Real Safety D.C.: Faith, Community and Healing Beyond Incarceration
In partnership with Public Welfare Foundation’s Real Safety D.C. education campaign, The Washington Informer Publisher Denise Rolark-Barnes hosted a one-hour roundtable as part of the paper’s Let’s Talk video series.
Held at the Lankford Auditorium inside the historic True Reformer Building on U Street NW, the discussion brought together four D.C. leaders from faith, business, government, and community sectors to explore non-carceral solutions to prevent violence and strengthen safety in the District.
Eric Weaver, founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Returned Citizens (NAARC), was one of the four leaders who joined the conversation—bringing a deeply personal perspective shaped by both lived experience and decades of work with formerly incarcerated people across Washington, D.C.
A native Washingtonian, Weaver was incarcerated at 17 and spent 22 years in prison. While inside, he earned his GED, vocational certifications, and college degrees—building the foundation for the life he hoped to lead when he came home.
“When I came home, I started an organization called NAARC,” he said. “Initially, it was just advocating for the rights of returned citizens. Then I started seeing more of a need. So many people were coming home and needed help.”
That realization pushed Weaver to expand NAARC into a citywide support hub—part reentry program, part community stabilization effort, part emergency response for residents trying to rebuild their lives. He created support groups modeled after recovery circles, where returning citizens could talk openly about the pressures and barriers they face.
“Violence prevention started being a thing again,” Weaver said. “I saw opportunity because I knew a lot of guys that were incarcerated wanted to come home and give back—and I also saw opportunity to get them employed doing this work.”
Employment, Weaver emphasized, is the line between stability and danger.
“I made bad decisions when I was young because of my situation at home,” he said. “[There’s] still some families that have that situation, and it’s kids in that situation who will make bad decisions. They’re the ones we try to get to before they even make those decisions.”
His approach is both practical and grounded in community trust. Years before violence interruption became a formalized sector, Weaver advocated for hiring trained returning citizens—people with credibility and deep relationships—to do the work.
When violence-prevention models like Cure Violence were first introduced in D.C., many dismissed them as outside ideas. Weaver saw something else.
“I saw it different,” he said. “It’s money. We can put money in the streets to do this work and also get some returned citizens hired.”
His willingness to push past territorial divides—and the trust he held in neighborhoods across the city—helped stabilize some of the early tensions around the model. Nearly a decade later, violence prevention is a multimillion-dollar ecosystem in the District, employing scores of returning citizens, and with data suggesting current violence efforts are working.
Still, Weaver knows the work is fragile.
“Just because the numbers [of crime incidents] are down today doesn’t mean we ease up on the work,” he said. “People on the ground still gotta do the work.”
What gives him hope is not just the progress, but the growing collaboration across sectors—government, business, clergy, and community-based groups—each recognizing their role in creating real safety.
“Talking to people from different walks of this work, but still having the same goal,” he said. “People who care about the community. Born and raised Washingtonians. And also—God.”
Weaver sees his work as more than a job. It is a purpose.
“I believe I was put here to do what I’m doing,” he said. “I could have easily been gone. But I came out here, and this is my mission—to help turn around my city.”
For him, the challenge is not abstract. He sees it in real time—men and women who have come home and want to stay on the right path, but are one missed paycheck or one denied job away from slipping backward.
“They come to me with tears in their eyes,” he said. “‘I’m trying.’ And I know what that ‘I’m trying’ means. If something doesn’t happen soon, they’re forced to go back and do something else.”
This is why he works constantly to connect people with employment—whether through hotel partners, local businesses, or informal neighborhood networks. He advocates, makes calls, and builds bridges so that returning citizens can stabilize not just themselves, but their families as well.
“I’ve been a part of being evicted,” he said. “I’ve been a part of coming home and trying to make something to eat. So I know what some of these households are like.”
For Weaver, real safety means meeting people where they are, before crisis arrives. It means treating poverty and instability—not punishment—as the root drivers of harm. And it means creating pathways for returning citizens to be part of healing the communities they come from.
“We gotta do more,” he said. “It’s all hands on deck. And I’m gonna keep doing my part.”
Well said and done Eric Weaver. Your purpose is phenominal may God continue yo lead your path!