Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams in Conversation with the Street Action Network

Update June 5, 2024
Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams in a panel discussion with Basaime Spate and Javonte Alexander, co-directors of Street Action Network

To mark the launch of the cutting-edge Street Action Network, Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams led a conversation with Co-Directors Javonte Alexander and Basaime Spate on the future of community safety research.

How can we ensure that our responses to gun violence reflect what the people most impacted really need? That was the focus of a moving, raw, and insightful conversation led by Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams with Javonte Alexander and Basaime Spate, co-directors of a new initiative called the Street Action Network.

For years, Alexander and Spate have been using their connections to street networks to get access to insights about gun violence that only the people closest to the problem have. The research projects they helped lead revealed that many young people carry guns out of fear—fear driven by widespread experiences of violence.

With the Street Action Network, they’re building on those insights—and the unique trust they have in the community—to put people with firsthand experience of the streets at the center of gun violence research and shape the policies of tomorrow.

Co-Directors Basaime Spate and Javonte Alexander introduce the Street Action Network.

“Imagine getting the answers from the people who are closest to the problem,” said Public Advocate Williams. “That should’ve been what we were doing from the beginning.”

Their conversation touched on the need to bring people with lived experience of gun violence and street networks into research and policy, the importance of community-led strategies to build safety, and why we can’t address gun violence without addressing structural racism.

“As far as politicians and policymakers, research has opened the door for us to sit at those tables and have those conversations,” said Spate. “So when they’re making these crucial decisions about people’s everyday lives, they're more informed on the truth from the community and from the street.”

Group photo with Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams and Street Action Network co-directors Basaime Spate and Javonte Alexander.

Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams with Javonte Alexander and Basaime Spate.

That truth is rarely reflected in typical narratives about why young people carry guns. “A lot of kids, they won’t admit it, but once they get vulnerable, they have fear,” Alexander said. “Whether it’s with police or where they live at in their own community.”

By directly engaging young people involved in gangs and the street economy, the Street Action Network will transform community safety research to better reflect their day-to-day realities and lay the groundwork for lasting change.

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