COLUMBUS (WCMH) — A consulting company plans to lower shootings in Columbus by keeping people who are at risk from gun violence safe, alive, and out of jail.

On Tuesday, Mayor Andrew Ginther announced a raft of projects designed to reduce shootings. Included was the National Network for Safe Communities, which received a one-year contract for proposals developed by criminologist David Kennedy.

According to Louisa Aviles, NNSC’s director of group violence intervention, a small number of high-risk people are disproportionately connected to shooting violence.

“It’s almost always right around one-half of one percent of the jurisdiction’s overall population that are in these high-risk networks.”

In a neighborhood of about 10,000 people, this would mean that about 50 people cause most of the shootings. Those people are also targets.

“At any given moment in time, most of that high-risk world are not hurting or killing anybody, and not getting hurt or killed themselves,” Aviles said.

The program’s strategy stops the shootings by working to keep high-risk people safe, alive, and out of jail. At the core of the project is a strong message: “Our community loves you … we want you safe and alive and out of prison,” Aviles said.

“No one here wants to see you go to jail for hurting or killing someone else. We need you alive and we need you to stop what you’re doing because the shooting and the killing is hurting our community.

“We’ll help you if there are meaningful things we can do for you, and we are going to tell you ahead of time that law enforcement knows that it is these high-risk networks that are driving the violence,” said Aviles.

“But if your groups continue to hurt and kill people in this community we are going to … do our best to make sure there are group consequences for group violence. And we are telling you that ahead of time because we don’t want to do that. We would much rather that you stop the shooting.”

The message is backed up by delivering real-world help in terms of safe places to stay, food, and exit from dangerous situations.

Success is measured through fewer homicides and shootings.

“We define our success as — have we kept this person from getting hurt or killed, so that he’s not going to jail or prison for hurting or killing someone else?” Aviles said.

The project typically stays in a city between one and two years. After that time, cities have taken on the lessons, and decide whether to keep going with them, Aviles said.