LOUISVILLE, Ky. — New data on youth violence shows homicides increased in 2021. But they didn’t just moderately increase—they nearly tripled.
The Greater Louisville Project on Tuesday called for more action and long-term investment during an event where they spoke to various advocacy and violence prevention groups at the Muhammad Ali Center.
The latest Safer City By Design report found in 2018 there were 20 homicides among people ages 15 to 24. That went up to 60 in 2021 and of those victims, 48 were young Black men.
The nonprofit says that almost one each week that year.
“The epidemic of violence affecting young people has always been urgent and will always be urgent, but Louisville has seen a disturbing trend unique among its peer cities over the last few years,” said Harrison Kirby, a data scientist for the group.
Mayor Craig Greenberg said the numbers go beyond the data, stressing that these are real people. He also recalled his experience surviving a shooting attempt.
“A year later, I still don’t know how or why I survived. But I know what I’m focused on doing,” Greenberg said. “As mayor, I’m focused on working every day, every night for a Louisville in which no child, no young adult, no one period, chooses to pick up a gun and cause someone else harm or even worse.”
He said his administration’s top priority is to end the tragedies affecting Louisville’s disconnected youth.
Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be rolling out our detailed action steps to prevent violent crimes from happening in the community.
JCPS Superintendent Marty Pollio pointed to three things as root causes that have to be addressed to help change the numbers: poverty, disconnected youth and access to handguns.
“Anecdotally, this is what a kid told me: ‘Dr. Pollio, I could probably get a gun easier than I can get a pack of cigarettes,’” Pollio recalled. “That is what our youth—that is the world that they live in right now. That has to change.”
The report also displayed a decline in investment in youth-focused departments through the Metro government. They said there was a peak of $46 million in 2011 to a low of $22 million in 2021.
They said, at the moment, the current Metro government has invested $388 million in violence prevention programs through the American Recovery Plan. That funding will end by Dec. 31, 2024, per guidelines from the federal government.
Greater Louisville Project is calling for ways to increase funding to prevent and reduce youth violence.