JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jacksonville community faith leaders will gather Monday night for the annual Nehemiah Action Assembly.
In addition to addressing affordable housing in the city, the Interfaith Coalition for Action, Reconciliation and Empowerment (ICARE) plans to acknowledge Sheriff T.K. Waters and the efforts of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Gang Unit to significantly reduce the city’s murder rate.
Waters will speak to ICARE about the department’s Group Violence Intervention (GVI) strategy and how the approach has proved successful, leading to the largest reduction in murders on record for the city.
“From 2023 to 2024, murders dropped by over 50%. This is a fantastic achievement that we invite our community to celebrate together,” ICARE said in a news release.
According to data from the FDLE, Jacksonville’s murder rate has remained high for years:
- 2019 - 131 murders
- 2020 - 140 murders
- 2021 - 110 murders
- 2022 - 135 murders
- 2023 - 126 murders
But 2024 saw a significant drop to 59 murders, arguably a big accomplishment for crime fighting in Jacksonville.
JSO hopes to continue its success by partnering with faith leaders to expand its Operation Safe Passage program, which offers those involved in gang activity a structured escape plan.
In January, JSO and community pastors announced the addition of 16 new congregations that are now specially trained to support the movement.
JSO said in 2025 they want to target the younger generation, which is why they are focusing on partnerships with the school board.
GVI hopes this will help them catch an upcoming person in gang activity before it’s too late.
In partnership with JSO, Pastor Garland Scott and the JSO Gang Unit actively engage with the community to save as many individuals as possible from the grips of violence.
Individuals identified through this outreach are allowed to change their lives. If they accept, they are admitted to the program, which boasts a 30% success rate.
Explaining the GVI initiative
Earlier this year, Waters shared his perspective on the murder rate shift with News4JAX reporter Briana Brownlee.
He credited the GVI initiative, which he started in 2016 while he was an assistant chief with JSO.
Waters, who spent years working in JSO’s Homicide Unit, said he saw a war brewing and knew something needed to be done.
“Our community was tired of the violence and tired of being labeled, by anyone outside of Jacksonville, as the murder capital of Florida,” Waters said. “It was our job at that point to focus our attention on those young men.”
Waters started GVI to focus on reducing homicides and gun violence. He explained that Jacksonville’s gangs differ from what you see in bigger cities like Los Angeles, New York or Chicago.
“Jacksonville’s problem is a little unique. We don’t have organized gangs like that. We have what we call hybrids,” Waters said. “You will have your Bloods, your Crips, you have your Latin Kings, you have all of these organized gangs [in bigger cities].”
According to JSO, there are 32 active gangs currently in the River City. But the sheriff explained that they are more like neighborhood groups that grow up together. They will be friends for a couple of years, but a few years later, they aren’t friends anymore and switch affiliations.
“There is no hierarchy, there’s no OG, there is no boss, there are just guys going out there doing things unorganized and committing violence,” Waters said. “It’s much more difficult to track until you start learning those guy’s names.”
JSO Cmdr. Michael Paul, who oversees the Gang Unit, Crime Gun Intelligence Center and Community Problem Response Unit, said Jacksonville’s size creates challenges.
“We have a huge city with all of these pockets of issues that we have, and we just have a lot of area to cover. So we had to adjust to that because our violence wasn’t in one area,” Paul said.
How it works
Paul attributed the significant decline in gang-related issues to several factors.
“I think it’s been a progression. We started with the group violence, the GVI model initially, and kind of worked through that and started tweaking it to Jacksonville,” Paul said. “Every city is different, and your violence is different. We also increased a lot of these units with manpower.”
In October of last year, the Sheriff’s Office expanded the Gang Investigations Unit, adding a sergeant and four detectives so the unit totaled two sergeants and 12 detectives.
“When you know you have a problem with these guys going out here shooting one another, then you need to put the resources where they are and where the problems are taking place and make sure you deal with those issues,” Waters said.
JSO also added tools like ShotSpotter and license plate readers to identify who is pushing violence in the city. Chief Alan Parker said it’s made a big difference.
“In the past, getting accurate suspect information or vehicle information of that nature sometimes took a few days, because they had to do it old school, interviews and all that kind of stuff,” said Parker. “We still do those things, however a lot of times now before patrol gets on the scene, the Real-Time Crime Center has already pulled up video of the area and figured out what’s going on and they can give an accurate description of the direction of travel right out of the gate.”
The other factor helping reduce gun violence is partnerships.
“We have community partners we use for that. I think we are up to 130 partners now who are involved in that,” Paul said. “So, we make the initial contact and once we talk to those individuals and they determine they want to leave the gang life, we hand them over to the community partners and they help them find things like jobs, schooling, and basic needs like if they have kids, they need food diapers.”
One of those community partners is Pastor Garland Scott, who is part of JSO’s outreach and support.
“If you do wrong, we are coming after you, but he will give you the opportunity to do right,” said Scott.
Before dedicating his life to serving God and his community, Scott lived a life of crime. Now his passion is helping others escape as well.
Scott said he’s offered that opportunity more than a thousand times.
“We have scripted a letter from the sheriff that (says) you have been pointed out because of your activity and your past gang (connections) and it spells everything out,” Scott said. “But in the middle of the letter, in big bold letters, it says, ‘This is the good news. If you have the courage to take the next steps, we can help you secure employment,’ or whatever it is and they usually call back and today we have like a 30% success rate.”
Waters said it helps to be straight with the young men and “give them the facts.”
“The truth is you’re going to go to prison or you are going to get murdered, so let’s get you out of this and connect you with some resources to help you go into a different direction,” Waters said. “But if you decide you don’t want to take this offer, we are going to do what we are supposed to do as a law enforcement agency to protect our citizens.”
The sheriff said these methods are working.
During 2023, the start of Waters’ administration, the number of murders declined for the first time in two decades, and Waters said this past year’s drop is “historic.”
He acknowledged that some might have wanted to see results sooner but he called it “a marathon, not a sprint.”
“I think people wanted it to happen overnight,” Waters said. “This is a work in progress, and it’s always going to be a work in progress, and we are always going to be learning about different things on how to do better to improve.”
