Over the last several years, levels of gun violence have been falling across the country. Yet gun violence is a public health crisis that impacts communities unevenly across the United States. In Saint Paul, Minnesota, Black residents are 23 times more likely to die from gun homicide than white residents. And in 2025, the city's gun homicide rate exceeded the national city average. For decades, the dominant response to this crisis had been reactive and punitive—more policing, more incarceration—and has failed to stop cycles of violence.

In 2024, MNJRC partnered with the City of Saint Paul’s Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS) to conduct a developmental evaluation of their unfolding gun violence intervention and prevention program, Project PEACE—a GVI/CVI program designed to connect youth and young adults at high risk of gun violence with wrap-around supports.