Ann Givens 
The Trace
The most comprehensive study yet of a popular violence-prevention group’s New York City program has found it effective in reducing gun crime and defusing situations that can lead to shootings in two neighborhoods where it is in force.
Cure Violence, a national, public health-based program that employs “credible messengers” like former gang members and ex convicts from within the community to help defuse violent situations before they start, was responsible for statistically significant drops in the number of shooting victims and gunshot hospitalizations in areas of East New York, Brooklyn, and the South Bronx, according to a new study by researchers at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.