In 2016, FBI statistics found Alabama has the third highest murder rate in the country with homicides in the City of Selma spiking in recent years. Violence rates in Selma are driven by several factors, including a low median income of $24,820, a high average unemployment rate of 5.5 percent in 2019, gang-related violence, and consistently high drop-out rates in its only public high school. 

The unemployment rate in Selma remains high at an average of 5.5 percent across 2019, compared to 3.0 percent in Alabama and 3.7 percent in the U.S. Forty-one percent of Selma residents, including an estimated 60 percent of children, are living below the poverty line. Dallas County, which includes the City of Selma and the area of Selmont, was the poorest county in Alabama in 2018 with a 35.4 percent poverty rate.  

Violence rates in the Selma metro area have not seen a serious decline in years. In fact, Selma continues to have a reputation of being one of the most violent cities in Alabama, named the eighth most dangerous per capita in the country in 2016. In 2019, Dallas County had the highest rate of gun violence among all 67 counties in Alabama.  

The Selma community and law enforcement have a fractured relationship, making it difficult to solve murders. Often, marginalized groups in the community do not provide information to officers because some feel their trust has been broken in the past and would often face retaliation if they did share information. Many have never healed from decades of hurt because of officer involvement in preventing African Americans from registering to vote in Selma.  

Recently, there have been incidents involving citizen and police shootouts, and three officers have been indicted for falsifying information to a grand jury. These factors have evolved into a culture that discourages citizens from speaking to or trusting police. However, there have been examples in recent years of community members building new relationships with the Selma Police Department (SPD), showing the promise of collaborations aimed at reducing violent crime. 

The goals of the project include: 

1. Reducing street-level violence through an effective, evidence-based outreach framework to engage with individuals most likely to shoot, be shot, and to commit a violent crime. 

2. Reducing acts of retaliation and increasing positive healing through intervention services and nonviolence conflict resolution skill-building. 

3. Increasing economic opportunities for individuals and neighborhoods through hiring project staff directly from the neighborhoods in which the project will be based. 

The Planning Phase will focus on two evidence-based services: 

• Nonviolence street outreach worker program. 

• Victim services – providing holistic wraparound services to those affected by violence.  

The first stage of the Planning Phase will address project preparation through the following initiatives:  

• Identify scope and characteristics of problems.  

• Identify collaborating partners and form cross-sector partnership and community advisory board for evaluation. 

• Identify current resources for possible redirection for at-risk young people that might assist in implementation (i.e., funding for employment programming, etc.). 

• Concentrate on focus areas for streetworker intervention activities. 

• Build community buy-in. 

• Facilitate dialogue around model adaptation. 

• Create timeline for selection, training, implementation launch, follow-up, evaluation, and measurement. 

• Finalize an evaluation partner and establish data collection system. 

• Establish organizational and partner policies and procedures (shooting notifications, hospital response, victim compensation, Attorney General’s Office, etc.). 

• Gain an understanding of available victim resources and how to utilize those resources. 

The second stage of the Planning Phase will address training through the following initiatives: 

• Nonviolence Street Outreach Workers. 

• Law enforcement agencies, faith-based, community, social service providers. 

• Victim service advocates. 

• Employment specialist. 

• The Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth, & Reconciliation (SCNTR) Staff/Leadership. 

• Learning trips for partners including SPD, SCNTR staff, other key community members, and evaluator. 

By implementing the Beloved Healthy Community Framework (BHCF), the Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth, and Reconciliation (SCNTR) will combine several nationally recognized, evidence-based community violence intervention (CVI) strategies. The goals of this project are to reduce street-level violence through an effective, evidence-based outreach framework to engage with individuals most likely to shoot, be shot, and to commit violent crime, reduce acts of retaliation and increase positive healing through intervention services and nonviolence conflict resolution skill-building, and increase economic opportunities for individuals and neighborhoods through hiring project staff directly from the neighborhoods in which they will be based. The grantee site will implement the following CVI strategies to achieve its goals:

• Street Outreach: Utilize trusted messengers from the project areas to regularly engage and stay in contact with individuals to connect them with services such as intensive case management, mentoring, education, job training and skill building, conflict mediation, cognitive behavioral therapy, counseling, relocation services and victim services.
• Victim Services: Provide holistic client-centered, wraparound services to survivors of homicide and living victims of violent crime. 
• Employment and Education Opportunities: Partner with local community organizations to provide training skills to secure and maintain employment. Increase self-awareness and create opportunities for young people to contribute to the community. 
• Nonviolence Training: Offer and conduct trainings in various settings including community-based organizations, schools, police and in focus areas themselves. 

Nonviolence Institute, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Kellogg Foundation, Black Belt Community Foundation, Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, AmeriCorps VISTA, Mayor’s Office, Selma Police Department