This is another installment in AL.com’s series “Beyond the Violence,” which explores solutions that could make Birmingham safer, healthier and happier. Sign up for the newsletter here.

The plan to reduce homicides and crime in Birmingham is a draft document that city leaders say they need public input to complete and implement.

Mayor Randall Woodfin and his staff Wednesday led a community safety meeting and feedback session with residents to gather input on the city’s Violence Reduction Strategic Plan. He stressed the need for citizen participation in the city’s strategy to combat crime.

“We are going to listen more than we talk today,” Woodfin said to the group gathered at Birmingham Crossplex. About 20 people attended.

Community members and officials broke into workgroups around the room, sharing ideas on how to make the city better.

“I think it’s a good idea, bringing the people together just to share ideas. What I like is they’re trying to put a blueprint together and build a foundation of how we’re going to stop the violence,” Charles Benjamin, a lifelong Birmingham resident said.

“They brought good people together from all places, all different walks and hopefully it’ll be beneficial to Birmingham.”

Residents reviewed four pillars of the crime reduction plan: safety and wellness, community engagement and empowerment, policy and oversight and youth safety.

“This requires more than just policing. This requires more than just elected officials,” Woodfin said. “So today is extremely important in a sense that we have a community session in the form of online and in person to receive feedback to listen to residents – not just their concerns and issues but more importantly, their ideas, their solutions and find ways to incorporate them in this holistic approach of crime reduction.”

Danny Dandridge, a member of the Offender Alumni Association, a local credible messenger program, said he wants city officials and community members to “consistently and intentionally” provide resources to adults and youth in need through community events.

“If we can reach these young guys, these gangbangers, these people that don’t know about the resources out there…If they can see that people are reaching out on the regular, we can really touch these people,” Dandridge said.

Other community members said they want more programming and safe spaces for youth, blight removal, free parenting and gun safety classes.

“We have to empower people with love…wrap around families, victims, community members with love,” Dena Dickerson, co-founder of the Offender Alumni Association said as community members nodded and voiced agreements.

Officials said the city wants to better understand the impact of violence from the experiences of residents themselves.

To share your ideas on how to make the city better, the city requests that residents email feedback to [email protected] with the subject line, Birmingham Feedback.

“This plan is a draft. How many times have folks brought us a plan without asking us what should be done in the plan? That’s not happening this time,” said Shantay Jackson, director of the National Offices of Violence Prevention Network at the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform.

Woodfin also celebrated the passage of the state ban on Glock switches and machine gun conversion devices. The law was signed by Gov. Kay Ivey earlier in the day.

Woodfin called the new law a “major tool in the toolbox for our police department in partnership with the DAs office and working with our judges here in Jefferson County,” he said. “This was needed, this was important.”

The state’s new law comes when there is already a federal ban on the conversion devices.

Woodfin initially scoffed when asked by AL.com to explain how the new state law would assist law enforcement when another law already existed at the federal level.

Woodfin, who is also an attorney, said he was “always baffled when people ask that question.”

“State law gives a local tool to our Birmingham police that, when they capture someone in possession of a Glock switch, they don’t necessarily have to go to the federal government,” Woodfin said. “They can literally go to their local DA to expedite and keep this process going. This on top of those federal resources allows for state resources to engage at the exact same time.”

Woodfin also announced that the city is working with Crime Stoppers to reward tipsters $1,000 after the arrest of people caught in possession of gun conversion devices.

The resident meetings and the new strategy comes after one of the most violent years in the city’s history.

Birmingham ended 2024 with 152 homicides, the highest number of killings in the city in more nearly a century.

Woodfin and Interim Police Chief Michael Pickett last week touted that homicides were down 27 percent so far in 2025, fueled in part by a 23-day stretch with no homicides in the city.

At that time, the city had 16 homicides in the first 2 ½ months of 2025 versus 22 for that same period in 2024.

However, the streak of days without deadly violence ended last week when a 27-year-old man was found shot to death in Ensley Saturday.