In early 2022, Wilmington’s City Council and the City of Wilmington agreed to pay $38,000 to the Community Based Public Safety Collective to perform an analysis to help the city tackle and reduce community violence. The Collective interviewed over 58 stakeholders, surveyed 20 frontline intervention workers, and examined crime and hospital data to understand local violence.
The City Council accepted the “Landscape Analysis Report for the City of Wilmington” on Oct. 10, 2022. According to a City Council press release, “The report encouraged the administration to release funds to the appropriate entities for community violence intervention in a fiscally responsible and timely manner, to ensure that these entities have access to the necessary training, and to designate a coordinator to oversee the ongoing implementation of the City’s strategy to interrupt community violence.”
Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki and City Council President Trippi Congo appointed Wilmington University adjunct and alumna Dr. Debra Mason, the deputy executive director of the HOPE Commission and a former Delaware Department of Correction probation and parole officer and training administrator, to coordinate the initiative. She will be “on loan” from the Hope Commission.
“My plans are to increase public safety in the City of Wilmington by ensuring access to basic needs to those often overlooked and underserved.”
— Dr. Mason
According to the release, the Collective’s responsibilities will include conducting organizational readiness assessments for participating community organizations, assisting with building organizational and programmatic readiness, and pro-viding participating organizations with coaching on topics like financial
management, operational protocols, workforce development, and “facilitating intervention peer-learning between selected intervention organizations in Wilmington and established community-based public safety organizations in other cities to share experiential knowledge and best practices.”
“My plans are to increase public safety in the City of Wilmington by ensuring access to basic needs to those often overlooked and underserved,” says Dr. Mason. “The greatest challenge is funding and gaining support from the community. As of 2024, the Wilmington Street Team has done amazing work in the community and seen a decline in crime in District 11 and District 13.”
Dr. Mason earned a Doctor of Social Science in Prevention degree from WilmU in 2020 and has taught at the University since 2011.
— Maria Hess