The 2019 Tri-County Collaborative Community Safety Conference aims to tackle violence prevention in the Los Angeles area by championing community voices.

Following this year’s National Youth Violence Prevention Week (April 8-12), USC will host the 5th annual Tri-County Collaborative Community Safety Conference on April 27. A partnership between the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, the USC Department of Public Safety and USC Civic Engagement, the conference aims to facilitate meaningful dialogue among community members, elected officials, key stakeholders, policymakers and educators to address community safety.

Conference co-organizer and social work Senior Lecturer Robert Hernandez, MSW ‘07, specializes in practice-driven research and community outreach. He is a co-creator of the “Two-Pronged Approach,” the community-based gang intervention model that has become standard practice for intervention efforts in the City of Los Angeles.

Viewing community safety through a causal lens

“When we see violence or unrest within a community, it’s easy to label people as ‘gang members’ and simply throw money or new legislation at the problem. But the goal of my work has always been to go beyond the symptom in order to identify underlying causal factors,” Hernandez said.

In underserved communities, a lack of access to adequate education, health care and other basic resources is frequently compounded by income inequality, the chronic stress of immigration and other environmental factors that create trauma. As a result, a mentality of survivalism can come to dominate a community.

“Until we recognize lack of opportunity as the primary cause of community violence and gang activity, we will be unable to treat the problem effectively,” Hernandez said.

A conference aimed at celebrating and elevating community voices

Informed by this holistic approach to addressing community violence, the theme of this year’s community safety conference is “Celebration of Community.”

“This conference is unique in that we’re putting more emphasis on community engagement and celebrating progress that has already been made,” Hernandez said.

The focal point of this year’s conference will be a forum where members of the community can tell their stories, express concerns and share ideas for mobilizing change. “The structure of the conference supports the understanding that we need a new approach to policy-making—one that is rooted not only in what research tells us or what law enforcement recommends, but in what actual members of the community say they need,” Hernandez said.

In addition to awareness-raising, the conference will provide access to valuable resources for community members, from legal rights advocacy, financial literacy and housing information to dental and health care programs.

Achieving transformative justice

“Beyond simply humanizing the people who are enduring various challenges within their communities, our overarching goal is to promote transformative justice,” Hernandez said.

Transformative justice, pioneered by legal reformer Ruth Morris, is a systems-focused approach to violence that relies on the premise that individual justice and collective liberation are intertwined and equally important, that establishing safety and justice requires changes to the conditions that enable violence, and that legal and systemic reform is required to stop cyclical patterns of violence.

Many southern California communities are particularly well-poised to benefit from transformative justice interventions. In particular, Hernandez points to the proliferation of punitive laws introduced in the 1980s and 1990s that spurred unprecedented growth in California’s incarceration rate. At the same time, the state’s public education system floundered, with among the lowest per-pupil spending in the country. This has had lasting effects: today, California’s prison systems remain among the most expensive in the world.

Hernandez champions conference participants such as Youth Justice Coalition, a nonprofit organization committed to combating discrimination and injustice within and surrounding the prison system.

“History has shown us that the missing variable is often representation. Organizations like Youth Justice Coalition—that are enacting real social change—are proof that when policymakers, representatives, educators and administrators listen to their communities, justice can be achieved,” Hernandez said.