INDIANAPOLIS — Indianapolis city leadership told 13News this week that criminal homicides and nonfatal shooting were down in 2023, but an area of focus in 2024 will be combatting youth violence, which spiked last year.
IMPD reports show 24 people under the age of 18 were a victim of homicide in 2023. The Office of Public Health and Safety announced it will hire someone this year to work specifically on this issue.
"OPHS and IMPD and our community organizations have identified the next step is to really home in on the prevention efforts," said Lauren Rodriguez, deputy mayor of Public Health and Safety.
That responsibility will fall on the chief prevention officer, a new position for the city.
"A lot of what we do at OPHS is, they're programs that the community has told us that we need," said Martine Romy Bernard-Tucker, director of the office of Public Health and Safety. She told 13News the chief prevention officer will identify programs across the city that will keep children out of the cycle of violence. Some programs are already in action, backed by money from elevation grants.
"You're not going to see the results in a month, you're not going to see it in 10 years even, but when you look at the life of a person at 8 years old and then you look at him at 28, you can see where their trajectory may have changed," said Bernard-Tucker.
She said this position will run side-by-side with OPHS's gun violence intervention efforts, which they say have been very successful.
"When you think about the gun violence strategy and the violence reduction team, we're saying we don't want a one size fits all solution to this problem," said Bernard-Tucker. "We want you to specifically target people that need the help and help them in a way that they need it."
She hopes the city will fill the chief prevention officer position by the end of the first quarter of 2024.