Building a Safer Lexington for All

With the implementation of GVI, David Kloiber intends to create a steering committee to oversee the new community-oriented model. This group of appointed public safety policy experts, police, elected officials, and community leaders will directly vote on any proposed changes to our current policies. This takes these important policy decisions out of the hands of any one individual and ensures that the community has a direct voice in the law enforcement process.

For GVI to be effective the government needs to facilitate the creation of community partnerships that allow the police to directly refer people to organizations that can help them. As Mayor, David Kloiber intends to create robust partnerships with nonprofits, social service providers, and community leaders so that these groups can work hand in hand with our law enforcement officials to help those who are stuck in patterns of violence.

While the reasons for violence can be many and varied, this initiative aims to reduce violent crime by preventing the second, third, and fourth incident of violence that happens in response to the first. By identifying groups that have been involved in incidents and working with communities to monitor these activities we can prevent violence that stems from an initial altercation.

While GVI is one of the most talked about initiatives that the National Network for Safe Communities advocates for, there is another equally valuable program that David Kloiber intends to bring to Lexington as Mayor. Intimate Partner Violence Intervention (IPVI) follows the same structure as GVI in creating partnerships between law enforcement, community members, social service providers, and victim’s advocates, but the focus of these partnerships is to remove the burden of preventing violence from the victim. Strong enforcement actions are used to deter and incapacitate the most dangerous offenders, while close partnerships with victim’s advocates ensure victims have access to support structures to prevent further harm.

Our world has changed greatly in the last few years and we must change along with it. As Mayor, David Kloiber will bring in new prevention models like GVI and IPVI while creating a steering committee to oversee the programs into the future.

This model of public safety is a shift away from policing strategies that lead to the over-policing of minority and lower-income communities. So while we cannot expect to end all violence, implementation of this program is the first step towards building a community of greater trust between residents and police, while creating robust partnerships that will reduce the bloodshed.