Michelle Miles, director of the City of Austin Office of Violence Prevention, told the Public Safety Commission the office takes a public-health approach that targets hot spots, at-risk individuals and community-level conditions as part of a broader violence-reduction strategy.

"Our mission is, a peaceful and safe Austin for everyone," Miles said, summarizing the office's goals and framing work as an intersection of public health and public safety.

Miles described several programs and initiatives. The city-funded community violence intervention program ATX Peace works in hot spots with trusted messengers to provide outreach, conflict mediation and wraparound services for individuals identified as at high risk of victimization or offending. The Office of Violence Prevention said it has distributed approximately 10,000 gun locks to date through Safe Gun Store Saves Lives and OVP distributions, and partners with local organizations to deliver firearm-safety education materials for families and children.

Miles discussed a recent gun-violence problem analysis conducted with the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform. The analysis placed many shootings and homicides along the I-35 corridor and found suspects and victims were disproportionately male and Black or Hispanic; it also found many suspects and victims were already known to the criminal-justice system. The consultant team could not include nonfatal injury-shooting data in the analysis because those data are not systematically tracked in local police records, the presentation said, and APD staffing constraints limited interviews to sergeants rather than detectives.

Miles said the office received a competitive grant from the U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women for a firearm technical assistance project (FTAP). The project aims to create a cross-jurisdictional, standardized firearms-surrender protocol in domestic-violence cases over a three- to five-year period. Miles said the OVP-established working group includes judges, prosecutors, the county attorney, probation, legal aid and other partners and meets biweekly to map civil protective-order procedures and build operational options for judicial use.

She highlighted the Harvest Trauma Recovery Center, a clinic providing mental-health services to crime victims; the center saw about 800 people in its first year and provided core Trauma Recovery Center services to roughly 400 clients who met the program criteria.

The presentation emphasized building data systems that combine police, hospital and community-sourced information to identify hot spots and inform interventions. Miles described the Cardiff model as an example that integrates hospital data and police data to better capture violent incidents that never reach law enforcement.

Commissioners asked whether the problem analysis recommended focused-deterrence strategies and how ATX Peace is staffed and evaluated. Miles said the analysis and follow-up recommendations were delivered to the city in 2024 and that focused-deterrence has not been implemented; she said ATX Peace is a contracted model that draws on national CVI practice (some elements similar to Cure Violence), contractors are full-time and OVP is working to put evaluation systems in place and to partner with national experts for analytical and implementation support.

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Miles said OVP is three-and-a-half years old and remains a small office; she asked for continued interagency decision-making and resources to scale interventions and to set measurable targets and accountability for violence-reduction work.