City Hires First Violence Prevention Coordinator

An ex-parole officer and clinical therapist who grew up ​“dodging violence” in the Bronx has been chosen to lead the city’s new office of violence prevention — and to use his lived and professional experience to help quell cycles of brutality.

That new Elicker Administration appointee is Reuel Parks. 

During a Friday morning press conference on the second floor of City Hall, Mayor Justin Elicker introduced Parks as New Haven’s first ever coordinator for the new Office of Violence Prevention. The city created that coordinator position back in September 2021 as part of the new Department of Community Resilience. 

“I’m honored to be chosen for the role,” Parks, who officially stepped into the job on Jan. 4, told reporters as he stood alongside a slate of city officials, non-profit partners, and members of the police department. 

Those in attendance included Mayor Elicker, Community Services Administrator Mehul Dalal, Department of Community Resilience Director Carlos Sosa-Lombardo, Department of Community Resilience Projects Manager Dijonée Talley, Police Chief Karl Jacobson, Youth and Recreation Department Director Gwendolyn Williams, Project M.O.R.E. Director Keisha Gatison, and Connecticut Violence Interruption Executive Director Leonard Jahad. 

For the past two decades, Parks has worked as a juvenile detention officer with the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF) and as a parole officer with the Connecticut Department of Correction (DOC). He’s also a trained clinical therapist and currently serves as a member of Hamden’s Board of Education, a volunteer role he ran for in 2021 after leaving the state DOC after suffering an injury on the job.

Over the last 23 years, Parks said, ​“I’ve gained in-depth understanding of the challenges that justice-involved individuals face both before and after incarceration… . When we are unwilling to intervene, we miss an opportunity to prevent the worst outcome.”

He described his ongoing work, including his new role at City Hall, as ​“helping at-risk populations realize their potential before engaging in acts where lives are forever changed either by incarceration or death.”

Mayor Elicker said that Parks’s responsibilities will include acting as a liaison of sorts in order to connect government and nonprofit organizations such that New Haven residents who are identified as likely perpetrators of violence — primarily shootings — receive the support services they need to limit lives lost. 

“Similar to Hartford, Waterbury, Bridgeport, we have a very small number of people that are engaged in violence in New Haven,” Elicker said. ​“Overwhelmingly that violence is gun violence, occasionally a stabbing,” he said. 

Parks’s appointment is the latest development in an ongoing series of initiatives undertaken by the city to combat the kind of violence that has already seen three people murdered in 2023 so far.

Last March, the city established the PRESS Program (Program for Reintegration, Engagement, Safety and Support) designed to boost collaboration between the New Haven Police Department, the state Department of Correction, the state Offices of Probation and Parole, the local reentry services organization Project M.O.R.E., the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the city Community Services Administration, the Connecticut Violence Intervention Program (CTVIP), and others.

Elicker said PRESS currently meets regularly over Zoom to collectively ​“identify the people they think have the highest potential of engaging in violence,” and determine how best to service and reach out to those individuals. 

Parks’s new role will be to specialize in further coordinating between those independent agencies and government offices to more closely identify ​“who is falling through the cracks and how do we fix that?” according to Elicker. Parks will also be responsible for leading proactive research into what other ​“evidence-based approaches” other cities and states are pursuing to reduce violence, asking the question: ​“How do we adopt even more innovative programs?” 

Jahad also noted Friday that Parks’s hiring should assist in ​“formalizing” the relationships between department and agency leaders that already exist to ensure that even ​“as someone steps up or moves aside,” the city has a systematic and replicable means of keeping track of and aiding residents in need of support.

Dalal, the city’s community services administrator, said that the office of violence prevention will follow a social services framework, honoring the ​“dignity, individuality and circumstances” of every individual in order to adequately connect them with resources that could help quell violent behavior, from housing to employment to mental health services.

“We’ve got a good strong structure and we need to add to it,” Police Chief Jacobson said of the city’s framework for confronting gun violence and crime.

“People in these scenarios don’t just take help the first time you ask them — you have to be persistent,” he said, adding that ​“more coordination and collaboration” is key to ensuring that every individual in need gets the support required to avoid violent encounters.

Parks said his commitment to working with individuals and communities disproportionately impacted by violence has roots in his childhood. After his family immigrated from Jamaica when he was a kid, Parks said he grew up ​“dodging violence” rampant in his New York City neighborhood and witnessed the murder of a close friend in his early 20s.

After years working directly with those stuck in cycles of violent behavior or traumatized by loved ones lost to bullets, Parks said he is now looking forward to a broader, high-level leadership role that will allow him to consider systemic interventions to preserve life — and ​“hopefully eradicate” regular acts of violence.