Smart Justice
Smart Justice covers the pursuit of better outcomes on justice system issues, including incarceration, foster care, and juvenile justice. The podcast is produced by Restore Hope.
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Smart Justice
After Little Rock’s Deadliest Year, a Prosecutor Charts a New Path
Pulaski County Prosecutor Will Jones started his role in 2023 following the deadliest year for homicides in Little Rock's history. He says it was time to find a different approach to fighting crime—one that would require him to think outside of the traditional prosecutor role.
In this interview with Jones, we discuss crime trends, community trust, and a new path forward through Group Violence Intervention (GVI), an evidence-based approach he believes could be transformative for Pulaski County.
According to Jones, violent crime in Pulaski County is trending downward now. He says homicide numbers are down 44% countywide and nearly 50% in Little Rock compared to 2022.
But he is quick to note that success isn’t measured by statistics alone. “It’s still a very troubling number. We’re not going to stop until we get that number to zero.”
He says we have to remember one key insight: most violent crime is committed by a small number of individuals. “It’s a very small number that is responsible for 90% of the violent crime,” he says. “If we can figure out a way to target that group—or help that group—then I think we’ll see a significant reduction in violent crime.”
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We believe that the homicide numbers themselves are definitely down. We're not going to stop until we get that number to zero.
Speaker 2:Around the nation. Gun violence is destroying families and weakening communities, and it's becoming a leading cause of death for young people. We know that in nearly every city, only a small number of people are driving most of the violence. An approach called group violence intervention, or GVI, identifies those individuals and engages with them directly, trying to offer them a way out before the violence occurs. It's not just about stopping the shootings. It's about building a community where everyone feels like they have a shot at hope. Welcome to this episode of A Shot at Hope, where we're sitting down with Pulaski County Prosecutor Will Jones. So, will, thanks so much for sitting down with us. You've been prosecutor in Pulaski County for about two and a half years now. Yes, and you have a long history in the courts, so you've worked for the Attorney General's office. You've been a prosecutor for two and a half years. You were prosecuting cases in Pine Bluff. Yes, maybe what I do is I'll allow you to give your resume.
Speaker 1:Sure, I've been a prosecutor for almost 25 years now, or actually 26 years now. I've been a prosecutor for 26 years now, most of that here in Pulaski County. I was here for almost 12 years and then with the AG's office for about eight years and then spent a couple of years down in Pine Bluff, and then now I've been back as the elected prosecutor for two and a half years here in Pulaski.
Speaker 2:County. Can you give us an overview of what crime looks like in Pulaski County right now?
Speaker 1:So overall crime is down and I think it's down overall in Pulaski County. I know that Little Rock keeps up with statistics and the ones that they put out have shown that crime is down overall. But we're not happy with that. We're going to keep trying to get it down more and more, especially the violent crime.
Speaker 2:Well, what about? Yeah, so speaking of violent crime, you know what are the trends in violent crime kind of showing about what's happening on?
Speaker 1:the street. Well, violent crime is down even more than the overall crime rate, which is good, because those are obviously the most important crimes. I mean because those are the heavy, intense, very personal crimes and those that have the lasting effects on families. So I'll say this at the end of our first two year term, which is the end of 2024, the homicide numbers were down in Pulaski County 44% actually almost 50% down in Little Rock itself. Now they're up a little bit from last year, this year right now, but that's still trending below 2022, which was the deadliest year ever in Pulaski County, which had 119 homicides, and that's the year before we got in the office and started trying to work on it. So we believe that the homicide numbers themselves are definitely down, but that's still a very troubling number that it's up that high. So we're not going to stop until we get that number to zero.
Speaker 2:Which types of crimes are most prevalent in the last 12 months?
Speaker 1:let's say I would say property crimes are always going to be that way, and drug crimes as well. The ones that trouble us the most are the violent crimes, because it just takes such a toll on the community and such a toll on the families and victims that go through those Gun violence is a topic we hear a lot about.
Speaker 2:What are some of the statistics in the last 12 months on kind of violent crime committed with firearms.
Speaker 1:I think those numbers are down. I don't have those specific numbers because we don't really operate with the statistics in our office. I mean, we're pleased when we see those put out, especially by Little Rock, showing that those are down. We take some pride in that, certainly, but as I understand it they are trending down. But our cases that we file we have about 250 homicides that we have pending in our office and so we are filing a lot of kind of older cases, some cold cases and things like that. So our numbers of filings are remaining close to the same even though the homicide numbers are going down, because we're kind of going back and picked up some other cases to try to get justice for families.
Speaker 2:What do you wish that the public maybe knew about those that are committing violent crimes?
Speaker 1:I think really, what I wanted to know is it's a relatively small number, actually a very small number, that is responsible for, I'd say, 90 percent of the violent crime. Now, I don't say that to minimize it at all, but what I mean is is if we can figure out a way to target that group or to help that group, then I think we'll see a significant reduction in violent crime.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting. So instead of thinking that it's this huge elephant that we have to, we've just got to be able to figure out who is, or most likely to be, perpetrators and victims of these crimes, and then that makes it. Maybe it gives hope that it's a more manageable if we can come up with solutions.
Speaker 1:I think so and I think you know it's you know, to kind of, to borrow from what you guys do smart justice. I mean it's just being smarter about what we do, and that involves more people than just the prosecutor's office, just law enforcement. We have to have many eyes and ears and hands on this problem to know more about it, to know how to address it.
Speaker 2:Well, you said you know you were talking about needing to be able to partner, so can we talk specifically about you know what you know. Given all the laws and the rules that you operate under, what can a prosecutor do?
Speaker 1:Well, if you're just talking about the basic prosecutorial function, it's limited, it just really is. And I've been doing this for almost 25 years now and I knew, coming back into this office, that we had to approach it differently because, like I say, the year before I took off is 119 homicides and so, knowing that the community's just racked with this violence and so many people are hurting, so many families are hurting, that we had to do better and so we had to think of a different approach. And that's one of the things that we brought in with us. And we had a lot of conversations sitting around our tables with community partners, people that have gone to prison for homicides and murders, that are out here now trying to get with the next generation of folks to change their life and change their path. So we just we really thought outside of the traditional prosecutor role and you know.
Speaker 1:But the problem is having the capacity to do that. That's really, you know, having, because we're record number of cases, record numbers of openings in our office too. You know that we haven't been able to fill or we've been able to fill and haven't been able to retain. So those are the real problems of thinking about it a different way, but we're absolutely committed to it and I think we've taken some real good steps and I feel like that has a role, a part to play in the crime going down these statistics that you've been talking about.
Speaker 2:It's good, and so you answered this a little bit. So you talked about kind of what a prosecutor can do, what are some of the things that, if you're thinking about reducing crime and especially violent crime in the community, you know what are some of the challenges for the prosecutor's office and being able to get that done.
Speaker 1:Well, the reality is, when our office gets involved in the traditional sense, when our office gets involved, bad things already happen. It's already happened. There's already a family that's grieving and I typically get, me and myself and our chief deputy, kelly Ward, go to the homicide scenes in Little Rock. We don't get to make all of them because we just have different needs at times and different obligations, but so often we're at those scenes before the family even realizes that they've lost a son or daughter or a brother or uncle, whatever. So we know that trauma is going to come to them at some point. So the reality is that once the crime has happened, all we can do is try to make sure that that person gets held accountable, and quickly.
Speaker 1:We were just at a conference this week and the prosecutor very impressive lady in Kansas City. She was talking about the number one. Studies have shown that the number one deterrence factor is swift apprehension, swift consequences, those kind of things. When people commit a crime then it takes a while for law enforcement or the prosecution, the state, whatever, to catch up. Well, I mean, how many more crimes are they committing? And so that was. It wasn't necessarily Senate's that was the biggest deterrent, it was the swiftness and surety of actually being caught and held accountable for it.
Speaker 2:All right. So, with kind of the things that the prosecutor can do and the challenges and what you're unable to do, maybe to prevent violent crime, let's talk about this group violence intervention strategy that several other cities, including Pine Bluff, arkansas, have implemented and are seeing results from. Can you, just from a prosecutor's perspective, can you kind of reflect back what you think about the GVI program?
Speaker 1:Oh, it's phenomenal, and I first. There was a version of it that I first encountered back in when I was at the attorney general's office, I think, probably 2015,. I was at a violence reduction network that Little Rock was a part of and West Memphis was a part of, and I was actually on the West Memphis team and one of the ones that I think it was drug market intervention or something like that, and it was kind of the early version of GBI, where you had these call-ins, you had all of this and you were giving the people that were targeted, the people that you felt like were committing the violence, that were causing the most problems. You were letting them know hey, we're coming for you, stop this behavior. If you change it, we'll go on about our business, but if you don't, we're going to come after you, kind of thing.
Speaker 1:And I was really intrigued by that, and so I thought about that a lot and studied that over the time, because I kind of had a path that I want to be back in Pulaski County, working in the community where I live and raise my family, so much.
Speaker 1:I mean, I was down in Pine Bluff for two years as the chief deputy prosecutor down there and I had managed a homicide case note of about 64, 60 to 64 during that time and I met with so many families that are just heartbroken and that whole community has just been ravaged by the violence.
Speaker 1:And to see the successes of that community, the good, hardworking people and how they poured into it and the whole community has surrounded around this, and to see the outstanding results that they have. I just know that we can do that here in Little Rock and in Pulaski County as well, because you've been working in this field for a while and you've got a lot of good people doing great things in their own right, but it's until we all get together and get everybody working together, we're not really going to make a difference. And the thing about GBI that's so encouraging is that it's a proven track record of collaboration and they have a model that has worked in small cities like Pine Bluff and large cities like Philadelphia, and so I just know that we're going to be able to bring that here and we've got a lot of energy here and if we get it all pointed in the right direction, I absolutely feel like this community is going to be better off long-term.
Speaker 2:Can we talk about some of the? You know what GVI actually does. That would be helpful. So the GVI program, as I understand it, is some infrastructure that allows coordination amongst both law enforcement and municipalities, but also within service providers in the community. But you know what are some of the biggest benefits. You would see if it came to Pulaski County.
Speaker 1:I think it's a joint emphasis on that accountability piece that I talked about a little bit ago, making sure that the people that are committing the crimes know that they're going to be held accountable and they are going to be dealt with for doing the things in our community that you've been doing. We're not going to tolerate that anymore. So they know that. But they also know, on the other end, we'll help you If you'll stop, if you'll turn your life around, if you'll take us up on some opportunities. We can help you with that and you don't have to live this way.
Speaker 1:There are other alternatives and I believe it helps instill hope in them that there is another way to do it. And then, once we can start getting some small successes, then it's going to build on that and then we can have the people that have been kind of in this group of violence. If we can turn around a few of those lives and then those guys become messengers for us, then we have less on this enforcement end that we really have to follow through with, and so it's really a coordinated effort to have law enforcement communicating with themselves, communicating with the prosecutor's office, and all that so that we make sure that if that event happens, we're getting justice for that family and getting justice for the community. However, if we can step in before that and prevent that altogether, then we have a chance to do that as well.
Speaker 2:Oftentimes we'll hear that in some communities maybe the communities where they have pretty high violence that there's low trust for law enforcement. How do you think that GVI might help kind of bridge over into community members where maybe their trust goes up a little bit?
Speaker 1:I think it's. I believe it's going to show the humanity in law enforcement and show a softer side, because those men and women in law enforcement have families at home as well and they don't want their communities wracked by that violence either, and you know it. Just, it's really a way to say, hey, let's stop where we are, let's sit down, let's communicate, because it's just easier. It's easier to trust someone if you sit around a table with them, and that's what GBI does. It gets us out into those communities and we're sitting down, we're explaining what is going to happen, and so some of the myths and stereotypes of on both sides they kind of get dispelled and we say, hey, this is where we are moving forward, and I believe that's how we build the trust and just get a better face to really both sides, to get both sides trusting each other more by sitting down and talking about it and explaining what we believe is going to happen.
Speaker 2:I think you would need. I'm just kind of thinking back to our work. I think you need that trust. Yeah, for anyone to take you up on the offer of help.
Speaker 1:I believe that too? Yeah, because if you, and that's why the credible messenger piece of the GBI is so important. So you're talking about people that have lived the lives of some of these people that feel like they're trapped in this violence, that that's all they have. You're talking about people now that are coming in and saying look, if you continue on this path, I know where that leads, and so they they have more credibility maybe than someone like myself. That's never, you know, never been involved in that life, and so it's really about meeting them where they are and hopefully getting them to trust us that we are here to help them, and it just it may take a few small successes at first, but I think once we have a few, it's going to build on itself.
Speaker 2:You know I've seen exactly that happen in Pine Bluff, that group. We were doing some work there about a year ago before they had reached their year goal of no juvenile homicides and they were real hopeful but very wary of maybe you know tomorrow it could end today or tomorrow. But now they're over 500 days without a juvenile homicide and I see the hope that's built within that community. Now the professionals in that community they know that their effort could produce some good results.
Speaker 1:Well, when I was down there, I saw firsthand the lack of trust between the community and law enforcement, in kind of both ways. It was an issue that I knew in my short time there I wasn't going to be able to solve it. I mean, in some ways I wondered would it ever be solved? But GBI solved it. I'm telling you, it's now to see them and to see how proud they are. You think about that, think about all of our friends in Pine Bluff that we talk with and talk about GBI all the time and they're just so proud. And talk with and talk about GBI all the time and they're just so proud and they should be Absolutely. I mean, it is absolutely changed that community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, judge Brown, I think, deserves a lot of kudos for his grit and being able to, and persistence, just and ingenuity in trying to do something with very little assets and he's someone that has proven that he cares.
Speaker 1:You know, sometimes it takes a little longer to convince he's someone that has proven that he cares. You know sometimes it takes a little longer to convince some people sometimes that you care, but he is someone who has absolutely proven over time that he cares and has that credibility.
Speaker 2:For anyone who thinks that maybe that we would be soft on criminals, especially violent criminals what would you say to that if we adopt this GVI approach?
Speaker 1:I would say listen to the message. And the message is strong and the places I've seen it like, I say the prosecutor, the team from Kansas City. I just heard them present Tuesday and their motto is you will change your behavior or we'll change it for you. So it's a strong message and I think typically GVI, the motto is we'll help you if you let us, we'll stop you if you don't. So it really comes from both sides. It has the ability to help people out of those situations, but you know on the back end, if you don't, we're going to come for you. So I think the fact that it has a strong message on both sides is what sets it apart.
Speaker 2:You spoke directly to the residents of Pulaski County, who may be a little nervous about the gun violence that's happened, especially this year, in the city. What would you tell them from the prosecutor's office?
Speaker 1:Well, I'd say we're all nervous about it and we know that so many of these families and neighborhoods have just been torn apart by the violence.
Speaker 1:And what I tell them is is we have an office full of about 120 people in our office and they're all absolutely dedicated to making sure that the quality of life for residents in Pulaski County, that we're doing all that we can to improve their quality of life, and we have people that are working around the clock to make sure that they're ready for a hundred page dockets every week.
Speaker 1:We've tried over 60 jury trials this year already. We've got people that are in and out of the office all weekend preparing for court and all that. And they do that at great risk to themselves sometimes and risk to their family at least, you know, from their well-being perspective to make sure that that the families and the communities are served. And I can just assure people that that in our office we are dedicated to that and we're going to continue to do that until there's no, until there's no crime. We want to make sure that, uh, that families are safe, you know, going to the mall, taking their children to a park somewhere or sitting out on their porch at night, enjoying a cool night. We want to make sure that people feel safe and that their quality of life is improved, and we're absolutely committed to that and we'll keep doing that as long as we're here you say that there's a small group responsible for the majority of the violent crime.
Speaker 2:What message would you have for that group?
Speaker 1:I just want them to know that there's a better life out there for you. You don't have to live this way. You don't have to live your whole life looking over your shoulder. Think about a day where you didn't have to look over your shoulder every day to see if someone who's an op or someone who is against you is out there looking for you. So just I want you to know we will help provide you with a better quality of life.
Speaker 2:Coming up in the next episode of A Shot at Hope. It's not just about stopping bullets. It's about creating a thriving community, neighborhoods where people feel safe and people feel free and they're not scared of violence in their communities, against their families, against their children listen to a shot at hope on YouTube, apple podcasts, spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Or go to smart justice org.
