Philly’s had a new public safety director for a year. Has it made a difference?
Chief Public Safety Director Adam Geer reflected on his first year in office, saying antiviolence programs contributed to a sharp decline in homicides.
Six months ago, Philadelphia’s chief public safety director worked out of a cramped Center City office with nothing on the walls. He oversaw a half-dozen offices and programs that were spread across the city government, some of them led by people who worked elsewhere.
Today, Adam Geer has a new home base: a bright space overlooking City Hall and adorned with portraits of Civil Rights heroes. And the more than 100 people he manages work just steps away from his door.
The move was both literal and symbolic for Geer and Philadelphia’s Office of Public Safety, an agency that a year ago brought the city’s disparate public-safety functions under one roof. Geer, whose position was created by City Council to improve cooperation among city leaders, now oversees a variety of programs largely focused on preventing violence.
Geer spent much of his first year in the role defining what it would be under new Mayor Cherelle L. Parker. Rather than overseeing the administrative side of the police and fire departments — as lawmakers originally pitched it — Geer has positioned himself more as a complement to Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel and a leader of antiviolence work outside traditional policing.
His job was created amid a historic spike in gun violence. Over the last year, the city saw a dramatic reduction in shootings and experienced its largest decline in homicides in at least 50 years. Rates of violence have dropped across the country, and experts say it could be years before they untangle the reasons why.
» READ MORE: Philly saw a historic drop in murders in 2024. What changed?
Geer said in an interview that shooters being arrested is a clear contributor. He also credits the robust web of city-operated antiviolence programs and grassroots community organizations that aim to prevent shootings before they happen.
Independent evaluations of these initiatives have produced mixed results: some that aim to engage with potential shooters have been lauded for addressing the city’s gun violence epidemic. Other antiviolence programs have lacked oversight or failed to reach their own goals.
Geer said he believes the most important indicator of a successful antiviolence program can be challenging to quantify: people who were not shot.
“I truly believe it’s responsible in large part with the numbers that we’re seeing,” he said.
Interventions with would-be shooters
Geer said a key initiative over the past year has been expanding Group Violence Intervention, a partnership between employees in his office and the police department that aims to engage with gang-affiliated individuals or others considered most likely to shoot or be shot.
Using a list from police, case workers go to the homes of residents — most of them young men — and offer them access to city services and job connections. The mothers of people who were fatally shot sometimes accompany caseworkers, and they plead with the individuals to stop the violence.
Last year, the city added caseworkers to its roster and made contact with more than 900 at-risk people, Geer said. That’s more than double the previous year.
The program, also known as GVI, is a new version of “Focused Deterrence,” which was first implemented in South Philadelphia more than a decade ago, but was discontinued amid leadership shake-ups.
GVI was reinstated under former Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration, and University of Pennsylvania researchers wrote in a 2023 report that it helped reduce gun violence among targeted groups by as much as 50%.
Geer’s office in November also launched a new GVI program specifically for youths age 12 to 17, thanks to a $615,000 federal grant. That program will begin in North Philadelphia’s 22nd Police District, which in recent years has seen some of the city’s highest rates of violent crime.
Violence prevention programs and grants for community groups
When Geer took office, he was tasked with overseeing a grant-making program aimed at supporting grassroots antiviolence organizations, but that was beset by administrative problems. The City Controller found that the rollout was botched. Some organizations were unable to manage the funds. In one high-profile case, a grant was improperly funneled to city police employees.
While campaigning for mayor, Parker said she supported the city granting millions of taxpayer dollars to nonprofits and antiviolence groups but would revamp the programs to improve accountability.
Geer said the city has added layers of oversight to the process and is providing more guidance to the groups that receive funding. But he said one of the biggest challenges has been quantifying what he said has been a largely positive impact, so the administration secured funding to hire an analyst tasked with measuring the impact.
“We want to put some science behind it so that we can try and understand in a more realistic, tangible way for the public,” Geer said. “We can say ‘this $25 million that’s going out the door, this has this impact.’”
For example, an organization might receive a small, $1,500 grant to provide an after-school art class to youths considered at risk. Geer acknowledged that “‘people might look at that and say, what does that have to do with violence prevention?’”
But he argued that if the class is held at a time and place away where young people might otherwise be subjected to violence, it may have saved lives.
Can progress be sustained?
In year two, Geer said his office will look to continue expanding some of its antiviolence programming. Kensington and the open-air drug market in the neighborhood will also be a key focus for the office and the Parker administration, as it was over the last year.
Gun violence rates have plummeted in the heart of Kensington, but residents say they’re still awaiting a crackdown on drug traffic.
Longer term, Geer said his office will focus on sustaining reduced violence rates across the city through business growth, job creation, and poverty reduction. Philadelphia has for years been considered the poorest large city in America, but Geer said he believes an economic turnaround in the city is “closer than we think.”
“I do truly believe in five or 10 years the city is going to be unrecognizable,” he said. “I do think there’s going to be more economic opportunities for folks. I do think crime is going to be lower. I do think that the city is going to be greener. ... We just need to continue to keep our foot on the pedal. All of us.”