Sinai Hospital in northwest Baltimore is testing a new way to stop violence before it reaches the emergency room: the Digital Violence Responder.
Hired through the hospital’s Center for Hope, the responder monitors social media for credible threats and alerts a call center that sends trained mediators to defuse the conflicts.
It’s not a police dispatch center, but a community-run operation led by Street Pause, a nonprofit founded by Lisa Freedom Jones, who also leads Sinai’s Violence Intervention Program.
Jones said she developed the idea after seeing how often online disputes turn violent offline. The project showed early promise, but expansion plans stalled when the federal Department of Justice cut funding earlier this year.
“We escalated more than 400 calls last year,” she said. “We deployed 60 interventions, and 35 potential incidents were prevented. We should have 10 or 12 digital responders — and we have one.”
The hospital’s sole digital responder monitors accounts, hashtags and trends during peak hours, earning about $45,000 a year. They also receive tips from others in Baltimore’s violence-intervention network, working discreetly to de-escalate conflicts while protecting privacy.
Sinai’s pilot is among the first hospital-based programs in the country to use social media monitoring as a core violence-prevention strategy. The digital responder model builds on community-based violence interrupter efforts, where nonprofits use trusted messengers — and now digital tools — to intervene early.
“I’m hoping to do this in other cities,” Jones said. “But to do that, I have to be supported.”
While supporters see it as a model for treating violence as a public-health issue, some critics remain skeptical, citing challenges around patient trust and privacy regulations.
Jones said it succeeds because it’s rooted in trust — not surveillance.
The city recently pledged $975,000 in emergency grants to support hospital-based violence intervention efforts, including $245,000 for Sinai Hospital.
In a statement, Mayor Brandon Scott called the hospitals “key partners” in the city’s public-health approach to reducing violence. The funding aims to prevent layoffs among hospitals that provide trauma recovery and support services.
