Cutting Advance Peace Fresno budget will harm public safety, health | Opinion

On June 24, 2024, the previous Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, declared that gun violence in America had reached the point that it was a public health crisis. Gun violence includes gun suicide, gun homicide and mass shootings.

Nationally, 60% of gun related deaths are suicide and 37% are homicide — including the 1% of gun related deaths due to mass shootings.

Since 2020, nationwide, more than 200 people have been directly impacted on a daily basis by gun violence (gun-related homicide, suicide and injuries.) And even more people suffer from the emotional trauma of losing loved ones.

The inaugural Gun Violence Awareness Day took place in June 2, 2015 on what would have been the 18th birthday of Hadiya Pendleton. She was a 15-year-old honor student who had just returned from performing at Obama’s second inauguration. Hadiya was an innocent victim of gun violence when she was shot and killed while in a park with friends at a Chicago park on Jan. 29, 2013.

Her friends organized a commemoration to honor her life and to also honor the more than 100 lives a day that are cut short every year by gun deaths from gun suicide and gun homicide. In addition, they wanted to bring attention to those wounded by gun violence every day. They wanted to raise awareness of the toll gun violence takes on Americans and the need to address it.

They decided to wear the color hunter’s orange (also called safety orange and blaze orange) to commemorate her life. They chose hunter’s orange as a symbol. Hunters wear the color in the woods to protect themselves and others from gunfire. Hadiya’s friends chose the color to bring attention of the need to protect themselves and others from gun violence.

Since 2015, there has been an annual call for the end to gun violence. To bring attention to the effect of gun violence across the country a number of organizations have declared the following:

▪ The first Friday every June has been designated “National Gun Violence Awareness Day.” This year is the 11th year.

▪ That is followed by the “Wear Orange Weekend” on the first weekend in June.From June 6-8, gun safety organizations are wearing orange and calling for an end to gun violence.

▪ June has been designated National Gun Violence Awareness Month.

Some organizations working to reduce gun violence include Enough Gun Violence/Brady Greater Fresno, which works on legislation; others like National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) work to address mental health issues in an effort to reduce suicide.

Advance Peace Fresno is a local nonprofit organization that tries to address Fresno’s gun violence by stopping retaliatory shootings in Fresno and to help those who are involved in shootings either as perpetrator or victim make better life decisions.

Since 2021, Advance Peace Fresno has successfully worked to reduce shootings and gun homicides in Fresno by directly intervening in the lives of gang members who are potential shooters and/or victims of gun violence. Advance Peace has complemented the work of the Fresno Police Department.

A significant fall in homicides was seen after the institution of Advance Peace Fresno in 2021. Advance Peace is not able to accept all the credit for decreasing the number of homicides. But, by working in parallel with the Fresno Police Department, Advance Peace Fresno has been able to help decrease retaliatory shootings and firearm-related deaths in Fresno.

From its beginning, under the blanket of the Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission, Advance Peace Fresno has been funded by the City of Fresno, the State of California and grants from foundations. From 2023 through until April, federal funds were also used. Since January, the Trump administration has attacked any and all programs that attempted to increase diversity, help increase equity or help advance inclusion (DEI). Organizations that helped marginalized communities improve access to employment, education and health care were harmed by the removal of DEI programs.

One of those targeted groups was Advance Peace Fresno because they worked mainly with Black, Brown and Asian men — the groups most affected by gun violence.

Enough Gun Violence/Brady Greater Fresno (EGV/BGF) is a chapter of Brady United, a national gun safety organization that works through legislation, education, and community action to try and decrease gun violence in America. During June, EGV/BGF increases its efforts to raise awareness of gun violence as a public health crisis. This year, because of Advance Peace Fresno’s significant impact on reducing gun violence, EGV/BGF wants to draw attention to the federal government’s sudden cancellation of vital funding for the Advance Peace program.

The 2024-25 total budget for Advance Peace Fresno was about $1.2 million. The City of Fresno provided $375,000; the State of California added $330,000 through funds from the Gun Violence Prevention and School Safety Act (AB 28). The act imposed an 11% excise tax on the gross retail sales of firearms, firearm precursor parts, and ammunition.

The tax revenue is disbursed by the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC). The rest (~500,000) was from the 2023 Department of Justice grant of $2 million over 3 years which was abruptly cut off in April 2025. As a result staff was cut from the Advance Peace Fresno program.

Even in the face of a potential Fresno budget deficit, the cost:benefit ratio is much in favor of the city finding a way to not only continue funding Advance Peace at its current level ($375,000/year), but to also replace the funding lost from the U.S. Department of Justice sudden withdrawal of its funding. The almost $500,000 per year lost from the DOJ withdrawal is equal to about 0.021% of the total $2.36 billion Fresno budget, but more than a third of the annual funding of Advance Peace.

Fresno Advance Peace should be seen as a cost-saving program. The cost of a single homicide to the City of Fresno was conservatively calculated in 2020 by the National Institute of Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR) to be $2.4 million per homicide and $864,000 per injury shooting. The cost includes the cost to police, judicial and medical systems; the cost of incarceration, lost wages and lost taxes.

If Advance Peace Fresno was responsible for just preventing one homicide or two shootings per year, the program pays for itself. If Fresno returns to having 70 murders a year the costs of homicide in Fresno could reach $168 million annually or more.

If the Fresno returns to having more than 70 murders per year (as in 2020 and 2021, before Advance Peace), the costs of homicide to the city could reach $168 million a year or more.

Funding Advance Peace is an investment in public safety, not an expense; it is the responsible action in terms of citizen safety, well-being, health and the city’s budget.

This story was originally published June 3, 2025 at 11:00 AM.