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ICP Values
We believe that building safe, healthy and peaceful homes and communities will make for a just and peaceful nation.
We believe in preventing violence and promoting peace.
We believe that everyone in every community in our country can and must play a role in preventing violence and promoting peace.
We believe that the solutions to violence and visions of community peace are best developed by local communities. In this work, it is essential that communities build on their strengths and assets to facilitate change.
We believe that isolation, alienation, distrust, lack of opportunity, poverty and injustice are contributors to violence. To prevent violence and promote peace, we must have the courage to address these factors.
We believe that violence and inequities in race and power are embedded in the foundations of our democracy. These must be challenged for communities to promote hope and equal opportunity for all its citizens.
We believe that violence is a complex social issue that requires a multi-disciplinary response, beyond crime control, to include attention to public health, community building, economic development, and social justice.
We believe that a healthy and peaceful society rejects violence in all venues, including its public institutions, such as prisons and jails. We support efforts designed to make juvenile and criminal justice systems more effective, humane and responsive to the needs of victims, offenders and community members. As such, we advocate for transformation in juvenile and criminal justice systems from retribution and punishment to restoration and reconciliation.
We believe that collaboration can be an effective vehicle for organizing communities, engaging all sectors (including those most directly affected by violence), developing comprehensive visions and building safe communities.
We believe that the media plays a role in fueling public fears of violence, particularly in relation to people of color and their communities. We must work to counteract media messages that promote fear, perpetuate racial, ethnic and gender stereotypes and increase civic hostilities. Instead, messages must promote pluralism, tolerance, respect, cultural fluency, inclusion, reconciliation and community.
We believe that through public education, we can reshape norms, attitudes and values that condone violence.
We believe that community peace encompasses not only the absence of conflict, but also the presence of justice.
We believe that peace is possible.
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