Recently, 25 brave peacemakers graduated from our Urban Peace Academy with the complex skills needed to reduce violence in Los Angeles’ most violent communities. Each participant completed 140-hours of intense coursework focusing on effective strategies for forming trust with both residents and officers to ensure neighborhood safety.

Earlier this summer, alumni of UPI’s Latino Leadership Institute gathered to celebrate their accomplishments in creating a safe and healthy community. This community event provided an opportunity for over 40 Latino Leadership Institute alumni to reconnect and share their experiences with the whole family.

PBS SoCal featured the Urban Peace Institute’s continuing work to break the cycle of violence throughout Los Angeles. This story highlights our innovative Urban Peace Academy, which trains former gang members and community leaders to promote peace.

The Orange County District Attorney (OCDA) withdrew its attempt to impose gang injunctions on two communities in the city of Placentia. After more than two years, the OCDA has been unable to prove that any of the 50 people they alleged were gang members were actually active gang members. As a result, the injunctions never became enforceable. Any reduction in crime in Placentia can only be attributed to other causes.

One year ago, UPI received an urgent call from Liz Blanchard, whose brother, Nelson Valle, was detained at the Otay Mesa Immigration Detention Facility as a result of gang allegations. Liz knew Nelson was living a peaceful life and was no longer a gang member.

When Jose was a teenager, he admits that he made some poor choices that landed him in juvenile hall. While juvenile hall is intended to act as an early intervention, for Jose and thousands of young men of color, it can spark deepened gang involvement as a means of protection for survival in a harsh environment.  At 15, these mistakes also caused Jose to be labeled as a gang member on California’s gang database.

Despite his transformation, Benjamin’s life and movements continued to be tracked through California’s gang database. The CalGang database includes information on over 100,000 residents, and has labeled children as young as two years old as gang members. This information is available across law enforcement agencies and has the potential to be shared with federal immigration officials.

The Urban Peace Institute (UPI) is proud to announce that Gov. Jerry Brown recently signed A.B. 90, a bill that mandates a massive overhaul to California’s shared gang database system.  For the past two years, UPI acted as a leading advocate for change to California’s gang databases, which unfairly labels over a 100,000 California residents, including children as young as two years old, as gang members.