Leading Peace: A Leadership Mandate for Community Violence Intervention Practice

In this indispensable read for anyone involved in Community Violence Intervention (CVI) work within communities affected by cyclical and retaliatory violence worldwide, DeVone Boggan, the founder of Advance Peace and the nation’s longest established office of violence prevention, the Office of Neighborhood Safety in Richmond, California, shares a profound understanding of the significance of ones leadership acumen and reach in achieving optimal public safety outcomes in communities impacted by gun violence. Drawing from his extensive experience leading CVI teams and training CVI leaders, Boggan offers reader-friendly accounts and examples of frontline challenges that every CVI leader must be prepared to face. In Leading Peace, he takes us into the ＂APZone,＂ environments where retaliatory gun violence is prevalent. He distils the leadership wisdom that has helped him and his teams contribute to bringing peace to some of America’s most dangerous cities. Regardless of the environment you serve in-government, not-for-profit, or business-the principles shared by DeVone Boggan will positively impact your leadership character and influence with those whose lives you are helping to improve. Leading Peace: A Leadership Mandate for Community Violence Intervention Practice, by DeVone Boggan

What if the key to reducing gun violence isn’t more policing-but better leadership?

In Leading Peace, visionary Community Violence Intervention (CVI) pioneer DeVone Boggan takes readers deep inside the Advance Peace Zone (APZone)-where lives are on the line and leadership isn’t optional, it’s lifesaving. Drawing on more than two decades of frontline experience, Boggan offers a powerful blueprint for how exceptional leadership can transform not only individual lives, but entire communities plagued by retaliatory gun violence.

This isn’t a policy book or abstract theory-it’s a call to action for a new kind of public safety leadership. Leading Peace delivers firsthand insight from one of the longest-running and most effective violence reduction strategies in the country. As founding Director of Richmond, California’s Office of Neighborhood Safety, Boggan helped achieve and sustain historic reductions in gun violence. He later founded Advance Peace, the national CVI organization now active in cities across the U.S. and internationally, and creator of the renowned Peacemaker Fellowship(R)-a healing-centered, intensive leadership opportunity for those most impacted by gun violence.

Part memoir, part manual, and part manifesto, Leading Peace challenges conventional thinking and equips readers with the leadership tools needed to build and sustain a permanent Community Violence Intervention (CVI) infrastructure. Whether you’re a mayor or city manager, public health official or practitioner, policymaker or philanthropist-if you’re serious about public safety, this book is essential reading.

Key themes include:

-Leadership is influence. This book will help you develop and deepen your leadership aptitude, especially in high-stakes, high-impact environments.

-Advance Peace as a field catalyst. Learn how Advance Peace redefined public safety in cities across America by investing in people, not punishment.

-The APZone as a proving ground. Explore gripping real-life accounts from the neighborhood theaters where gun violence happens-and where peace is made.

-Making CVI permanent. Understand the structural investments cities must make to embed CVI into their general fund budgets, public safety strategies, and civic identity.

Leading Peace is more than a story of success-it’s a leadership mandate for the future of public safety. This book is your guide.