Cincinnati officials announced a new blueprint for violence reduction Tuesday.
Most of the initiatives in "Achieving Change Together for Cincy," or "ACT for Cincy," are already established and funded.
"What ACT for Cincy does is create an ecosystem that touches as many people as possible," said City Manager Sheryl Long. "We wanted to create the foundation, including people who have not gotten involved yet. The name 'ACT' is not an accident — we need constant, strong action to respond to this crisis."
The framework includes several goals:
- 5-10% reduction in gun-related injuries within three years
- 75% utilization rate of mental health and community-based services by youth and families
- Increase participation in after-school and mentorship programs, with a goal of engaging 4,000 students annually
- Improved trust between residents and law enforcement through community problem-oriented policing partnerships as measured by qualitative surveys
Long says the city also plans to publish online dashboards to report progress, including data on gun violence. Some of that data is already available on the Cincy Insights dashboard, which shows a decline in the number of shooting incidents and victims over the last three years:
| Year | Shooting Incidents | Shooting Victims |
| 2022 | 334 | 401 |
| 2023 | 313 | 379 |
| 2024 | 296 | 355 |
Assistant City Manager Virginia Tallent says violence is not an unsolvable problem.
"Approximately 4% of the city's geography is responsible for most of the gun violence," Tallent said. "We know the communities that are the most impacted. And so this is something that we can solve, but we have to all row in the same direction, and we have to fund community strategies and interventions that work."
ACT for Cincy includes five pillars of focus
- thriving neighborhoods
- reduced accessibility of firearms to youth
- improved well being
- improved youth support
- evidence-based policing innovations
RELATED: Cincinnati Police announce 'out-of-home safe storage' program for guns
Cincinnati Police Chief Teresa Theetge says the entire city needs to work toward violence reduction.
"Today, with a refined blueprint for violence reduction in hand, your Cincinnati Police Department is more empowered than ever before," Theetge said. "This blueprint ensures that we don't simply react to crime, but take a proactive, strategic and unified approach in our efforts."
One new initiative is a Strategic Innovations Bureau within CPD, which will oversee existing programs like the Crime Gun Intelligence Center and Place Based Investigations.
Non-police strategies include after-school and enrichment programs, youth mentoring, and grants to community organizations like through the Boots on the Ground and Safe and Clean funds.
Read the full ACT for Cincy plan on the city website, or embedded below:
