City's anti-violence strategy expands to teens as homicides fall for fourth year

While overall gun violence has been trending down in Indianapolis over recent years, gun violence involving children is still a problem. 

The Indianapolis Mayor’s office announced the expansion  of its Youth Violence Reduction Initiative on Wednesday to further tackle that problem. It's modeled after the Gun Violence Reduction Strategy launched in 2022. 

The City partnered with the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform in 2021 to assess the state of violence in the city. 

According to Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration, there has been a 62% reduction in criminal homicides and a 48% reduction in non-fatal shooting incidents since 2021. 

While the Gun Violence Reduction Strategy focused on 18 to 35-year-olds, the youth initiative will focus on those 17-years-old and younger. 

“Over the past four years this administration’s Gun Violence Reduction Strategy has delivered consistent, meaningful reductions in violence for the city of Indianapolis,” Hogsett said, “But numbers are not what matters most – it’s the lives behind them.”

The  program aims to reach young people who are most at risk of becoming involved in violence, through numerous community partnerships. 

Partners include local grassroots groups VOICES Corp., New B.O.Y., Inner Beauty and Vantage Point. The initiative  offers mentorships, therapy and family support, with the intention of improving school engagement and reducing violence. 

Kia Wright, executive director of VOICES, says that her organization’s work isn’t just about engaging youth but also their families as well. 

“It's real easy to say that the young people need to be fixed, and that if we do this, if we get them in mentoring, if we get them in therapy, things will magically change, but we're putting them right back in these same situations,” Wright said. “So part of our strategy is making sure that we are equipping families to be able to handle behavior challenges and navigate the trauma that they have also experienced.”

The youth initiative was piloted in late 2025 and has so far received 39 referrals from IMPD with nearly 60% of youth agreeing to services from their community partners, according to the mayor’s office. 

David Muhammad, executive director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, said that of the 350 individuals currently identified as high risk in Indianapolis, around 50 of them are youth that they hope to work with through this initiative. 

Muhammad said their work primarily focuses on preventing youth they know are at high risk of recidivism from continuing violent patterns. 

According to the mayor’s office, the youth initiative is part of a broader, citywide strategy to engage, support, and protect young people. 

As part of the overall effort, the city will engage the Connection Center during key weekends and large events when more youth are expected downtown, such as Final Four Weekend. 

The Connection Center is a collaboration between the Indianapolis police, the Office of Public Health and Safety and other community organizations. 

Along with those collaborations, the city is also planning youth safety programming for the summer, including Summer in the City and Indy Peace pop-ups. 

Contact Government Reporter Caroline Beck at cbeck@wfyi.org

Contact WFYI Morning Edition newscaster and reporter Barbara Anguiano at banguiano@wfyi.org