Skip to Content
Dr. Joseph Richardson and Dr. Christopher St. Vil

Who Shot Ya?: A Novel Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Program

Play episode

“For every injury a young person suffers the likelihood of surviving the next injury decreases. Our primary goal was [for] our data to inform the development of our emerging hospital violence intervention program. . . to provide psycho-social services to young men who’ve been violently injured [and] to prevent them from coming back to our hospital for a similar penetrative injury. . .”

Dr. Joseph Richardson &
Dr. Christopher St. Vil

In this episode, Dr. Joseph Richardson and Dr. Christopher St. Vil discuss their use of a longitudinal, ethnographic study of young Black men admitted to the hospital for treatment of violent injury to inform development of a hospital-based violence intervention program. They also report on research that they have conducted to better understand nonfatal use of force by police. From the findings of these two studies, they offer specific recommendations that have implications for programs as well as policy.

Joseph Richardson, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of African American Studies at the University of Maryland at College Park. He received his doctorate from Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice. He completed a Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research and a National Institute of Mental Health Clinical Research Training Fellowship in correctional healthcare at the Morehouse School of Medicine and the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. Dr. Richardson’s research includes parenting strategies for low-income black boys living in high risk neighborhoods, health risk behaviors among black male youth offenders adjudicated in adult court and detained in adult jails, the narratives of black male youth offenders as they discuss pathways to early violent death, and violent injury and trauma among young black men treated for violent injury. Dr. Richardson is also the co-director of the Capital Region Violence Intervention Program (CAP-VIP), an emerging hospital violence intervention program at the Prince George’s Hospital Center Trauma Unit in Prince George’s County, Maryland. CAP-VIP provides psychosocial services to victims of violent injury with the aims to reduce trauma and criminal recidivism. In addition, he conducts outreach violence prevention efforts with at-risk youth in the National Capital Region.


Christopher St. Vil, PhD, MSW, is an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo School of Social Work. He previously worked at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he served as a research associate and adjunct professor in the Department of African American Studies. Dr. St. Vil received his PhD from the Howard University School of Social Work and his MSW from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He was previously an adjunct professor at the University of the District of Columbia and Morgan State University, where he taught courses in both social work and criminology. Dr. St. Vil’s current research focuses on trauma and the experiences of victims of violent injury. He is a co-investigator on a research study at the Prince George’s Hospital Center Trauma Unit in Prince George’s County, Maryland, examining violence and trauma among young black male victims of violent injury. His research interests also include masculinities and health, violence and trauma, cross-cohort socialization, idleness, and risk-taking attitudes. Dr. St. Vil is a former Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) fellow of the American Evaluation Association and is the recipient of the 2014 Educational Opportunity Program Distinguished Alumnus Award from Buffalo State College.

Interviewer: Steven Schwartz

Show Notes

Join the discussion

More from this show

The inSocialWork Podcast

The inSocialWork Podcast