The Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results (NEAR) Act was passed by the Council of the District of Columbia in March 2016 in response to an increase in homicides the previous year. Its goal was to reduce violence in the District, but instead of perpetuating broken and ineffective “war on drugs”-style methods, it uses a community-based public health approach to violence prevention and intervention that is based – in part – on an innovative model pioneered in Richmond, California.
