Casper to join ‘Peace in Our Cities’ network

CASPER, Wyo. — On Tuesday, the Casper City Council agreed to join the global Peace in Our Cities program, a coalition of municipal leaders working to reduce violence.

Joining the coalition is free and provides several resources to the community for reducing violence, program officer and former Casper City Councilor Jai-Ayla Sutherland said.

The decision to join comes as local governments have been turning their attention to addressing community concerns surrounding mental health problems, bullying, suicide and more.

“In November we had approximately 70 people come together for a task force meeting, and we kind of identified suicide, violence, bullying and mental health as significant areas that need to be addressed,” Casper-Natrona County Health Department Executive Director Anna Kinder said. “Because we’re concerned of what’s going on in our community, we have to realize that mental health is just as important as physical health.”

Peace in Our Cities will help Casper leaders address both interpersonal violence and suicide, Sutherland said.

In a 2024 interview with Oil City News, Natrona County Coroner Jim Whipps said that while Wyoming famously has one of the worst suicide rates in the country, Natrona County’s rate is one of the highest for a localized community in the entire world.

“Even places like third-world countries — places that are in utter chaos — don’t have a suicide rate like the one here in our county,” he said.

Whipps guessed that the “Cowboy mentality” might play a role in the suicide rate.

“There’s still this idea that you should suffer alone, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and not ask anyone for help,” he said. “For the life of me, I don’t understand why that’s still something people hold on to.”

Historically, Whipps said, the most common demographic to die by suicide was middle-aged men. However, recent trends are deviating from that, he said. Increasingly, Whipps said, more younger and older people are dying by suicide, with the difference of suicide rates between the genders also shrinking.

“I think this step needs to be taken,” Councilor Michael McIntosh said. “We’ve spent years and years contemplating and talking about this situation. If we don’t take this step, I don’t think we can take the things we’ve been looking at over the last 15–20 years and turn them into action.”

Peace in Our Cities members gain access to experts in the fields of public safety and violence prevention, and the organization also helps connect municipal leaders for collaboration and sharing ideas.

Sutherland pointed to the cities of Edmonton, Canada, and Palmira, Colombia, as two international cities that have benefited from joining Peace in our Cities. In Edmonton, she said, Peace in our Cities helped municipal leaders collaborate with various agencies, craft plans and programs for improving mental health care and more. In Palmira, Peace in our Cities has helped foster community engagement with several educational opportunities, while also providing socioeconomic support to residents. Community programs offered through Peace in our Cities’ support include conflict resolution classes, vocational training and job-finding assistance.

Sutherland said that while Casper’s situation is not identical to either Edmonton’s or Palmira’s, both cities implemented programs through Peace in our Cities that she believes could be beneficial to the local community.

“These programs [in Palmira] led to a 30% reduction in violence over the course of three years,” Sutherland said.

According to the Peace in our Cities website, the coalition offers evidence-based resources such as the “Guiding Principles and Inspiring Actions” report, which showcases how to implement evidence-based interventions, allocate resources to specific interventions and explore how governments can work with civil organizations to prevent violence. The network also published “Lessons from Effective Offices of Violence Prevention,” which aims to optimize the how OVPs operate and inform the wider violence prevention field by reviewing how to make these efforts more effective.

“This is a great opportunity and resource for us,” Casper Mayor Ray Pacheco said. “I’m 100% behind this. I think we can either sit on our hands and keep talking, or do something as a city.”

Pacheco said the city will officially move to join the network with a resolution at a future Casper City Council meeting.