Assemblywoman Kimberly Jean-Pierre (D-Babylon) announced that she secured $100,000 in the 2018-19 state budget to fund a SNUG initiative in Wyandanch. SNUG (guns spelled backward) works to reduce the number of shootings in neighborhoods that disproportionately experience gun violence.

“Senseless gun violence is tearing apart communities all across the country,” Jean-Pierre said. “But programs like SNUG help us take back our streets, increase public safety and keep young people out of gangs.”

SNUG offers services designed to prevent and defuse incidents of violence, provide skills to resolve conflicts in a nonviolent manner, provide case management services and promote self-sufficiency. The program helps bring together residents, the private sector and community-based organizations to devise real solutions to making neighborhoods safer.

SNUG is one of 11 statewide programs that follow the Cure Violence Model to reduce and prevent gun violence and has shown to be successful in cities where it’s been implemented. Albany saw shootings decrease by 29 percent in the program’s first eight months.1 In Rochester, shootings fell 40 percent over the first six months.2

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1. wamc.org/post/debate-albany-snug-program

2. rocthepeace.org/2011/07/city-shootings-down-in-first-6-months