Among those who might reasonably claim a modicum of credit for the city’s sustained drop in violent crime, we’ve seen practically no victory-lapping take place. If anything, the opposite ethos has taken hold — even as homicides continue to decline, reaching lows unseen since the 1960s — in spheres of public safety these days.
“It’s phenomenal when the numbers go down, but one life lost is one too many,” says Keith Scott, director of programs and outreach in the Office of Public Safety’s Division of Safe Neighborhoods. “We can’t take our foot off the gas.”
For the past 20 years, Scott has been a frontline worker in efforts to reduce crime and violence throughout Philly — and as much as anyone, views the current trends through a lens of humility. After all, Scott has witnessed plenty of ebbs and flows to crime in this city since his days as a youth growing up in North Philly. But he does believe that the right strategies, finally, are being embraced by civic and government leaders, especially a commitment to peer-to-peer methods of preventing crime.
“I truly believe that the best mediators are those who come from similar situations [to those involved in crimes or disputes],” says Scott.
One of the unsung heroes of the city’s remarkable turnaround on safety, Scott has served as a stabilizing presence for families and entire neighborhoods during moments of devastation and grief. Today, as the director of the Community Crisis Intervention Program (CCIP), he oversees a team of roughly 80 professionals who respond to every violent crime, including fatal and non-fatal shootings, across the city. He also directs the Incarcerated Community Crisis Intervention Program (ICCIP), an initiative to squash beefs among individuals behind bars.
For the transformative impact he’s had on reducing violence and promoting trauma-informed interventions that are highly effective, Scott is one of this year’s 2026 Integrity Icons. Integrity Icon is a program The Citizen has run in partnership with the nonprofit Accountability Lab since 2020, furthering the goal of shining a spotlight on city workers who uphold the highest standards of integrity. In turn, the program aims to inspire others to do the same. The Citizen will be honoring Scott, along with this year’s other winners, at a party on June 3 at Fitler Club Ballroom. (All are welcome, but you must RSVP in advance here.)
Origins of a mediator
Growing up in a single-parent household in North Philly, Scott, as a teenager in the ’80s, lacked an abundance of positive role models. He got into a fair share of trouble, until someone introduced him to the idea that his rough edges could be turned into assets.
One day, in his early 30s, a neighborhood acquaintance asked Scott for his help with deescalating a dispute happening a few blocks away. Mind you, this was during a crime wave that confounded the city. The man, whose name was Charles Walker, worked for the Philadelphia Anti-Drug/Anti-Violence Network (PAAN), a nonprofit dedicated to helping communities like his own find remedies for crime. Scott knew the individuals who were beefing.
“When you have people who come from these places, they are able to talk with individuals more intelligently, because they’re not coming from an academic background,” — Keith Scott
“For whatever reason, I had a little influence and I went down there, had a conversation with the people, and we caught whatever was going on before it escalated,” says Scott.
Scott would assist with multiple mediations before PAAN’s then-executive director called him into the office. “They said I’d be a perfect fit for this work. At the time, I didn’t see it as being my career,” he recalls. “I saw it as a job.”
In 2006, he began working at PAAN, excelling as an advocate working with youth who returned from incarceration. Scott often served as a liaison between youth, their families, the courts, and the police — which gave him an early, holistic understanding of myriad gaps that existed in the city’s violence prevention network. And he quickly learned that there was real value in having people with lived experience, and not simply knowledge of communities with high crime rates, guiding those efforts.
“When you have people who come from these places, they are able to talk with individuals more intelligently, because they’re not coming from an academic background,” he says.
After working at PAAN for a dozen years, Scott followed the former director of PAAN’s Youth Violence Reduction Partnership, Shondell Revell, and went to work at the City’s Office of Violence Prevention, where he’s been ever since. Colleagues rave about Scott’s level of dedication and implementation of strategies that have born incredible results.
“His fast thinking saves lives,” says Revell, now the executive director of the Division of Safe Neighborhoods. “Keith is always helping families and shooting victims, but also going back into communities to get to the root of the issue and heal the community. He takes a holistic approach, going above and beyond — even at the cost of his own health and being overworked.”
Working alongside Scott, deputy director Deion Sumpter, a 2024 Integrity Icon winner, calls Scott not only a leader, but also a teacher. “When they get new staff, they send them to Keith. He taught me how to be a director before I was one. He is the heartbeat of the division. There is no Deion Sumpter without Keith Scott.”
Making it count
When it came time for the Office of Public Safety to develop the ICCIP, which launched inside local correctional facilities in late 2025, Scott was the obvious choice for the job. The program was designed to improve a persistent problem with street-level beefs that transitioned to cell blocks, and then, once individuals got released, were recycled again on the outside.
Scott, who already was well-versed in the makeups of local crews and gangs, has seen the pattern play out countless times: “When you’re sending people to certain jails and certain blocks, it’s so quick for something [to be] the spark,” he says. For example, just a few weeks ago, Scott’s ICCIP team interrupted a conflict on State Road involving two individuals who’d shot at each other on the street, only to find themselves at the same Islamic service inside the jail. But ICCIP mediators were able to speak with both men, at first separately and then together.
After mediation, they both agreed to move forward and drop it. “It was just a blessing that our teams were on the floor during this time,” says Scott.
While the program is less than a year old, it’s already proven to be effective inside some of the most violent blocks of the correctional system. Between November 2025 and March of this year, Scott and his team have been tracking incidents on one particularly infamous cell block on State Road, which has gone from averaging seven to 10 inmate-on-inmate crimes per month — before ICCIP — down to zero.
Scott and his team not only speak with incarcerated individuals, but also their families and case workers. Sometimes, they’ll ask a parent or grandparent to be a credible messenger in their stead. “It’s been great to start to have the numbers to show for it,” he says.
As for the impressive citywide crime numbers that Scott has worked tirelessly to bring down, he’s not ready to raise a “mission accomplished” banner just yet. He believes that in order for the city to keep the momentum going, more resources will need to be deployed.
“If we could be in those prisons even more, adding more staff, and move to the state and county level as well, I think that would be tremendous,” Scott says.
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