Henrico leaders to join area summit addressing root causes of crime

Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor, Richmond City Interim Commonwealth’s Attorney Colette W. McEachin, and Chesterfield County Commonwealth’s Attorney Scott Miles have announced a community-wide summit addressing root causes of crime.

The first session of the Beyond Containment Dialogue series, “The Collision at the Intersection of Criminal Justice and Poverty,” will be held Sept. 27 at Virginia Union University’s Claude G. Perkins Living and Learning Center from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.

The objective of the session will be to bring together community members, municipal leaders and other criminal justice stakeholders to engage in a deeper analysis of the following questions:
• “Why are the poor the most common victims of crime;”
• “Why do they comprise the vast majority of people arrested and prosecuted for crime;”
• “Why do they comprise the vast majority of incarcerated people?”

Subsequent sessions will address different aspects of poverty and how it affects public safety, including such topics as the effect of policing the poor on public safety, deconcentrating poverty, and myth and reality relating to the cradle-to-prison pipeline.

Upon completion of the dialogue series, strategy groups will be organized to propose reformed or new policies that will address the root causes discussed and promote comprehensive, long-term strategies for public safety that can reduce the need for relying solely on traditional arrest and prosecution.

For details, contact the Office of the Commonwealth's Attorney in Richmond at 646-3542.