NEW ORLEANS — Gun violence is at a high in New Orleans this year.
New Orleans is actually on track to have the highest murder rate in the nation this year, according to crime data analyst Jeff Asher.
It’s the first time we’ve topped that list since 2011. Asher reports the city is set to pass 70 homicides per 100k people.
The last time the homicide rate was this high was in the years immediately following Hurricane Katrina. Before that, it was the 1990s. In 1994, homicide was at a rate of 86 per 100k.
Patrick Young, the Director of Gun Violence Prevention for the Mayor’s office says they want to eliminate the ups and downs.
“You’ve seen this rise and the and this decline and then this rise how do we address it so we don’t have those ups and downs in years but really study it to prevent it from happening to begin with,” Young said.
Young says right now there’s no exact data on the social causes of gun violence, but they’re working to research them. While they’re gathering more data, they do want to focus on social-emotional learning.
Young says teaching people, especially kids and young adults how to identify and deal with their emotions In a healthy manner can help solve violence.
“What are the emotions that cause you to react violently, to begin with? So if we remove all the guns, then we’ll have knife attacks," Young said. "If we remove the knives, we’ll have fist attacks. We have to remove the urge to want to react in any way or any form or fashion using any tool."
He says you can’t have peace in pieces and urges the community to work together in becoming proactive, not reactive.
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