Public health leaders, violence prevention workers, behavioral health specialists and crime survivors gathered on the west steps of the state Capitol this week to argue that California’s historic drop in homicides is tied directly to years of investment in community-based safety programs, and to press lawmakers for an additional $55 million they say is needed to sustain prevention efforts that stop shootings before they happen.
California recorded 1,666 homicides in 2024, one of the lowest totals in decades and among the lowest homicide rates the state has seen since the 1960s, according to the California Department of Justice.
The capital region mirrors that decline. Sacramento recorded 42 homicides in 2025, down from 45 in 2024, while Sacramento County reported 18 killings in 2025, the lowest number in more than five decades, according to local law enforcement statistics.
Those totals show overall violence trending downward, but the burden of homicide has not been shared equally. Past reporting and county data reviewed by The OBSERVER show Black residents remain disproportionately affected by lethal violence locally. Black people make up roughly 12% of Sacramento County’s population yet have accounted for more than half of firearm-related deaths in recent years. That disparity persists even during years when total homicides fall, underscoring why prevention funding often targets neighborhoods most affected by shootings and retaliation cycles.
Public health experts said the broader statewide reductions align with expanded funding for hospital-based responders, street outreach teams, violence interrupters and behavioral health providers who work directly with people most at risk of violence, often before police are ever called.
“Safety is not achieved by enforcement alone,” said Tinisch Hollins, executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice. “It’s built when we interrupt violence, treat trauma and stabilize lives.”
Hollins described the moment as both encouraging and fragile. She pointed to her hometown of San Francisco, which recently recorded its lowest homicide rate since 1954, and said similar trends are unfolding across the state because communities invested in prevention and healing.
“This is the work that has produced results,” Hollins said. “It’s the work communities rely on and trust. It’s the work that has become a credible partner to city agencies, including law enforcement.”
Mike McLively, policy director with the Giffords Center for Violence Intervention and a leader in the California Violence Intervention and Prevention Coalition, said California’s investment in community-based safety is delivering measurable outcomes across the state.
“Police respond after a shooting has occurred, after the trigger’s been pulled,” McLively said. “What about before that? It’s community members, violence intervention workers, frontline workers who are preventing violence from happening in the first place.”
He said those workers mediate conflicts, connect families to services and meet victims at hospital bedsides to prevent retaliatory shootings.
“When the country thinks about public safety, too often we’re only thinking about policing,” he said. “Community-based public safety is an essential part of keeping our communities safe.”
McLively cited cities that receive grants through the California Violence Intervention and Prevention Program, known as CalVIP, that have reported dramatic results, including zero homicides last year in Modesto and steep declines in Richmond, Oakland and Los Angeles. Despite those gains, he said demand far exceeds supply, with roughly $1 billion in applications competing for a little more than $100 million in available grants.
Another part of the state’s public safety strategy focuses on survivors after violence occurs.
Janelle Melohn, senior director of the National Alliance of Trauma Recovery Centers, said California pioneered the trauma recovery center model at UC San Francisco. Today, 20 centers across 11 counties serve about 9,000 survivors each year with therapy, case management and help meeting basic needs like housing and food.
She warned that a separate funding stream tied to a prior ballot measure is shrinking. Without intervention, many centers could close. Public health experts seek $34 million in short-term bridge funding specifically to stabilize those trauma recovery centers, which provide post-violence mental health care and practical support for survivors. That request is separate from the $55 million sought for CalVIP prevention grants; one funds recovery after harm, the other funds intervention meant to prevent shootings in the first place.
“These are lifelines,” Melohn said. “If we lose them, we lose safety.”
For Linesha Edwards, a representative of Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice, the issue is deeply personal. Raised in Harbor City in Los Angeles County, Edwards said violence shaped her life from childhood and claimed two of her younger brothers.
“Violence has been a constant my entire life,” Edwards said. “What survivors from those communities most impacted by crime and violence want more than anything else is to prevent what happened to us and our families from happening to anyone else.”
She now works alongside the Los Angeles County Office of Violence Prevention, which funds street outreach and trauma-informed services designed to interrupt cycles of harm. She said Los Angeles’ homicide rate has fallen to levels not seen in generations following sustained investments in community violence intervention.
Former Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, who has long championed behavioral health and diversion strategies as alternatives to incarceration, said policy debates often reference treatment without clearly defining what effective care looks like or how programs should be evaluated. He said public safety efforts should focus on evidence-based approaches with measurable standards rather than vague promises.
“If you’re gonna talk about treatment, how about we have some standards for what constitutes effective treatment, and let’s fund it,” he said.
Steinberg said properly structured mental health and rehabilitation services have demonstrated they can stabilize people in crisis and reduce repeat involvement with the justice system, reinforcing the broader argument that targeted investments in care can lead to lasting reductions in crime.
After the press conference, Will Matthews of Californians for Safety and Justice addressed critics who solely credit tougher policing for the drop in violence.
“It takes a balanced approach to achieve the kind of durable safety that every Californian rightly desires and deserves,” Matthews said. “Enforcement absolutely plays a critical role, but not at the total exclusion of every other strategy, especially community-rooted strategies aimed at preventing crime and harm from occurring in the first place.”
He described the traditional model as reactive. Officers often arrive only after someone has been harmed. Matthews pointed to Sacramento’s K Street mass shooting as an example of the limits of policing and called for what he described as shared safety, where law enforcement, service providers and residents all assume responsibility for preventing harm.
Following their remarks to reporters and supporters, many of the public health experts walked straight inside the Capitol to lobby lawmakers directly, pressing for an additional $55 million they say is necessary to keep those programs operating, and to prevent homicides from rising again.