Government

Social Media Slights, Poverty and Gangs Among Drivers of Gun Violence in Territory, and Data Should Lead Effort to Reduce Crime, Leaders Say

The need for data-driven solutions to reduce gun violence in the U.S. Virgin Islands dominated a discussion between the Office of Gun Violence Prevention and senators in the Committee on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety. One message was clear when the committee met on Monday, and it is that data must drive policies that will allow the Office of Gun Violence Prevention to intercede at the earliest stages for children at high risk of committing gun crimes.  “The takeaways from today’s dialogue I believe are the importance of acquiring data, housing data, and analyzing data in order to drive the policy that you would need to utilize to run your office so that we could see those numbers go down," said Committee Chairman Senator Angel Bolques. Non-committee member Sen. Donna Frett-Gregory strongly encouraged the office to derive its statistics from the V.I. Virtual Information System (VIVIS) which falls under the purview of the V.I. Department of Education and which is respon...