 Well, a warm welcome to everyone for joining us today and what I'm sure is going to be a fascinating conversation on the pressing challenge that we all face of urban violence in my hometown at Denver. We just again had another killing in a high school just a couple of days ago. We're fortunate to have a panel today of mayor city officials and experts on this topic to share their experiences. For those of you new to US IP, we are a congressionally funded bipartisan National Institute dedicated to seeking solutions to violent conflict around the globe and to helping countries and regions that have fallen into conflict to stay at peace. We do this through a mix of convenings, analysis and programs across 60 countries in the hemisphere were active in Colombia El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Haiti, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, working with local partners to build a culture of lawfulness, resolve conflict conflicts and empower local peace builders. Now, a couple of administrative issues. There's two YouTube streams. One for English speakers, which provides simultaneously simultaneous translation into Spanish and one for Spanish speakers, which provides simultaneous translation into English. So please be sure you're streaming this event in the language you prefer, but you have to start with the right link to begin with our session today will include an hour of moderated discussion during which we encourage the audience to submit their questions using the box. At the bottom of your screens during the last 30 minutes will pose as many of those questions as possible to our panel. The challenge of urban peace keep peace building in Latin America is multifaceted. It involves organized and common crime, political violence and gender based or family violence. There's a constant need to balance enforcement and prevention, the hard side of anti crime measures, along with the soft side of social, economic and cultural measures that together will ensure long term peace. It is not an either or construct officials must address the social economic drivers of violence by initiating long term programs that help young people resist gang recruitment. And see a future where they can contribute to rather than prey on society, but they also need to maintain a full array of security forces that are not only strong but trustworthy who respond to community needs and concerns. And they need to constantly engage dialogue with and empower their communities themselves, including business people, religious leaders and civic activists to recover civic space and build a culture of legality. Now, let me present our panelists today. We have Guillermo Céspedes, a violence prevention expert with over four decades of experience at the local, national and international levels. He served as deputy mayor of Los Angeles directing the office of gang reduction and youth development where he implemented a comprehensive strategy that significantly reduced violent gang crimes. He's also supervised US programs in Honduras and helped develop gang prevention strategies in El Salvador, Mexico and the Caribbean. Thank you Guillermo for being with us today. Oscar Escobar is mayor of Palmyra in Colombia's Valle del Cauca, located in one of Colombia's most beautiful but also most violent drug trafficking corridors. The city of Palmyra has long suffered exceptionally high rates of violent gang related crime. Under Mayor Escobar, the city identified neighbors with the highest incidence of violent crime and then targeted those areas for a series of interventions from youth oriented social programs, violence interrupters to initiatives to ensure access to justice. Alexander Mejia is a rejidor or city council member in the city of Choloma located in the north in the north of San Pedro Sula in the department of Cortez Honduras, the country's third largest city in the center of four factories. Choloma is located also in a tough neighborhood drugs from South America land along the northern Honduran coast and then travel over land towards the United States. The city has responded with a variety of programs including youth outreach centers and municipal women's offices which provide legal and psychosocial support to domestic violence victims. And Dr. Alejandro Husti is the security commissioner of Morelia, Mexico, capital of Michoacan State. He did his doctoral work at the University of Navarra as a long career in peace building and citizen security, including a high level position in Cholima. Under Mayor Alfonso Martinez, Morelia has developed community police forces known as Policias de Proximidad to allow security forces to work hand in hand with local residents to combat crime. And during Mayor Martinez's first term in office, these forces were credited with helping the city to bring down homicide rates in a state long played by organized crime. So let me now turn the microphone over to my colleague, Mary Speck, who will begin the program and we look forward to a really engaging discussion today. Thank you. Thank you, Keith. As Keith said, we hope to have a very frank discussion about both achievements and challenges. And I want to begin by asking a few opening questions to our panelists and then we'd like to transition to a more informal conversation, allowing them to share what works and what doesn't and how to sustain any progress made. Please keep answers fairly short so there's plenty of time for Q&A during the last half hour. First, as I said, I want to open with a question for all of the panel members. And this is about the relations between police and the community. We know that well-trained responsible law enforcement is important for public safety. Citizens want security now, not in 10 years after we've addressed all the long-term structural inequities that drive violent crime. Now, as Mayors, Latin American Mayors, you're not responsible for police forces, which are generally run by the national government, but you're uniquely positioned to understand local concerns. And so my question is, what can or should local governments do to increase trust in police? What have you done? What would you like to do? What works to increase trust in police? Although I'm going to begin, however, with Guillermo Cépedes, who, unlike other panelists, had worked with locally controlled police forces, but he's also very familiar with the problems of Latin America. So I would like to begin with him and then turn to our Latin American officials. I'd like to begin with him to explain what works to increase trust between communities and police forces. Thank you very much, and I think what works is we are still figuring that out day-to-day. Things work through a period of time, and we need to refresh in those interventions, if you will. The experience I've had with improving or enhancing police-community relationships, especially in gang-controlled neighborhoods, has been to start at the micro-level, which means the crime scenes. That means that the legitimacy is established while having members of the mayor's office, the police department, and violence interrupters respond to all incidents of shootings with serious injuries and homicides, so that the work starts to be blended at the very local crime scene level. And the legitimacy is built from that, rather than starting from a macro-policy level and trying to get down to the neighborhood level. So the very specific strategy is responding 24-7 to incidents of shootings with serious injuries and homicides, which is extremely labor-intensive by the mayor's office, the police department, and violence interrupters. With three goals, reduce retaliation, reduce levels of trauma to family members, and improve the relationship between city government and marginalized neighborhoods. In the case of the United States, it is the entire city government apparatus that needs to establish its legitimacy with marginalized communities. It's not just the police. So that's what we found effective in LA. That's what we're doing in Oakland now. It is being done in Chicago. It's being done in Baltimore. And, you know, I will talk about the challenges of that in Central America afterwards. Thank you. We'll come back to you then for what your view of challenges. But first, I'd like to turn to Mayor Escobar. Again, in Colombia, you have national police forces, but still as mayor, I believe you try to work, especially with youth, to increase trust in security institutions, not just police. And I wondered what you found to be most successful, how you did it, and what the major challenges are. Well, thank you very much for the invitation. I'm really glad to be here to share and to learn from other cities in the world. I think as majors, you have to be in a very narrow line in between being the face of authority in the city, but also being close to the citizens, being open, being able to show your face to the people who voted for you, and be accountable for what's happening with the city's funds, but also with the security management and what the police is doing and is not doing. In Colombia, we have had in 2021, we had probably the biggest national strike we have had in recent history. And in our region, in Baja del Cauca region, and in my city, it was like, you cannot imagine how hard it was. This was a situation in which we had road blockades more than 20. We couldn't even pick our trash. We ran out of food. We ran out of gas. It was a very difficult situation. And at first, of course, their response was authority, right? This vandalism was behind with the generals and behind the cameras, and you cannot do this. But then quickly, you had to understand what people was upset, even though it was national issues. And you have to give the face to the population, and you have to listen to them. And so that implied a change in the action that we were taking in that moment. And it implied even participating in public rallies to ask the national government for some changes that people was asking. And of course, that was at first, maybe police didn't like that at first, but it was the way in which we prevented more violence in Palmyra. Because we were having clashes in between the police and the protesters every day. And every day the clashes were harder. And so this violence was only escalating. So as a major, I had to go out with a white flag and say, OK, I'm the authority, but let's please not kill ourselves, right? Let's talk and let's dialogue with this difference that we have. And I think that creates trust. Because if you're only with the generals and behind the CCTV cameras and all that, you're far away from the people. And you're not hearing what can be happening if there's cases of police abuse, if there is corruption in the most affected neighborhoods. So you have to be there. Other strategy that we have used, not in that special moment of the strike, is do security councils in the neighborhoods. So some police doesn't really like that either, because they say that there is security information that only the major is supposed to have. But you tell them, OK, give me that information in private. And then we're going to have an open forum with people from the neighborhood. And we're going to listen to their complaints in terms of which are the most issues that are affecting them. And many of them don't even have to do anything with police. Many of them are the trash that is not being picked up and it's making that a corner is having that broken window theory. Or maybe that there's not enough lighting in the park and that is bringing thieves to the park. So I think that dialogue with the community in the neighborhoods is very important to create trust in institution, which is in Colombia and all over the world. I think it's in its lowest levels. Thank you. Commissioner, what is the situation in Morelia? How have you worked? I know Morelia has been considered as a model for Policies de Proximidad. What is the formula in Morelia for increasing trust in police? Because in Mexico, as in other countries, including in the United States, there is often a very deep distrust of the police. Thank you very much. It's quite a pleasure to be here sharing with you on behalf of the mayor, Alfonso Martinez. And when it comes to legitimate tea, I think that that really is the basis for police reform. Today, the police are subject to scrutiny. This is a topic that is being debated around the world. So we decided to try to bet on trust as the basic foundation for this relationship between the authorities and the people. We've tried to place ourselves in the shoes of the people. That is to say, we have this institution that has created a lot of distrust in Latin America and in the U.S., for example, with the case of George Floyd. So how can we try to come to an agreement? We found two ways to do it. First, we have to redefine what the mission of the police is. What can the police in Morelia offer citizens? And this may seem a bit different for the police, but I'll give you an example here. Today, the police in Morelia address 50% of emergencies, medical emergencies. So this may be done because of the lack of infrastructure or medical support in the city, but the police are able to address these situations as well. And that allows us to truly address citizens' concerns, for example, addressing these medical emergencies through uniform police. And there are also doctors for paramedics. We've also started to address the cases of lost children. This is very practical. So we've been able to address this through service to the people that's given us greater legitimacy and greater trust. So the police in Morelia is very new. It's very recent. And according to the rates in the country, citizens in Morelia trust more in their police today than when it was created. We've been undergoing very complex processes and we've addressed other topics as well, such as where does the authority come into play? This is something that we clearly see in Latin America, for example, where there is no legality. There is no state of law. So we've been able to create this minimum legality. We've needed the authority to serve as a model in order for everyone to comply with the law. So we've been able to gain a lot of legitimacy and trust in that regard. I'd also like to share briefly that there are a few other elements that we've been working on in a practical manner. We were in Colombia and we learned a lot of good practices from there as well. We were able to start a very successful program for mediators. These mediators are very young people who are trained and before starting their careers as policemen or police women, they work in the communities. So they address issues that are not related directly to the police force but impact security, such as utilities, maybe lights that are not working or parks that haven't been cared for. And there's a lot of vegetation. This allows us to have greater dialogue. It doesn't impact the police force, but it allows us to focus on these issues that may be related to the authorities by addressing these public services. Today, the police is a victim of a policy that has left many people unsatisfied. So we've been addressing these issues at concerned citizens and as serving as an example, we're able to provide citizens with greater service. Thank you. It's interesting. We've got three. Guillermo began by saying that it begins at the crime scene. It begins with solving the crimes, 24-7 being there for police. Mayor Escobar talked about the situation of national demonstrations that had created tremendous distrust. And interestingly, the Commissioner of Security in Morelia spoke about doing things which really we wouldn't consider necessarily the police primary duty, but addressing health emergencies and helping people with overgrown vegetation and bringing back public spaces. I wonder, Guillermo, if you could comment on these three different aspects and since our invitee from Honduras has not yet arrived, how do you address all those different functions of the police in countries which have just as many problems as Colombia and Mexico, but have even fewer resources, a country like Honduras, which is beset by organized crime and even poorer than most of the countries in Latin America? Well, first of all, I think all three approaches are very valid and they need to be implemented as part of a comprehensive strategy number one. So I think I spoke about a starting point which doesn't exclude these other elements. I think right now we are across the world reimagining public safety and that includes figuring out how to both, what I call putting out the fire, the immediate response to homicides and shootings and fireproofing. I think we've reached the point where we have to address both. I am not law enforcement. I'm my area of specialty social programs, but I do think that in the United States and probably abroad, we've come to the point where we really do know that this is not a problem that we're going to be able to arrest exclusively our way out of it or prevent our way out of it. So the challenge that we're facing is how do we blend these three things that are being implemented? From my point of view, I started with the micro implementation for one reason, one or several reasons. One is that that empowers the mayor to be able to respond to citizens immediately. The political pressure on mayors is that body bag on the ground. Citizens really are not concerned with longer term prevention. My field of prevention historically has focused primarily on long term solutions and less on solutions that are looking to impact that particular homicide. So the mayor from Morelia spoke about mediators in Colombia, they're starting to use violence interrupters, this sort of social civil society interventions that help to address crime. Pretty innovative. We need to improve it, but I think it's part of the solution. So to answer your question, I think all three responses are very valid. I think we have to do all of it. The big challenge is to make sure that in my opinion, they were not setting up the police for failure by putting things on their plate that they cannot actually resolve. I don't believe in the case of the United States, the police is trained to deal with family trauma, for example. Therefore, we should be very careful that in expanding public safety, we're clear of the lanes of operation. So I'd like to just sort of end my comment with this. Across the United States and probably the world, we've started to reimagine public safety, defunding or funding has gotten ahead of the reimagining. But I think we're in a great place to continue to reimagine what is the role of the police? What is the role of social prevention? And how do we blend those two things to both address putting out fires by approving? Thank you. Mayor Escobar, I think you had a comment. Yes, thank you very much. A little comment. Because I do believe that one of the issues is that police is responsible for a lot of things. So again, and then there's so many, so many of those things that we can solve on a community basis. For example, the neighbor who puts music loud until five a.m. in the morning and then all the people is calling, hey, please, the drunk one in the corner, go and turn the volume down. And so that takes also a lot of operative burden on the police to go to the neighbor who tell the drone guy to turn the music down. The police leaves and then all over again, the problem starts. So in the sense that we have a comprehensive peace strategy that's called Passos in Palmyra and that we have community mediators who try to solve those issues without using the police. That helps a lot in terms of letting the police do their job that is actually to chase criminals instead of solving coexisting issues. And it stops undermining their legitimacy because being the party pooper for something, it's not their job. Thank you for that. We've had lots of incidents like that in Oakland of actual violence emerging, not just from music, but disagreements about what type of music was being played. And I know that sounds a little bit humorous, but in a very diverse community, the type of music that is played is representative of a particular group. So that escalated conflict. So great point. I fully agree with you that we need to issues between neighbors can be handled at a community level. Okay, thank you. I wanted to now turn to the issue of youth. Young people are both in Latin America, but where we have the famous youth bulge, young people are both the beneficiaries and the victims of very rapid urban growth. On the one hand, young Latin Americans are better educated than previous generations. And on the other hand, they also face lower levels of formal employment and lower wages. And they're more much more vulnerable to violence, much more vulnerable to being both the perpetrators and the victims of violence. And I wanted to start with you again, Mayor Escobar, to talk in a little bit more detail about Palmyra's Peace and Opportunities Program or PASOS. It's you've used innovative youth programs to bring down homicide rates. And you've described this program as being both targeted and comprehensive. So I wanted you to explain better how you target your efforts and how and in what way is it comprehensive? You can't do everything and you can't be everywhere. So how have you targeted and but how have you also addressed this whole range of problems that young people face? Can you hear me? Sorry, are you asking me? Yes, that was for you, Mayor Escobar. I'm sorry. Sorry, I just lost connection for. Oh, OK. Well, I was asking you about PASOS and how it's targeted and comprehensive. And what's been the secret of success for your program, PASOS? Yes. Well, the thing is you have to look at the numbers, the diagnosis of violence in the city. Our city, Palmyra, Valle del Cauca, Colombia have been ranked in the 50 most violent cities in the world in terms of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. Of course, there's a lot of other municipalities with more homicides than Palmyra, but they're really small municipalities. My city is 350,000 inhabitants. So we are in that ranking. We have been able to get out of that ranking once in 2020. And last year we were in the 48th position. And one of the goals of our PASOS program and of our development plan is to get out of that. But so you say, OK, we have a big issue with homicides in the last two days. Where is that happening? OK, in some neighborhoods, 10% of the neighborhoods of the city are counting for more than 50% of homicides. So we've got to work in those neighborhoods. And who is getting killed? Mostly young men. Very young men, actually. More than 50% of homicides are in very young men. So those were the two focuses of the program of PASOS that have tried to bring a lot of different interventions in those neighborhoods. Since having co-existent managers, as I said, the one that is going to face that difference between the music and how loud is the music or what kind of music, but also the ones that are going to create trust with community. Because as a major, I have authority, but that doesn't mean I have legitimacy in the neighborhoods. So those community leaders are helping us to create trust with people in order to bring them closer to what we would say the public offer of education, sports, of all the social offers that can prevent young people from getting into the violent activity. However, there are many of them who already are in the gang activity, drug activity. And getting out is very difficult because, of course, that is leaving them a lot of cash. And it's also because it is their success reference in the neighborhood. The most successful kid in the neighborhood are those that are leading the gang. So we have to provide them with a path that takes them out of that world. And it's a path that, of course, brings, for example, job training. But first, you have to give them psychosocial support because many of them have seen their brothers die in that same violent activity. Many of them have their own with serious sickness, with bad health policies. Many people, many of them are already married and they have three kids and they have to provide for these kids. So one of the key for success of our strategy has been being able to pay them. Last year, we were paying half a minimum wage to 226 young people in Palmyra in those neighborhoods in order to condition to their attendance in the program. That program was evaluated by University of Harediana with the funds of open society foundations. And they found that it's having a very important results in terms of even lowering the consumption of drugs in those kids, but also motivating them to participate in the labor market in which they didn't participate because they have been discriminated so long that they just don't trust the system. But most importantly, they did an econometric analysis comparing Palmyra with other comparable cities in the country. And they found that four out of 25 less homicides that we have in that time were directly attributed to the program. So we believe that, of course, we need to work with the police. And of course, we need to capture and have a strong hand in terms of making justice count in the city. But you cannot enter in a bukele-like war with gang or all-out war in which you pretend to put everybody in jail because that is only going to create more resentment and more problems in the future. What we believe is that we have to do the justice to capture, but you have also to provide them a way out, a path out of that world. Many of them, of course, are not going to succeed. Many of them probably are going to come back into that world. But even if there are a few that want to change, they set an example for all of them that it is possible to do it. And actually, in the program we had last year, the desertion was very low. So it's much more profitable than taking them into jail. Having a kid in jail is way more expensive and you only are putting them in a university for crime. When you bring them in other programs, it can be less expensive and you have a higher success rate like we have had in past. Thank you, Mayor Escobar. Commissioner Gonzalez, does any of this sound familiar to you in Morelia? I know the Policía de Proximidad works with the whole community, but I imagine that working with youth is particularly important. How have you been able to work with the youth of Morelia who I imagine are also primarily both the victims and the perpetrators of many crimes in the cities? What has been your experience in that regard? Yes, of course, in Morelia what we have done is that we have bet on young people. What we try to do is to understand how we can avoid for young people to do the same crimes, commit the same crimes. Those small misdemeanors that are not felonies, but we want to avoid that. So through three acts, we have been working with the community police. This is what was mentioned earlier. And in fact, this is a community policing that allows the mayor to make decisions, allows the mayor to have the political decisions become practice on the one hand. And then you also have a policing police officers that are nearby. And as we said at the beginning, they're there to make sure that they're there when we have these situations that worry our citizens. Then we want to intervene when people who are victims receive the help they receive, the help that they need from the police, the psychological assistance, the legal assistance so that they can go on. And they can generate these mechanisms of prevention. Another element which is the most important one is the civil justice. What we've done is generate a small justice system which is a mix, a mix of the municipal courts in Mexico and the Midtown Court in New York. So we're now in a system called restorative justice in very small crimes like misdemeanors. And this has to do with graffiti, consuming drugs on the street or drinking in the streets. And this has allowed us to have them understand that there are consequences. Security has to do with a component that has to do with culture. It's related to culture. In the case of Mexico, it's clear how if you cross the border and you come to the United States, all of the Mexicans behave like exemplary citizens in the United States. And we wonder why doesn't this happen in Mexico as well? Because we have many incentives for the law to be violated without there being any consequences. So the small justice system in small cities starts to show what the consequences are of actions of those offenders that start with very minor things. They go through a red light. They go the wrong way. They drink in public. And this starts to generate the consequences. They have to be made aware of the consequences and sanctions. They're not always negative. It not always has to do with a punishment, with an arrest. What we're trying to do is to make sure that there is a cultural change. We've been working with the U.S. government through USAID in seven years. And through these courts, we have developed a process. We have what we call service portfolios. We have service measures. We have the reeducational measures. So someone who is drunk driving instead of being arrested, what happens is that that person has to go to therapy to control his or her addiction. And that person is supervised by the police so that they change their behavior. This way, what we're doing is that we're betting on prevention. What do I do? What do I mean by this today? Morelia, like many other towns in Latin America, have family violence. This is the violence that happens within families. And this is caused by the use of drugs. And what we've tried to do is that if we don't resolve the underlying problems, if we don't give them the capabilities, we will have even bigger problems in the future. We're working with young people. We're trying to bet on working on addiction instead of punishing people. What we do is that we provide them treatment. This is a treatment which is paid by the administration so that they can resolve that problem. If they have anger management issues, then we send them to treatment. The message is very clear. There are consequences. Legality is an important factor. And at the same time, these people receive the tools whereby offenders don't repeat their behavior. So this is a cultural change and this is a very disruptive topic. It requires work. It requires understanding from the diagnostic. So in Morelia, what we're trying to do today on these three axes is to create the national model of police. And we see a 70% reduction of street crime. And it has allowed us to see that even social conflict has gone down during the pandemic. We had a very big increase in this. This is what we're doing through the system. It's a legal system. And at the local level, that allows us to do preventive work from the causes, from the root causes. Thank you, Commissioner. And now Guillermo, I wonder if you could comment on what you've just heard and what you have done in the United States and also since our invitee from Honduras has not yet been able to join us. Whether these things can and have been applied in Central America? Justice and other methods you'd hear. I would like to raise or lift up some of the comments that were made by the mayor of Palmeira because I think that is one of these standards that I think cuts across all countries, which is an accurate problem analysis of the book of committing crime. What age are they? Where are the zones that crimes are being committed and even more important, as important? A cost-benefit analysis. If I understand the data correctly, four of the 24 homicides were attributed to a program. So if we do a cost-benefit analysis, it may be that program is already saving the city much more money than if it was not present. So that type of hardcore analysis is critically important because we do run the risk of over-criminalizing youth, as it has happened in the United States. Not all of the youth in all of the communities, even the most marginalized communities, are actually involved in violence. So we need a thermometer, if you will, to determine which of the youth are at the highest level of risk so that we're not intervening the same way with everyone. Those things have been translated to Central America through USAID programs. The sustainability of them. It's a little bit challenging. And then the last comment that I want to make that also brings in what was being done in Morelia as well is this emphasis on, historically my profession has addressed youth violence almost as a view for independent entities from their families. I think in the last few years USAID has invested heavily in these evidence-based family approaches to complement how we reduce the behavior associated with gangs. And I say the behavior rather than the identity because if we follow the example of the United States, we in the United States made the problem of youth gangs worse by focusing on identity rather than behavior. And that's a very, very important distinction. So I love the work that is being done in Palmyra. I love the conversation. This is very different than a conversation that we will have even five years ago. Some of it has to do with metrics and some of it has to do with really getting down to levels of prevention. Violence prevention and intervention is not the same across the board for every community and every youth. I'll end with this. In the United States, the cities that I'm working in currently, the problem is not the violence of youth. In the case of Auckland, the average age of a homicide victim and a perpetrator over the last five years has actually been 24 to 35. So the problem analysis is critically important. The intervention to meet the right levels of risk is critically important. And emphasis, more emphasis on family support and intervention to supplement the work that is being done with youth. These are things that are happening through USAID programs that are a little bit more advanced in the U.S. But I think we're on the right track with them. Thank you. I think we now have Alexander Mejia Vregidor from Do You Hear Me, our invited guest, the city councilman for Choloma. He's trying to join. Yes, of course, I'm trying to fix this. I'm having issues with the light. Let me see if I can fix things. And I would like to apologize. Mary, I think I'd go on with another question. I wonder if we could talk a little bit about, because this was mentioned, alternative forms of justice was mentioned by the commissioner. And I believe that PASOS has also worked with access to justice issues in Palmyra. Is that an area that is promising? Have you worked in that area? What about access to justice and alternative forms of justice as another solution, a way to reach out to youth? Mayor Escobar. Thank you. Yes, of course a major. I mean, the justice system is another branch of government. Many times overlooked underfunded in which trust of the citizens, of the average citizen doesn't come because it takes so long, you know, to have a process in the justice system in Colombia. And so many times justice is not done. I mean, from every 10 homicides that we have, three and a half are solved. The other seven, you never know. So the country where those are the metrics, justice is not the main issue in which people trust to solve their problems. However, again, trying to stop the issues from escalating and to involving police, for example. What we do is try to make arrangements in between people, in between communities. For example, I was just, my assistant was chatting. I am in the capital right now. I was in the national government event. I have to have a flight home in two hours. And she was saying that she was telling me, reminded me that on Saturday, we have a match, a soccer match in between the two biggest teams in the region. America and Cali are the two red and green. And of course, we have an agreement with some of the fans, organizations. I'm sorry, I don't know how to say that. And then we are signing a document, a big document that says we are going to leave this classic soccer match in peace. I mean, we are committing to a peaceful Saturday. We are not going to let soccer to create that type of violence and homicide or any violent attempt. And this is very important, only the fact that they are willing to sign the same paper. Because so many times an offense such as a green wall that is painted from Cali's team, and somebody comes with a graffiti and a red graffiti on top of that is a death offense in between soccer fans. So that is something that is not going to go to the justice system. That is something that if not addressed, can create violence and even homicide. And so that is where we as majors of it and passes as a strategy and the community manager steps in and says, hey, let's undo this offense. Let's do something that tells the other team that we're sorry that we are not OK with that and that we are going to respect each other's team. And only that, that is justice. I mean, that is alternative justice for us in terms of a soccer match. And we do that if there's a lot of cases in which we can do that. I think our friend Alexander Mejia is still trying to get online. I wonder, though, if you talk about some of your work in Honduras and whether these these programs are possible in countries such as Honduras, which has so few resources. And then maybe we can switch to Alexander to comment further. Well, I think components of the programs programs are it's it's absolutely possible to implement them. But I think it's a little bit more challenging in Central America is getting funding for a comprehensive strategy. There is not one program that I know of that by itself can reduce or prevent violence. Prevention programs need to be part of a larger comprehensive strategy. The challenge that we're having in Central America is most of the funding is directed to a specific program that a comprehensive strategy. So in the case of Honduras, the five years that I was there, four years that I was there, we were implementing a very specific family approach to be done with youth at the highest risk of gang joining that were identified through a very specific metrics. And the families were they were provided an intervention for a period of six months. And this was done in San Pedro Sula, La Seiva, and Tegucigalpa. So the program was successful was successful in accomplishing the goals of that particular program. What we were having challenged with two things. One, how do we fund the comprehensive strategy and to the perception that our expectations, the programs will be sustained by volunteers, which is not the case in the United States. So the issue of sustainability, we need to reframe what that means. There is no social program in the United States is effective, especially if they're evidence driven, they can be sustained without funding. One consideration is to really focus more on longer term funding that has metrics attached to it. So the programs actually have the required time to be proven to be effective. It takes at least three years of evaluation to really arrive at an evidence based program. So one thing, let's move away from let's consider the funding and individual program is part of a solution, but not the total solution. And two, that we need to focus a little bit more on longer term funding so that those can become sustainable. So yes, I do think the possible thing to work in Honduras and El Salvador that I've been involved in has been pretty cross cutting. In fact, some of the work that was implemented in Honduras and El Salvador is now coming back to LA so that LA can learn from those lessons. So yes, they are effective, the issue of sustainability, we need to revisit. Okay, thank you. Alexander, can you hear me here? The opportunity of having this in Choloma as a model of the work he did in Los Angeles. So we had the experience with him in our municipality. This was very useful. It was useful at the time to implement programs and processes that guaranteed the exchange of activities and at the very least to understand how them through their methodologies and processes were able to control social problems at the time. And in Honduras in Choloma, it's truly a pleasure to say hello to all of you. We've been here since 2010. We have worked as the mayors in our municipality as administrators as well. We have participated in a number of programs. We had a thematic panel to talk about the problems that our municipality was experiencing in terms of crime and the presence of the Maras of the gangs. So that USAID was able to provide teamwork so that we could identify those areas, those neighborhoods, which at the time had been taken over by the social issues. In the end, I think that we were indeed able to cut the spaces of certain communities so that they could become green areas, social equipment areas and how to empower the communities through projects that use the CESPR methodology. As well as a project that provided a design, an overall design where we could socialize in communities in vulnerable groups and we would start with the children. We wanted children in their community who wanted to see change in their community. Then we spoke to younger people, to young adults, and then the parents. This is what we did in order to control these communities. In this case, 19 neighborhoods required our intervention silently. We did this in a structured manner and we're able to reach them. Now we see the inauguration of projects. For instance, today we were there. This is called the neighborhood Japan. We worked with the Japanese government and of course the town administration was able to provide some of the funds in order to bring this community back from all its problems. We were telling an anecdote when we started to create socialization with this project. The first thing they do was to go and make holes in our tires. So now it's a model neighborhood at the national level that allows citizens to have a park, to have a model school, to have fields, sports fields with their streets paved with their recreational areas with lighting. And this is how we've been able to work within these communities. This large group of communities with the control of many problems that that community was facing at the time. However, empowerment by the municipal government and the intervention of different parties provided a number of projects where we saw measures for education for young people, for minors, for children, as well as being able to learn to live with their fellow citizens. And we were doing this through the outreach centers. These outreach centers were created in spaces that the community had provided, but we used to have rape. We had aggressions and there were parties in the community. People would die. People would quarrel. People would fight. They would kill each other. And so during one of these sessions, we call these motions, we presented, we introduced a motion. We wanted to, we did this in these community centers and this became outreach centers where there would be a space for all this. We had an area for music, for play, for school activities, a cooking school, an office to train young people so that they could become bakers or jewelry makers or dessert makers. So this was all within the community. It was a multiplying factor because the volunteer youngsters became a volunteer group within the center to help young people. At the same time, we also tried to provide spaces to for gym, for girls, would learn to become jewelry makers, would learn how to cut hair. All of those things, all that array of activities that were concentrated in that space that was at the disposal of the community. So we have 12 outreach centers that are able to reach these young people instead of being on a corner, on the street, doing things that they're not supposed to be doing. Smoking pot or other things like kidnapping or aggressing other people. So this is what we've done and these are the outreach centers that have become such an important part of our program. This is not all. The most important thing is that the community can benefit based on the volunteers that that community provides. So now we have communities that have had electricity installed, their streets have been paid, their gutter systems have been reconditioned, they have sports fields, there are places for children after school activities. What is truly important is that the other side of the community, the counterpart, the municipality, the community, and especially the person that provides that service. We come together, each of us providing their support. We provided certain materials, the community provides the volunteers. And above all, we have the direct participation of boys and girls within the communities building those projects. Thank you, Alexander. Yes, I visited the Centros de Alcanza, they're low cost, but they're safe spaces for young people and I think in that sense they're very effective. I think I'll turn it now to Keith, who may have some final wrap up questions and then we'll go to our audience Q&A. I didn't interpret it because I don't have the translation in Spanish, I'm trying to listen to the introduction. Sorry. I think if you go down, there should be a circle at the bottom of your screen where you can choose the language. Keith, do you want to go? Thanks. Yeah, and I'll just, if he doesn't get in, I'll just do it in both languages. My first question was, a lot of you have hit on the question of dialogue between justice and security providers and the citizens. But I just wanted to see if we could go back to that again, just very specifically on that question. The different methods that you've used to have a formalized dialogue where citizens know that they have a space to consistently dialogue with their security and justice providers. What's the best way to do that? What has worked? What hasn't worked? I'd like to hear that from everybody. Maybe we could start with Alejandro Cusi and then Oscar and then Guillermo and then Alexander. If he didn't catch that, I'll repeat it in Spanish for him. Alexander is in Spanish, so let me circle back around. Let's go through that then. Alejandro, Oscar and then Guillermo. It seems to me that in terms of the young people and approaching our citizens, this is the most important topic. Justice is very important. This was a reference that I mentioned in the sense that in the Mexican case, it's quite clear. We see that the circumstances require respecting the law, abiding by the law. This is why we generated a small municipal system that doesn't depend on the power, the judiciary power. It's the executive that manages that system. In fact, in order to legitimize it and make it known, we want our citizens to be aware of this. In Mexico, we have a very serious problem. Justice, dealing justice in Mexico, it's very slow and it doesn't resolve all of the problems, the basis of these problems. So there is a historic institutional aspect in our country in which citizens don't have the most basic knowledge of everyday living, excessive noise, violence, and so on. So what we're trying to do is that through the system of justice, our local system of justice, the citizens have to have a quick response. This is why these hearings that are presided over by a municipal judge is to provide citizens the way to solve problems without formality. Speaking like other citizens, speaking like other people, clearly, so that the person understands why they are being before a judge that is explaining how he committed a small misdemeanor. So we're also training our citizens and we're showing them the importance of respecting rules, the repercussion of having broken the social order. This is the most important topic and we have used certain mechanisms that have to do with restorative measures. The circumstances that allow the community to solve through facilitators the problems that those communities have to reach an agreement. So in a place where it's difficult to apply law, we try to look for mechanisms. For example, in Morelia, the police carry out mediations on the streets. So they're constantly trying to resolve issues and conflicts within the neighborhoods among the people on the streets. The police prevents those issues from escalating and they resolve them. But the interesting thing here is the legitimacy that the police gains. They're able to acquire that position as an authority in the community and then citizens go to them to resolve their issues. So we have been trying to show people that they can access justice even in basic manners and that different things do happen here. So for example, we start from the premise that insecurity is caused by a lack of consequences because in Mexico there are no consequences or things don't happen as a result. So we try to generate this incentive so that the consequence will be much more costly. We need to react and we need to dialogue with citizens. We need to educate them in such a manner that they can see why this is the situation. So from the legal point of view, we need to provide these guarantees to the citizens so that they can be heard. All of the arrests that are made by the police need to appear before a judge so that they can see if this is a legal issue, if it was a forced arrest. So we have the body cams on the police uniform and additionally we have this process done in court. So this allows greater supervision when it comes to the police. It's called the strategy crystal box and this goes back to the start. What we want is legitimacy and trust for the authorities. We want citizens to be heard. This is an exercise that's cathartic and then we have the authority granted to the police. Thank you very much. Oscar, the same question about dialogue. Is there a dialogue with my town home, my neighborhood every month, but I must say I never dialogue with my police. Is there what is the method that citizens should have to dialogue with the police? We believe, again, the justice system, as the major was saying, has a lot of things to improve. But also in the administrative task, there is a lot of things in which we also have to improve to show solutions to people. Passos, which is our strategy, it's short term Spanish for pass the opportunities, peace and opportunity. So again, police is important for the strategy, but it's only one actor in between 15 actors accounting for different city offices, but also accounting for social organizations that help us bring opportunity to these neighborhoods. So again, when there is abuse of police, people can go and of course, I think all police officers should have a complained office. But if you have been abused by police, how are you going to go to the same institution you feel abused to complain? It's not going to happen, right? So you have to create other channels in which Alcaldia, in which we have a figure in Colombia, which is called Personero. And it's sort of a guarantee of human rights in the city has an independent branch also from Alcaldia. So there's different channels in which we receive complaints against police and that help us make decisions also in terms when you need to rotate police from one neighborhood to the other. When somebody is feeling faced or individualized by a police member or where we have corruption evidence of police. But the dialogue that we passers-provide with people with communities is more focused on what we can do as Alcaldia, not what police can do. And again, that brings solutions. I always tell my secretaries that, for example, the president of the Junta de Acción Comunal, which is like the community board of El Barrio of a neighborhood called La Emilia, I say that is one of the targeted neighborhoods because it's a neighborhood with low income and with a long history of crime. I want that community leader to feel more important than the rest because he has more problems and he has to be able to reach us faster. And we have to be able to provide good and services for La Emilia neighborhood in a more effective and more coordinated way. So that is the way in which we bring to use that dialogue to make people in these neighborhoods understand that they have rights and that they can have access to different programs in their neighborhood and that they are very important for Alcaldia because they are participating in this strategy. Great. Thanks a lot. Guillermo? Well, for me, dialogue really has to do a little bit with who we're dialoguing with. I think that there are dialogue mechanisms like commissions, neighborhood empowerment groups, et cetera, that really provide an opportunity to dialogue with adults. I think some of the issues that we're having with youth requires a different kind of dialogue. So one example, and this is only one example, I don't want to present it as a panacea or something that LA did. It has been doing actually since 2008. It's this approach of this community engagement approach that takes place July 4th through Labor Day weekend, 7 p.m. to midnight, Wednesday through Saturday, which is the time that violence spikes throughout the city. This is done in the most violent neighborhoods, and it includes everybody. Youth, senior citizens, families, adults, the police, former gang members, community leaders. It is built around activities, but the goal is to create dialogue by doing things together rather than having a meeting at a local church where we use just words. So activity-driven dialogue, I'm a big proponent of that, and it should have all of the elements of community that are part of problem-solving and community safety. So not just elected officials and the police, not just accepted stakeholders, but everyone. So Los Angeles has been very effective at using this, the city of Oakland has been very effective at using this, and it is a model that can be duplicated in other cities to improve that dialogue and enhance that dialogue through activities that take place at a particular time of the year when violence is known to spike. Terrific, thanks a lot. Alexander Mejia is speaking in English or in Spanish? Is that mute? How does he? See, here we go. Well, some of the things that I'm able to understand and others not because I'm listening in English, and I honestly don't know English at well, but I've been able to pick up on a few things. Alexander, the question is about dialogue between citizens and the police. And entities that deliver justice. So what is the best mechanism for establishing dialogue between citizens and security forces? Well, I think, did we lose him? Apologies, sorry. My signal was unstable. Well, I was saying that basically, in our country, one of the greatest issues is, well, it's the way that the population Yeah, I think we lost him again. Yeah, I'm afraid we Mary, you want to ask? I've got another question. Let me go. Okay. One other quick question for all three of you again. It was just a question of resource allocation. So resources are always limited. They're always going to be insufficient. And you've talked about a lot of very creative, interesting programs. I guess the question is, bureaucratically, politically, how does one best allocate resources? How do you sell the programs that you know are going to be effective, but that may not be the most politically popular, may not be the things that that went over politicians or even sometimes citizens, but you know, we're going to be more effective. How do you work that question of resources? Maybe we could start with Oscar and then Alejandro and then Guillermo. And I'd just like to add one thing. I think, Oscar, you talked about resources earlier, and I think you've argued that PASOS has actually saved resources in the end, that it was very cost effective. So if you could explain a little more about that. Well, of course, that is the main issue. Money is, you're always lucky money to do all what you want to do, all that you promise in campaign. It's crazy. But of course, you have to understand what moves the middle, as you will say, what creates more value in the city. And it's sort of like acupuncture. You have to put the money where the most impact is being done. And of course, there's a, there has to be a political will to do it, because I think Guillermo has been pretty clear. This is not popular. People love you, love that you are chasing criminals and bring them, you know, bring them to justice. And they believe that is the end solution to crime. And so, of course, we have to do that. We do that in Palmyra. But we have to open channels in which we take, I'm going to say something that is tough, soldiers away from these criminal gangs funding it for us. We have our strategy has five different components. So we started with the one that we call interruption of violence, which is the one that we have talked about with community leaders, and there is a mediating conflict, because that was the cheapest for us to start in 2020. And so we started hiring these community leaders that really had experience in legitimacy in territory for them to intervene conflict and help us win trust with the communities, because that's something also Alexander said earlier, when the first time you go, they'll break your tires because they just don't trust the government, right? And then we had that huge national strike that I talked about. And that was so terrible, so terrible that brought so many losses to come to private companies in the region that the businessmen in the region say, we got to do something. We have to what does what does this people want to let us work. And all they said, we want jobs, we want opportunities. So it was like a perfect storm in which it became an opportunity for us as city majors office to say, hey, we have a program that we're only starting to implement. And we believe this is going to help to bring violence down and to create a more safe environment for all of us for citizens in those neighborhoods, but also for companies to make money to be able to do their businesses. So we were very lucky. And in 2021, we got a lot of funding from private companies. And all the in, I said, we started with interruption. And then all the intervention programs were funded deferred from 2021 to 2022, mostly by private companies, because the intervention component is the one that in which I said that we're paying half a minimum wage for 267 young people to condition to being in the program. So that, of course, it costs a lot more money than interruption. And we have been we have been able to do it with a lot of private funding. Right now, we're actually in that challenge of sustainability, right, because, okay, so the private companies funded really hard for two years. And now they are like, okay, this is the job of the government. This is not my job to do this as a private company. We have a new national government that is talking a lot about peace and total peace. And of course, we're trying to get funding from the national government, but they're only seven months in charge. So there's there's still only like doing their planning and all that. So we are right now in a moment of trying to find more funding. And that is also the way that the reason why we did that impact study last year funded by international corporations such as open society foundations. That is helping that is that is giving us the the evidence to say, hey, this is very cost effective. This is working and it's cost effective and please on our program. But one last thing, and it's a political issue. This is very funny for me because it depends on how you tell the story is going to like or dislike to right wing and left wing politics. And the funny thing is our new president is very left wing right and so he's very pro opportunity. But of course, if you if you if you say we're going to pay half minimum wage or a minimum wage to a criminal to get out of the gang. It brings a very big political debate around justice. Why are you giving money to a criminal instead of giving money to that guy who's working in the day studying in the night who's never committed a crime. So I think the wording and the way in which we sell the strategies have very big impacts in terms of being able to have a political agreement in between parties and being able to fund the programs. And I wanted to say that because even though now it brings a big political debate, the left wing president is proposing this. What I always tell is, hey, we were already doing that. But with the funding of private companies that whose owners are mostly right wing and mostly conservative. So I think we can come to an agreement that is best for all if we invest in young people to try to prevent violence. And that is how we have been doing it. Fantastic. Thanks. Alejandro. Anything else? Alejandro. Without a doubt, any public policy requires resources for implementation. And this issue of sustainability is something that we see frequently because we do have limited resources. What we've done is to bet on these projects in a certain way. These programs are costly. So we bet on international cooperation. We've been able to make the most of the resources, training and consulting from international entities to truly try to train those who work in the justice system and in the police in order to provide the best training possible. So we've been able to make the most of international cooperation. On the other hand, when we start to look at several models, we see something similar to what has happened in Palmyra. We start to see private financing come in. When we start to see these results and these possibilities, we demonstrate that these models also impact private companies and the ecosystem of a city. We see that businessmen, that organizations also want to provide their support. So the greatest challenge here is sustainability. And we have to look at the financing. We have to be creative today, particularly in the case of Mexico. As you know, the position of the federal government has been to militarize or to designate all resources to the army. And we hope that they are providing exceptional support when it comes to public security. So we have these local models, which I think can be replicated easily. Morelia is a model for the national level, and we try to access resources because of the lack of federal resources. So we've been able to address this with a lot of creativity. What I would say now, not precisely from an economic point of view, but from a political point of view, similar to what the mayor of Palmyra said, is that we need political leadership. We need to be able to establish these alliances. We need to have these strategic stakeholders that will allow us to continue with the projects. In the experience we've had in Morelia, these good results have led to private financing as well. I think that today, and I'll say this as a conclusion, we see the importance of international cooperation. In Mexico, we see that there are a lot of challenges. As the mayor said, we see differences between political parties. We see that it may not align when it comes to security. But in the case of Morelia, we are basically carrying out a peaceful civil resistance. We see what's being done, and we're betting against what is generally being done, which is to invest more in the military. We are working on these projects from the community point of view with police, with security forces, and this is complex. We need political will. We need to establish alliances. And we need to be an example for other places and citizens that we can get results like this. In Morelia, that is truly satisfying for us. Our model was able to consolidate itself in a moment in which we had deficient federal, state, and city resources. And we've been able to maintain our model, despite the lack of resources due to a strategic alliance that we have with citizens, businessmen, and everyone that has been benefiting from the results of the program. And we've also benefited from international cooperation. So despite the adverse circumstances, such as those we see in Latin America, where resources are scarce, we're able to look at the way that we are creative, the way that we establish these alliances that allow us to be sustainable through the strategic partnerships so that we have the capability and the resources to continue forward with these programs. Fantastic. And I know we're almost out of time and I don't want Oscar to miss his flight. So Guillermo, do you have two minutes on resources? Then I'll go back to Mary and she can close us out. My comment about the resource issue is that, you know, having been around this field for a very long time, I think my profession, I'm in the social prevention and intervention side of the equation has a higher burden of proof than other forms of violence interruption. In other words, we have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt using a randomized treatment and control group that the programs that we are spending X amount of dollars in are effective in reducing violence. I think what's on the table right now nationally in the U.S. is the discussion of it's the same equal burden of proof on the law enforcement side. It's the evidence there that traditional law enforcement has been effective at reducing violence. One may make be able, you know, may make the case that if that was the case, the high rate of incarceration in the United States will not be what it is. So I think we really need to backtrack a little bit and take a look at the whole complex issue of public safety in terms of what works. I think some social programs are effective and some are not. And I think some law enforcement strategies are effective and some are not, but we need to evaluate with equal rigor across the board because that is what's going to generate the political will. So that's one thing. Statistics don't don't console the grieving mother or grieving community, but we do need to use data. And then the last point that I would like to make is that I think at this point there is a desire to reimagine a perception of public safety. I think that that move in the United States is very much something that I am hoping translates to the international concept international context rather because I think it's fairly clear that we've made a lot of mistakes over the years in the United States that do not need to be replicated. Specific example in the city of LA, the war on gangs was a failure. It created more guns and it eliminated violence. This is not a comment from me. This is a comment from law enforcement chiefs of police in LA. So I think we need to really take a look at what is public safety? What actually hasn't worked over years and how do we evaluate across the board? The absolute necessity to respond to violence as it's occurring is it correlates into whether political will is developed by a mayor or not. So the mayor, if my programs are not reducing the number of shootings, I can't ask my mayor to politically sustain that. So those of us in the social prevention side need to think about how do we interrupt that shooting, which is where I started. We started the crime scene to stop the next shooting. That's a way of building political will. We have some challenges ahead of us. I'm pretty hopeful of where we're at in terms of this concept of reimagining what public safety is both at the U.S. level and internationally. Super, thanks. Mary, back to you. Well, thank you so much Guillermo. I think that that was a wonderful summing up of what we've learned today. I want to thank all of you. All of you have developed innovative programs, often with very little resources. In Morelia, the Policía de Proximidad has been cited as a model and obviously working very hard to improve the relationship and the dialogue and the responsiveness of police. Oscar Escobar's, in Palmyra, the program Pasos, is justly recognized for being a very targeted, evidence-based approach to working with youth in a variety of ways. And then, of course, in a precarious situation, Honduras and with a lot of international support from USAID has instituted these centros de alcance, which are very low cost, but do make a difference in the community. I have visited some of them. They're just a start. They need to be evaluated, as Guillermo said, but they're an important start to helping those who are most vulnerable in these very violent communities in Honduras. So I want to thank you all for participating. You've brought some wonderful ideas to the table. And I guess the next task is what Guillermo closed with, rigorous evidence to show communities and elected officials and budgeters that these programs really work. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you all. Thanks, everybody. Bye-bye. Thank you very much.