violence because they live this every day,” said Basaime Spate, Co-Director of Street Action Network. “As leaders, they build connections with young people to point them in the right direction and address both the reasons they carry guns and their underlying needs. That’s why it's essential to collaborate with these groups to find solutions.”
“I grew up in Crown Heights and have been around these issues for years,” said Javonte Alexander, Co-Director of Street Action Network. “I was even a victim of gun violence myself and I know that perspective builds trust with these networks and means we can be more vulnerable with those who are harder to connect with.”
About the Center for Justice Innovation: The Center for Justice Innovation works with communities and justice systems to advance equity, increase safety, and help individuals and communities thrive. The Center aims to identify and resolve as early as possible the challenges that bring people into the legal system. Since its founding in 1996, the Center has grown from a small group of planners to an organization with a $100 million annual budget and over 800 employees who staff dozens of initiatives in New York, New Jersey, and California, advise practitioners and policymakers across the country and around the world, and conduct research and share their expertise with those seeking to transform the justice system.