Derrick Sanders feared that if he did not return to the corners of Atlanta’s English Avenue neighborhood, more bodies would drop.

Mr. Sanders had been a street outreach worker for the Offender Alumni Association. But he was laid off in late 2025 after the organization lost $1.5 million in federal funds and was disbanded. Then, murders surged.

There were four killings the next month, Mr. Sanders said — all deaths he believes were preventable. One of the victims had been a participant in the Offender Alumni Association, the program where Mr. Sanders worked to de-escalate conflicts and mentor people at risk of committing violence. He had engaged regularly with two of the other victims in the community.

“When we were there to mediate situations, they would listen — we come to an agreement,” he said. “But when we left, that agreement left with us.”

After violent crime worsened alongside Covid-19, the federal government passed legislation including hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for community violence interventions. Community leaders and experts on crime nationwide gave some credit to these programs for helping bring homicides to historic lows in the years since. But the Trump administration withheld much of this funding upon taking office in 2025, leaving many programs scrambling to find alternative sources of support and community leaders uncertain if they can sustain the progress.

Violence prevention programs began taking root in America after lethal violence skyrocketed in the early 1990s. A new idea began to take shape in cities around the country: Treat violence like a disease, and combat it with public health techniques.

“The first step is to interrupt the transmission,” said Kwame Thompson, a violence interrupter with Stand Up to Violence in the Bronx for 11 years. Then, intervene with people in the community who are at high risk of perpetuating violence. “We identify them,” Mr. Thompson said, “and we work to help change their norms.”

Local governments and philanthropists funded pilots in cities such as Chicago and Boston, which were largely led by grass-roots organizations focused on providing resources to vulnerable individuals.

Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, homicide rates nationwide gradually but significantly fell from their heights in the 1990s.

Then, violence surged again during the Covid-19 pandemic. Community groups pushed to get relief funds for violence prevention and intervention strategies. With the passage of the American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, programs around the country could apply for federal funds. By 2023, the Biden administration had created a national Office of Gun Violence Prevention and invested more than $42 billion, according to Gregory Jackson, a former deputy director of the office.

With the federal support, states and municipalities established violence prevention offices, augmenting the work of police departments with programs focused on street outreach, hospitals, schools and other community pillars.

“The goal was truly to build out the prevention work,” said Rob Wilcox, a former deputy director of the White House’s now-shuttered Office of Gun Violence Prevention, adding that the funds would also help law enforcement personnel solve homicides and provide support for victim services. “That’s such a new and expansive way to think about how we address this crisis.”

Since 2022, the steep drop in homicides across the country gave credence to the effectiveness of the newly robust violence prevention paradigm. In 2025, Baltimore experienced its lowest homicide rate in 50 years. Los Angeles experienced a nearly 20 percent drop in homicides, which Mayor Karen Bass said was driven by the city’s “comprehensive approach to public safety.”

But researchers have struggled to empirically tie these improvements directly to the programs.

“The community violence intervention is so much about developing relationships with people who understandably distrust almost anybody coming to knock at the door,” said Shani A.L. Buggs, advisory chair at the Black & Brown Collective for Community Solutions to Gun Violence. “How you measure that kind of change is challenging, and that’s something that the field is still figuring out.”

Despite the constraints, some research supports the idea that these approaches can be cost-effective. A study by the University of California, Berkeley, found that for every dollar a prevention program called Advance Peace spent on intervention, cities in California that implemented the program saved more than $18 in spending on law enforcement, emergency services and other shooting-related costs. Another study produced by the Center for Gun Violence Solutions and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health linked Baltimore’s Safe Streets program to a 32 percent reduction in homicides, finding that every dollar invested in the program had averted $7 to $19 in costs.

“I do believe that a lot of these programs have an effect, but we have to contend with the fact that the evidence is really weak for these programs on their own,” said Ben Struhl, executive director of the Crime and Justice Policy Lab at the University of Pennsylvania. “The evidence is strong for citywide strategies that contain these programs.”

Interventions can also be victims of their own success — less violence can mean less urgency to spend money on preventing it.

“You got to have support from local officials,” said Rodney McIntosh, a violence prevention worker in Fort Worth. “We know we save lives, but yet we have to fight every year just to be a part of the public safety ecosystem.”

Now, sweeping funding cuts at the federal level are hindering support for community violence interventions. A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice said the department is “committed to directly supporting law enforcement and victims to improve public safety and ensure the efficient use of taxpayer dollars.”

Some federal funds are still available, but they are scarce and require recipients to work with immigration enforcement officers, conditions that are deal breakers for some.

“Programs that were actively preventing shootings are now paused or dismantled,” said Monique Williams, chief executive officer of Cure Violence Global. “You have trained staff who are now laid off and trusted relationships in neighborhoods that are now broken.”

Programs that have managed to overcome cuts are leaning more heavily on local resources for support. Some cities and states have stepped in to make up for the shortfall, but the amount of federal funding that was lost is difficult to match.

With the funding cuts have come fears that violence could surge again.

“Violence prevention is important because of the human costs,” said Elinore Kaufman, a professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania and the medical director of a hospital-based violence intervention program. “I do expect that we’ll see increases in harm, increase in injury, increase in death, because we are taking away these essential supports that have proven beneficial.”

In Atlanta, Mr. Sanders and his team used to be a visible force in the English Avenue neighborhood, easily spotted in their purple T-shirts.

After the spate of violence that followed his program’s closure, Mr. Sanders stopped searching for another full-time job, took on part-time work and spent his free time with one of his former co-workers, trying to prevent more fighting. He said he would rather continue his intervention work unpaid than step away from the neighborhood.

“We were a daily reminder of ‘Hey, man, you don’t got to do it like that’ — it don’t take a gun to settle every situation,” Mr. Sanders said. “But now that reminder is gone.”

The Headway initiative is funded through grants from the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), with Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors serving as a fiscal sponsor. The Woodcock Foundation is a funder of Headway’s public square. Funders have no control over the selection, focus of stories or the editing process and do not review stories before publication. The Times retains full editorial control of the Headway initiative.

Outside a Sikh temple in the Little Punjab section of Queens, hundreds of people lined up around the block, waiting to receive plates of hot chickpea curry and deep-fried bhatura bread. It was the third Sunday in April, and the temple had prepared thousands of meals to celebrate the Indian harvest festival Vaisakhi.

Inside, the local assemblywoman, Jenifer Rajkumar, who had traded her signature red dress for one in harvest yellow, was working the crowd.

“Who here likes to have a Punjabi representative in office?” she asked the congregants, referring to herself. About half of them raised their hands.

Ms. Rajkumar registered faint disapproval. Everyone should raise their hands, she said, because “as a community, we have never been more powerful.”

She had a point. Last November, many of the people in the room had helped elect Zohran Mamdani as the first South Asian American to become the mayor of New York City. But as Ms. Rajkumar seeks another term in office, her race may test whether this community’s support of Mr. Mamdani was rooted more in identity or ideology.

Her Democratic primary opponent, David Orkin, is a democratic socialist who is also courting the mayor’s supporters, and earlier that afternoon, he had also visited the temple. He was accompanied by an entourage of progressive South Asian volunteers who helped to ingratiate him with the local community.

Ms. Rajkumar, who had brought her mother along, gave an impassioned speech; Mr. Orkin helped make the festival’s bread.

The June primary contest has grown fractious, with each candidate accusing the other of election fraud and Mr. Orkin recently suing to kick Ms. Rajkumar off the ballot. The primary may also be a measure of the Democratic Socialists of America’s growing momentum in New York.

Mr. Orkin is the first Democrat to primary Ms. Rajkumar, the incumbent, since she won her seat in 2020, when she and Mr. Mamdani made history as the first South Asian Americans elected to the State Assembly.

But this year, the same progressive South Asian and Indo-Caribbean networks that helped elect Mr. Mamdani as mayor are trying to rally an energized South Asian electorate around Mr. Orkin, potentially dividing voters in Queens who might otherwise gravitate toward backing Ms. Rajkumar.

Mr. Orkin, an anti-Zionist Jew, has now become a familiar figure at South Asian temples and community events in Queens, being squired about by members of DRUM Beats, the political arm of Desis Rising Up & Moving, and the newly formed Hindus for Human Rights Action.

“During Ramadan I probably went to like eight iftars,” Mr. Orkin said. “Every Friday, I’m going to masjid and doing jummah prayer, and then I think we’re gonna get into a practice of, every Sunday, going to a gurudwara.”

Andrew Singh, an Indo-Caribbean DRUM Beats organizer who lives around the block from Ms. Rajkumar’s office, spends much of his free time phone-banking for Mr. Orkin and introducing him to congregants at local temples, so as to “not let the identity politics get in the way,” he said.

Ms. Rajkumar is running on more than her identity. She came to office after serving as the state’s first director of immigration affairs under Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, where she created a $31 million fund to provide legal services for immigrants.

As a second-term lawmaker, she successfully championed legislation in 2023 that made Diwali — a festival observed by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists — a public school holiday in New York, an achievement noted by many people interviewed for this article.

More recently, Ms. Rajkumar gained broader attention for her frequent and often perplexing appearances at news conferences and events held by Eric Adams, Mr. Mamdani’s predecessor as mayor. She also unsuccessfully ran for public advocate last year, losing to the incumbent, Jumaane Williams, by more than 50 percentage points in the Democratic primary.

Ms. Rajkumar has always said that her Indian parents’ rags-to-riches journey was what inspired her to work in government. Her family was one of millions that had been dispossessed during the 1947 Partition of India, and her parents, both doctors, “came to America with $300 and a suitcase.”

Her back story, as well as her work in the Legislature, has earned the respect and continued support from members of the Bangladeshi American Society, including many who also backed Mr. Mamdani’s mayoral candidacy.

“The vote that we did with Mamdani is totally different,” explained Mohammad Ali, the head of the Bangladeshi American Society. He and a dozen other local leaders who have supported Ms. Rajkumar said that they voted for Mr. Mamdani not because of his socialist platform, but, at least in part, because they felt they knew him.

Mr. Ali characterized Ms. Rajkumar as “a true friend to our community.”

But her track record has failed to impress DRUM Beats, whose leaders say she has not meaningfully delivered for her working-class constituents.

“Vast parts of the community know that she is just like every other politician,” said Simran Thind, a Punjabi organizer who recently took Mr. Okrin to two Sikh temples during Vaisakhi. “She shows up, she says a few words in our language and she leaves.”

The organization’s executive director, Fahd Ahmed, said that, early on, it had been willing to try to work with Ms. Rajkumar. Then the assemblywoman formed a close alliance with Mr. Adams, and any hope that they could reconcile their differences evaporated.

“It just reinforced what we were already assessing her to be: pro-police, pro-real estate, pro-corporation, highly focused on personal relationships,” Mr. Ahmed said.

Ms. Rajkumar defended her relationship with Mr. Adams, saying that she “got to be involved in every single issue in this city,” adding, “everyone saw me everywhere.”

It was also a practical calculation, she said, allowing her to “deliver for my constituents in ways they had never been delivered for before,” like making Diwali a school holiday. She compared her appearances with Mr. Adams to Mr. Mamdani’s visits to the Trump White House.

Some left-leaning groups remain dubious.

In March, Mr. Orkin, 34, met with progressive organizers at Saar Indian restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, where he chatted over masala coated canapés and happily accepted the endorsement of Hindus for Human Rights Action.

The posters decorating the walls of the restaurant championed “A Free Palestine,” but the Hindu group, which has modeled itself after Jewish Voice for Peace Action, aims to fight right-wing Hindu nationalism in the Indian diaspora.

The group’s political director, Ria Chakrabarty, explained that its decision to endorse Mr. Orkin was motivated by its distrust of Ms. Rajkumar. Since 2020, Ms. Rajkumar has been accused — including by Mr. Mamdani — of welcoming right-wing Hindu nationalist ideology into her orbit, by accepting campaign donations from people and groups supportive of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (Ms. Rajkumar and the Coalition of Hindus of North America have characterized those accusations as discriminatory for singling out the Hindu donors of a Hindu politician.)

“Five years ago, she might not have been as unpalatable,” Ms. Chakrabarty said. “But this is, for us, a moment of real clarity.”

When Mr. Orkin addressed the gathering that night at Saar, he acknowledged the seeming incongruity of his own presence.

“Probably to some of you I am just a random white guy,” he said. But as a longstanding member of Jewish Voice for Peace, he said he was also someone who could understand the perspective of the progressive Hindus and noted the importance of “speaking out against Hindu nationalism and its very obvious connections to Zionism.”

A resident of Ridgewood, in the district’s more liberal northern enclave, Mr. Orkin spent the last three years working as a staff attorney at the immigrant-advocacy nonprofit Make the Road New York. He is openly gay, Jewish, Mexican on his mother’s side, and speaks fluent Spanish. He got the idea to run for office last July, after campaigning for Mr. Mamdani, and his background was appealing enough to DRUM Beats that the group endorsed him on Day 1 of his campaign.

Amit Pratap Shah, a leader of the Ridgewood Nepalese Society, said that “at a very grass-roots level, when it comes to support, we have to first look at who can be the best candidate for our community.” He said that he voted for Mr. Mamdani and supported Ms. Rajkumar, but added that his Nepali cultural center welcomes diverse voices and “it’s up to our community members to decide what they want to support.”

At the moment, Mr. Shah said, he thought that Ms. Rajkumar was the favorite because “people know her.” Then he reconsidered. Mr. Orkin, he allowed, “also visited our community center.”

In 2019, New York’s legislature passed a law that allowed judges to consider a defendant’s documented history of surviving domestic abuse when determining what sentence to impose. If the judges found that the history played a role in the crime, they were able to reduce the sentences.

Since the law was enacted, prosecutors across the state, though, have at times requested that defendants waive that right in order to receive a plea deal and to avoid a trial.

But in an opinion on Thursday, New York’s highest court said prosecutors could not make defendants give up that right. In the 4-to-3 decision, written by Judge Jenny Rivera, the majority found that forcing a defendant to waive the right deprived them of the benefits of the 2019 law.

The practice “threatens to essentially eviscerate the statute by excluding the overwhelming majority of defendants who have suffered domestic violence,” Judge Rivera wrote.

Thursday’s decision also highlighted how an overwhelming majority of cases in the legal system end in plea agreements, rather than being decided at a trial. As of 2019, 96 percent of felonies and 99 percent of misdemeanors ended in a plea, according to state data.

The decision is one of the rare times that the state’s highest court has acknowledged a defendant’s rights cannot be set aside as part of a plea agreement, said Paris C. DeYoung, an attorney with Legal Aid who argued before the judges on behalf of the petitioner in the case.

“It’s very hard in our system to get the court to protect certain rights from waiver,” she said. “We’re excited that this sort of opens the door for folks to continue to pursue things that they are entitled to without having to deal with just another waiver on their plates.”

The case at the heart of the appeal was that of Nicole Hudson, who was charged with second-degree attempted murder and two counts of first-degree assault for running over her sister’s girlfriend with a car while fleeing her abusive ex-boyfriend. She took a plea deal and waived her right to have the abuse she had dealt with considered in her sentencing.

In a statement on Thursday, Ms. Hudson said the decision “has given me my life back.” Waiving away her ability to have the hearing before she was sentenced was “an injustice not just for me, but also for my child and for my family,” she said.

Oren Yaniv, a spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, which prosecuted Ms. Hudson’s case, said the office was concerned the decision “will make it harder to resolve appropriate cases early.”

“Crime victims and surviving relatives deserve finality, clarity and a process that does not unnecessarily prolong painful experiences,” he said.

The law the decision aims to protect, the Domestic Violence Survivor’s Justice Act, was passed in 2019, when progressive Democrats had taken control of New York’s Legislature.

It allowed some defendants to have their history of domestic violence to be considered during sentencing if they showed that they were largely influenced by their abuse at the time of the crime. The judge could sentence the defendants to receive less prison time than what the law called for or alternative incarceration programs. It also gave people already in prison the opportunity to apply for resentencing.

The law came as crime in New York hit historic lows, and the Legislature overhauled parts of the state’s bail law and compelled prosecutors to hand over reams of case material to defense lawyers in a timely manner. However, as crime inched up after the pandemic, and after a public shift in sentiment on crime, lawmakers began to make changes to the policies. Both laws have been amended.

Ms. Hudson’s case began in 2019. She was at an outdoor party by her home when her abusive ex-boyfriend arrived. After an altercation broke out, during which her former boyfriend was injured, Ms. Hudson fled to her car and tried to escape. As she began driving away, she ran over her sister’s girlfriend, striking her three times and dragging her body down the street under the car. The woman was left permanently paralyzed and Ms. Hudson was charged with second-degree attempted murder and two counts of first-degree assault.

While her case was pending, Ms. Hudson, 34, asked that her history be reviewed by the court to see if she would be eligible to be sentenced under the domestic violence law. Her lawyers requested that the court sentence her to six months of incarceration and five years of probation.

Ms. Hudson’s lawyers included supporting information in her application, including a psychological report that said Ms. Hudson had experienced “repeated psychological and physical abuse” at the hands of her former boyfriend, who is also the father of her child. The first instance of physical abuse occurred when she was 20 years old and five months pregnant, the report found. His physical and verbal abuse escalated after.

While her application was pending before the court, Ms. Hudson was offered a plea deal through the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, offering her five years in prison and five years of probation. Their agreement, according to the opinion, was on the condition that she waive her right to the hearing to determine if she could get a reduced sentence.

Her lawyers objected to the provision, and the judge overseeing the trial also “expressed concern as to whether a defendant may waive,” the opinion said. However, the judge ultimately concluded that Ms. Hudson could waive her right and the court accepted her plea in 2021.

After she was sentenced, Ms. Hudson appealed, but the state’s Appellate Division found that the right could be waived. But the four judges on the state’s highest court on Thursday said that they agreed with a decision in another case that found some rights were “too valuable, both to the [defendant] and to the community, to be sacrificed in plea bargaining.”

Ms. Hudson said she was now “excited to finally have the chance to tell my story. I know that I caused great harm, and I take full accountability for that.”

“I also know that my actions came from my years of abuse,” she said.

But, in a dissent on Thursday, Judge Anthony Cannataro argued that a remedy should come from legislators and not from the judiciary.

Ms. Hudson’s case is an example of the sentencing law working, Judge Cannataro said, because she was offered the very lowest end of the ordinary sentencing range, “despite the serious and lifelong injuries that defendant inflicted.” Now, as a result of the decision, and the likelihood that prosecutors will withdraw the agreement, Ms. Hudson “may find herself subject to a far longer sentence than she agreed to,” he said.

There may still be survivors who will choose to plead guilty instead of going through the process to see if their case could be determined using the sentencing law, said Kate Mogulescu, a professor at Brooklyn Law School and part of the Surviors Justice Project.

“But what is not allowed now is for prosecutors to foreclose that,” she said. “That is an important distinction.”