Violence Isn't Just a Gun Problem

Disinvestment, shame, and silence are violent too.

We talk about violence like it's only bullets and blood. Like it only lives on corners or after curfews. But I’ve seen it show up in empty classrooms, in closed health clinics, in eviction notices handed to mothers with nowhere else to go. Violence isn't always loud. Sometimes it shows up in the decisions made behind closed doors. Sometimes it looks like a system staying quiet when it should be showing up. When we only focus on gunfire, we ignore the slow violence, the kind that creeps into a community through disinvestment, systemic neglect, and shame disguised as policy. If we’re serious about prevention, we have to widen the frame. Because violence prevention isn't just about stopping what hurts, it's about building what heals.

The Slow Violence No One Tracks

There’s a kind of violence that never makes the evening news. No headlines. No hashtags. Just long lines at clinics with no staff. Schools with few to no counselors. Communities where the only thing fully funded is the punishment, a consequence of budget decisions that reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of what truly creates safety. It’s the kind of violence that happens over time, through zoning laws, underfunded budgets, and policies that call themselves neutral but land hardest on the same people every time.

“You can’t ask a child to climb out of what they were born into without first tearing down what put them there.” - Aaron Johnson, Founder

In communities across the country, this slow violence is inherited. It's in the bus route that was cut, the grocery store that never came back, the trauma that gets passed down without a name. When we talk about public safety but ignore these conditions, we’re not being honest about where violence lives. Guns didn’t create these problems. They just erupt inside of them.

This kind of violence is hard to measure, but we know it when we feel it, the weariness, the grief, the way people start to expect nothing and still carry everything. Traditional metrics often focus on acute events, failing to capture the cumulative impact of disinvestment and neglect. Yet, we see its effects in disparities in health outcomes, educational attainment, and economic opportunity. We need to name this too, not just because it hurts, but because it’s preventable. And naming it is the first act of prevention.

Shame as Policy

In communities that have been systematically underfunded, shame often becomes the quiet policy no one wants to claim. It shows up in how services are offered and if they’re offered at all. It’s in the paperwork that’s impossible to navigate, the endless documents needed to access resources, the waiting rooms where you're asked to prove your pain, the tone that shifts when your ZIP code doesn't match your worth in the system, and the constant scrutiny and often begrudging distribution of what some deem "entitlement spending.

When basic needs are met with judgment instead of care, that’s violence too. We punish people for having less, then blame them for struggling. We tell them to apply for help, but cut funding and staff. We say “reach out” but answer with silence. This isn’t a lack of resources, it’s a failure of priorities. And it teaches people to shrink their needs or disappear entirely.

For Black communities, shame has long been weaponized. It’s written into policies that pretend to be about safety, but are really about control. It’s coded into wellness checks that become arrests, into school discipline that pushes kids out instead of pulling them in. When you grow up surrounded by systems that make you feel like a problem for asking for help, survival becomes a form of resistance.

But we deserve more than survival. We deserve systems that see our full humanity, not just our eligibility.

What Healing-Centered Design Actually Looks Like

Healing doesn’t happen by accident. It’s not a byproduct of policy tweaks or a line item in someone’s grant report. Healing is intentional. It’s architectural. It lives in how we design our spaces, how we name our needs, and how we refuse to accept harm as inevitable.

A healing-centered approach doesn’t start with what’s missing; it starts with what’s already here. It honors the wisdom of people who have survived what should have broken them. It moves at the speed of trust, not urgency. And it doesn’t wait for permission.

Think about a school designed for healing. It’s not just about security cameras; it’s about creating spaces where students feel seen and heard. Maybe it has dedicated rooms for restorative circles, where conflicts are resolved through dialogue and understanding, not just punishment. Perhaps mental health professionals are integrated into the school day, offering proactive support rather than waiting for a crisis. And imagine a curriculum that doesn’t just focus on academics but also on social-emotional learning, teaching young people how to navigate their emotions and build healthy relationships. This is healing in practice.

Consider community resource centers. Instead of sterile waiting rooms and endless forms, what if these spaces felt like living rooms? Places where neighbors could connect, share resources, and build collective power. Maybe they offer workshops on financial literacy, job skills, or even just a safe space for conversation and connection. This is the architecture of care.

Healing-centered design looks like programs created with—not just for—community. It looks like policies shaped by the people they impact, not translated down to them in bureaucratic language. Imagine participatory budgeting processes where residents directly decide how public funds are allocated in their neighborhoods, ensuring that resources flow to the areas they identify as most critical. This is power in partnership.

It refuses the lie that safety must come through control. Instead, it asks: what makes us feel seen? What makes us feel held? What gives us room to imagine more than survival?

This is the work, not band-aids for bullet wounds, but blueprints for belonging.

We Know What Safety Feels Like

We don’t need more task forces to tell us what’s wrong. We’ve lived it.
We’ve walked the streets where empty lots sit quiet and over-policed. We’ve seen the budgets that grow in surveillance but shrink in support. And we’ve buried dreams that never had the chance to unfold because someone decided they weren’t worth protecting.

But the truth is, we know what safety feels like.
It feels like a full fridge. A returned phone call. A neighbor who knocks to check in, not just report. It feels like space to grieve, to breathe, to exist without being managed or monitored.

If violence is defined only by what the state can criminalize, then prevention will always come with handcuffs. But if we define violence as anything that strips people of their humanity, then healing becomes a political act. Prevention becomes liberation. And public safety becomes a collective promise, not a performance.

We don’t need saviors. We need systems that remember we were never the problem.

And we don’t need to wait to build them. We start now, with what we know, with who we are, with what we carry.

Because what we’re fighting for isn’t just the absence of harm.

It’s the presence of wholeness.