How does Bench Mark Program steer justice-involved young people away from violence and reoffending? By sticking with them day in and day out for as long as it takes, no matter what, Kevin McKeither said.
“Whenever the tough times come, they know they’ve got us to fall (back) on,” he said. “… We’re going to be there to be supportive at all costs. Our door’s always open.”
McKeither is the manager of Bench Mark’s gun violence prevention program. On Wednesday, he took part in a roundtable discussion on reducing gun violence and making Pennsylvania communities safer.
Leading it was Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, who visited Bench Mark to learn about Lancaster’s work preventing gun crime and supporting victims; and to tout the funding for community anti-violence programs and victim services in the recenty passed 2024-25 state budget.
“We’ve been making progress on the issue of gun violence,” he said, but “clearly there is much more work to do.”
Young people are arming themselves because they’re scared, said Cheri Modene, Director, Lancaster County Office of Juvenile Probation. They’ve been victims of violence before, or know friends who have been targeted. Bench Mark’s long-term commitment to them allows them to build up trust over time and develop the skills and relationships to make different choices.
“They’ve really created a community here,” she said.
Bench Mark has received two state Violence Intervention & Prevention grants, or VIP grants, through the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime & Delinquency, which Lt. Gov. Davis chairs.
The first, received back in 2021, provided $143,968 for Bench Mark’s “predisposition” program, which provides intensive mentoring to young people arrested and adjudicated in connection with gun crime.
The second grant, received this year, provides $355,483 over three years. It is funding a new mentoring program aimed at young people “adjacent” to gun crime — who haven’t been arrested on gun charges, but run in the same circles as those who have been and are identified as high risk by school resource officers or other authorities.
That program has just launched. It accepted its first participant two weeks ago, Bench Mark Executive Director Will Kiefer said.
Kiefer did not take part in the round table, instead delegating McKeither and Programs Director Ayanda McGill to speak on the nonprofit’s behalf, as well as Trevor Losch, a teen and recent program graduate.
“It helped me a lot,” Losch said. At Bench Mark, “They knew I could be better, so I knew I could be better.”
Having a trusted, reliable adult in their lives makes a huge difference for young people and they appreciate it, McGill said. Bench Mark’s mentors can relate to them and the problems they face, because they come from the neighborhood themselves.
“We genuinely care about these kids and care about our community,” she said.
State funding for violence reduction and victim services
Among the provisions in the Pennsylvania’s 2024-25 budget, signed July 11 by Gov. Josh Shapiro:
⦁ $45 million for violence reduction grants offered through the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime & Delinquency (PCCD), including a 100% increase in funding, from $5 million to $10 million, for Violence Intervention & Prevention (VIP) grants
⦁ $11.5 million for “Building Opportunity through Out of School Time” (BOOST), a new PCCD program to reduce community violence by providing more afterschool learning opportunities
⦁ $5 million in increased funding for the PCCD Nonprofit Security grants to places of worship, community centers, and other entities
⦁ $2.5 million in increased funding for domestic violence services through the Department of Human Services (DHS)
Davis repeatedly asked the roundtable participants how the state can help. There’s always a need for more resources, they said.
Deanna Weaver is the director of Lancaster County’s Victim & Witness Services. There should be comprehensive reentry services for crime victims, she said: Their needs run the gamut — physical, economic, emotional — and what the county has to offer isn’t always enough.
She also said she’d like to see an end to victim-blaming: Every victim deserves sympathy and support, she said, and not to be stigmatized by other people deciding what they should or shouldn’t have done.
Police Sgt. Todd Grager, the department’s community engagement officer, cited a very specific need: Gun locks. The police department used to stock donated gun locks to give away, helping gun owners prevent accidental or unauthorized use by their children or others; but its sources have dried up and Grager said he hasn’t been able to find new ones.
County Commissioner Alice Yoder said the state could help communities access detailed real-time data more quickly. Lancaster County is the largest Pennsylvania county without a Health Department, which limited its data access and complicated its response to the pandemic; violence, too, is correlated with public health data, so improving the latter could help communities target appropriate interventions.
Taking action early saves money in the long run, she said: Imprisonment is vastly more expensive than an early intervention that renders it unnecessary.
In Lancaster, the city identifies potential community trouble spots through its Block Strength Indicator dashboard, Mayor Danene Sorace said. Meanwhile, school resource officers and the community at large work to identify troubled young people who need extra support and direction.
“We know each other, and that’s really important,” she said.
While people need to be held accountable, they also deserve second chances, Sorace said, and they deserve not to be defined forever by their worst choice. State Rep. Ismail Smith-Wade-El agreed, citing himself as an example. He had a brush with the law at age 11, which could have derailed his life had his community decided then to write him off.
He praised Bench Mark for its “incredible work” steering Lancaster’s young people out of trouble and said it and organizations like it deserve ongoing support.
“Wherever they are in the commonwealth,” he said, “our young people deserve to grow old.”
