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DC Justice Lab Helps Create the Racial Equity Impact Analysis, a Gun Violence Prevention Tool

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The Racial Equity Impact Analysis (REIA) is the result of a year-long collaboration among gun violence prevention groups, including Cities United, March for Our Lives. Led by the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, organizations included the Community Justice Action Fund, Consortium for Risk-Based Policy and the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. According to a news release, REIA builds on a public health model that identifies the social determinants of health as a critical factor in violence.
The post DC Justice Lab Helps Create the Racial Equity Impact Analysis, a Gun Violence Prevention Tool first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Published

4 years ago

April 12, 2022

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

Data shows that Black males ages 15 to 34 are shot at 21 times the rate of their white counterparts, including being shot by law enforcement at disproportionately higher rates than white Americans.

And according to several community groups, including the DC Justice Lab, unarmed African Americans are over three times more likely to be shot and killed by police than white people.

The organization noted that amid an unprecedented surge in gun violence, primarily concentrated in Black and Brown communities, solutions that do not exacerbate the longstanding inequities are urgently needed.

With that, the DC Justice Lab joined groups like Cities United and March for Our Lives to develop a new tool they said could help ensure solutions to gun violence become centered in equity.

The Racial Equity Impact Analysis – or REIA – uses a set of questions to help decision-makers, including legislators, government officials, and advocacy organizations, identify and assess racial equity impacts before implementing a policy.

The organizations said the goal is to develop effective and equitable policies.

“We collaborated with other organizations and received insight and support from many experts in the field,” said Dr. Bethany Young, the DC Justice Lab deputy director.

“Black people and Latino people and other BIPOC communities are disproportionately affected by police gun violence and community gun violence. So, we were looking for tools that would allow communities to address the gun violence epidemic while ensuring that they’re not contributing to or exacerbating existing racial inequities.”

The Racial Equity Impact Analysis (REIA) is the result of a year-long collaboration among gun violence prevention groups, including Cities United, March for Our Lives.

Led by the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, organizations included the Community Justice Action Fund, Consortium for Risk-Based Policy and the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

According to a news release, REIA builds on a public health model that identifies the social determinants of health as a critical factor in violence.

These include lax gun laws, concentrated poverty, environmental lead, and alcohol abuse.

Specifically, REIA identifies and assesses factors bearing on racial equity before implementing policy.

Officials could evaluate these factors to promote racial equity, reduce victimization, and minimize arrests and incarceration.

If a policy already exists, this REIA tool can help guide ongoing implementation and amendments to that policy to address identified equity concerns.

Ideally, this tool should be a collaborative process within, and beyond the organization, the authors stated.

“The tool aims to address the root causes of violence in communities and set parameters around when law enforcement is involved,” Dr. Young noted.

“Gun violence affects every community differently, so we want to get to the root of the problem and avoid interaction with law enforcement.”

The report accompanying the tool noted that the impact of gun violence on the lives of people within BIPOC communities remains devastating and that there is an over-reliance on the heavily punitive criminal legal system to address violence.

The authors reported that Black men are arrested, denied bail, convicted or wrongfully convicted at higher rates, and issued longer sentences than their white counterparts.

As a result, the authors concluded nearly half of all Black men would face arrest before 23.

Beyond laws that only focus on firearms, the authors maintained that the policy agenda of gun violence prevention should work in tandem with other advocacy initiatives.

Dr. Young noted that this includes addressing racial inequalities in housing, education, transportation, and the criminal legal system, which all contribute to gun violence.

As an example, the authors examined Colorado’s extreme risk protection order statute – or ERPO.

The civil court orders are used to temporarily prohibit the possession and purchase of firearms by persons a court deems to pose a significant danger of harming themselves or others by possessing a gun.

The goal of ERPOs is to reduce firearm homicides and suicides by removing firearms from individuals at high risk of committing gun violence.

The lack of trust between law enforcement and African Americans in Colorado only deepened with the 2019 killing of Elijah McClain in Aurora.

“Colorado has quite the high rate of gun suicides attributed to white men, and one of the communities most impacted by guns is white males,” Dr. Young stated.

“Yet, you still see a situation where Black people are experiencing the brunt of harsh law enforcement tactics with a goal purportedly of reducing gun violence. But if they narrowly tailored it as we noted in the report, they can address the problem of gun violence in communities feeling the impact.”

Click here to view the full report.

The post DC Justice Lab Helps Create the Racial Equity Impact Analysis, a Gun Violence Prevention Tool first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Stacy M. Brown

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LIVE from the NMA Convention Raheem DeVaughn Says The Time Is Now: Let’s End HIV in Our Communities #2

Set against the backdrop of the NMA conference, Executive Officers from the National Medical Association, Grammy Award Winning Artist and Advocate Raheem DeVaughn, and Gilead Sciences experts, are holding today an important conversation on HIV prevention and health equity. Black women continue to be disproportionately impacted by HIV despite advances in prevention options. Today’s event […]

Published

7 days ago

February 3, 2026

Oakland Post

Black women continue to be disproportionately impacted by HIV despite advances in prevention options. Today’s event is designed to uplift voices, explore barriers to access, and increase awareness and key updates about PrEP, a proven prevention method that remains underutilized among Black women. This timely gathering will feature voices from across health, media, and advocacy as we break stigma and center equity in HIV prevention.

Additional stats and information to know:

● Black women continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV, with Black women representing more than 50% of new HIV diagnoses among women in the U.S. in 2022, despite comprising just 13% of women in the U.S.

● Women made up only 8% of PrEP users despite representing 19% of all new HIV diagnoses in 2022.

● Gilead Sciences is increasing awareness and addressing stigma by encouraging regular HIV testing and having judgment-free conversations with your healthcare provider about prevention options, including oral PrEP and long-acting injectable PrEP options.

● PrEP is an HIV prevention medication that has been available since 2012.

● Only 1 in 3 people in the U.S. who could benefit from PrEP were prescribed a form of PrEP in 2022.

Oakland Post

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TRUMP: “Washington, D.C. is Safe”

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — President Trump, who typically travels with a full contingent of high-level protection, insinuated that he finally felt safe enough to go to dinner in the District of Columbia. “My wife and I went out to dinner last night for the first time in four years,” said the nation’s 47th president.

Published

7 days ago

February 3, 2026

Oakland Post

By Apriil Ryan
BlackPressUSA Washington Bureau Chief and White House Correspondent

“Washington, D.C. is safe,” President Trump declared from the Oval Office today. Those words came while Trump was hosting Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. During the question-and-answer session, which primarily focused on a peace deal in the Russian-Ukrainian war, Trump explained, “You did that in four days.” He was speaking of how fast the National Guard quelled the violence in what was once called Chocolate City.

The President deployed the National Guard to D.C. a week ago, to a city with reduced crime rates over the previous year. Violent crime dropped by 26%, marking the lowest level in 30 years. Homicides also fell by 11%.

President Trump, who typically travels with a full contingent of high-level protection, insinuated that he finally felt safe enough to go to dinner in the District of Columbia. “My wife and I went out to dinner last night for the first time in four years,” said the nation’s 47th president.

Trump reinforced his claim about the newly acquired safety in D.C. by relaying that a friend’s son is attending dinner in D.C., something he would not have done last year.

After the president finished his comments, a reporter/commentator in the room with close connections to Marjorie Taylor Greene jumped into the high-level conversation to affirm the president’s comments, saying, “I walked around yesterday with MTG. If you can walk around D.C. with MTG and not be attacked, this city is safe.”

That reporter was the same person who chastised President Zelenskyy months ago during his first Oval Office meeting with Trump for not wearing a business suit. Zelenskyy, a wartime President, has been clad in less formal attire to reflect the country’s current war stance against Russia.

Without any sourcing, President Trump also said, “People that haven’t gone out to dinner in Washington, D.C., in two years are going out to dinner, and the restaurants the last two days have been busier than they’ve been in a long time.”

The increase in policing in Washington, D.C. is because a 19-year-old former Doge employee was carjacked in the early hours of the morning recently.

Oakland Post

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Rising Energy Costs Weigh Heaviest on Black Households

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — For many African American families, the cost of keeping the lights on and homes heated or cooled is not just a monthly bill — it’s a crushing financial burden.

Published

7 days ago

February 3, 2026

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

For many African American families, the cost of keeping the lights on and homes heated or cooled is not just a monthly bill — it’s a crushing financial burden.

A new national study from Binghamton University and California State University, San Bernardino, finds that Black households spend a far larger share of their income on energy compared to white households, even when income levels are the same. “We often say that African Americans suffer more, but we often blame it just on income. And the reality is, there is something more there,” study author George Homsy, associate professor at Binghamton University, wrote. “It’s not just because they tend to be poor. There is something that’s putting them at a disadvantage. I think what happened is it happens to be where they live.” The study, published in Energy Research & Social Science, analyzed 65,000 census tracts across the United States. It found that while the average American household spends about 3.2% of income on energy bills, households in the majority African American census tracts spend an average of 5.1%.

Homsy and researcher Ki Eun Kang point to the age and condition of housing stock, along with lower homeownership rates, as key drivers. Their research concludes that “energy burden is not simply a matter of income or energy cost but also race, which might be driven by place.” Older, less energy-efficient housing and high rental rates in Black communities mean residents often cannot make upgrades like improved insulation or new appliances, locking families into higher bills.

Tradeoffs and Health Risks

The consequences go beyond money. Families forced to spend 10% or more of their income on energy — what experts classify as “unmanageable” — may cut back on food, medicine, or other essentials. More than 12 million U.S. households report leaving their homes at unsafe temperatures to reduce costs, while millions more fall behind on utility bills. The health effects are severe. High energy burdens increase risks of asthma, depression, poor sleep, pneumonia, and even premature death. The issue is especially acute for African Americans, who are disproportionately exposed to housing and environmental conditions that amplify these risks.

Washington, D.C.: A Case Study

In Washington, D.C., the problem is particularly stark. A recent analysis by the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) shows that SNAP-eligible households spend more than 20% of their income on energy bills. Across the metro area, nearly two-thirds of low-income households devote over 6% of their income to energy, and 40% face what researchers call a “severe financial strain,” paying more than 10%. Pepco, the District’s primary electricity provider, has implemented three consecutive annual rate hikes, pushing the average household bill to $114 per month as of January 2025. Shutoffs have followed — nearly 12,000 customers lost service in 2024, with disconnections doubling after a summer rate hike. Washington Gas has also sought a 12% rate increase and pushed a controversial $215 million pipeline replacement project, rebranded as “District SAFE.” The plan could ultimately cost D.C. households an additional $45,000 each over several decades, or nearly $1,000 annually added to bills.

Historical Roots

Researchers argue that these inequities are not accidental but rooted in history. The ScienceDirect study reveals that African American communities living in formerly redlined neighborhoods continue to face disadvantages today — from poor housing quality to higher climate risks. Homsy says policymakers must make targeted efforts. “It is harder to get to rental units where a lot of poor people live,” he noted. “We need to work harder to get into these communities of color.”