The Neighborhood Watch had an update presented by Unified Erie Tuesday night, on crime in the City of Erie.

The main focus was on the group violence reduction strategy that was implemented this year, where Unified Erie reaches out to violent groups in the community, and then invites them to a meeting where they stress their message: safe, alive, and out of prison.

Law enforcement, and community leaders attend the meeting as well and provide resources to help them.

"We do believe that they are helping. As of this year, we've only had one homicide that was possibly group related and we've seen a significant decrease in the number of violence instances that can be connected to groups or what some people call gangs," said Amy Eisert, Director of Mercyhurst University Civic Institute.

Unified Erie is looking for other programs like the violence reduction strategy to implement in Erie.