The Trauma Response Team: a Community Intervention for Gang Violence

While violent crime has decreased in many cities in the USA, gang-related violence remains a serious problem in impoverished inner city neighborhoods. In Syracuse, New York, gang-related murders and gun shots have topped other New York state cities. Residents of the high-murder neighborhoods suffer trauma similar to those living in civil conflict zones. The Trauma Response Team was established in 2010, in collaboration with the Police Department, health care institutions, and emergency response teams and with the research support of Syracuse University faculty. Since its inception, gang-related homicides and gun shots have decreased in the most severely affected census tracts.