1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Break the Cycle of Violence Act . 2. Findings Congress finds the following: (1) Gun violence is a significant public health and safety concern nationwide and is a leading cause of death for people in the United States of nearly all ages. (2) From 2012 to 2017, over 105,000 people in the United States were murdered. Nearly 3/4 of these victims were murdered with a gun. Hundreds of thousands more were hospitalized or treated in emergency departments after surviving life-changing gunshot injuries. (3) Gun violence has sharply increased in the United States in recent years. Gun homicide rates spiked by 30 percent between 2014 and 2017, driven by large spikes in violence in some cities in the United States. (4) Shootings, homicides, and group-related violence are disproportionately concentrated in the poorest and most segregated urban areas of the Nation, and have an enormously disproportionate impact on young people of color in particular. From 2012 to 2017, African-American children and teens were 14 times as likely to be shot to death as their White peers. Hispanic children and teens and Native American children and teens were both nearly 3 times as likely to be shot to death as their White peers. (5) African-American men make up just 6 percent of the population in the United States, but account for more than 50 percent of all gun homicide victims each year. (6) Violence is responsible for half of all deaths among young African-American men, ages 15 through 24, as many as every other cause of death combined. (7) This violence imposes enormous human, social, and economic costs. Nationwide, the annual societal cost of firearm violence was estimated at $229,000,000,000 per year in 2012. Economists estimate that each firearm homicide generates hundreds of thousands of dollars in direct public costs, including medical care and criminal justice expenses. (8) Several evidence-based violence intervention strategies have demonstrated remarkable success at interrupting entrenched