A report card on a decade of crime in America 2010-2019. 10 ways to reduce crime and violence that were well known on Jan. 1, 2010. How did we do? *Spoiler alert: not great. Read on. Written w/@caterinaroman 1/N
Ending Mass Incarceration. We have known for a long time not only that there is no proof that prison reduces crime but that long periods of incarceration are assoc. with continued offending and are destructive for families and communities. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11… @johnpfaff 2/N 
By the end of 2016, the US prison population had begun to decline slowly in absolute numbers and a little more rapidly in per capita rates. The US prison rate remains the highest in the world. pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018… 3/N
2. In the 90s, hot takes on violence focused on super-predators and locking up teens for the good of society. But in the 2000s, we learned about positive youth development and rehabilitation instead of incarceration @justiceforyouth researchgate.net/profile/Beth_H…) 4/N
There was substantial progress serving at-risk youth in the 2010s. Community-based youth rehabilitation programs expanded and nine states raised the age when juveniles are automatically processed in the adult system. justicepolicy.org/uploads/justic… @JusticePolicy 5/N
3. Engage NEET youth. Dense clusters of young men Not Employed, not Enrolled in school and not in Training programs disproportionately commit and are victims of violence. We know that connecting them with positive services and supports is critical. files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED480… 6/N
In the last decade, there was no particular prioritization of NEET youth in federal funding, and as a result the US has not kept pace with improvements seen elsewhere, such as all OECD countries. 7/N
4. America is unique among OECD countries in its lax gun laws. Intentional limitations on research prevent careful studies of the causal link between firearms accessibility and violence. Evidence in 2010 was overwhelming that fewer guns would mean less violence. @shannonwatts 8/N
As the 2010s end, there is real momentum to improve our knowledge on guns and violence. Private funders have invested in rigorous, transparent and objective gun research, and the federal government is starting fund firearms research as well. arnoldventures.org/work/research-… 9/N
5. Encourage immigration. Although popular belief is that immigrants are more crime-prone than natives, research then and today continues to find this is not true. Places with clusters immigrants have crime rates well below socioeconomic expectations. journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.152… 10/N
Obviously, in the 2010s the benefits to communities from welcoming immigrants have been strongly muted by federal policies and rhetoric to greatly restrict immigration. @SeleeAndrew 11/N
6. Fund violence interrupters. By 2010, cities were turning models like Cure Violence where civilians—often former gang members themselves—mediate conflicts and disputes to reduce retaliatory shootings. 12/N
Many jurisdictions had funded these models through federal grants but when the grants ended, few cities took up the slack to sustain them. Overall, investments have been trivial compared to the harms these programs could reduce. 13/N
7. Better Policing. By 2010, police departments had likely consumed much of the synthesized knowledge on fair and effective policing found in the @theNASEM 2004 report. The number of police agencies using evidence-based programs and practices was slowly increasing. 14/N
Today, there are rumblings of understanding that policing in urban communities typically makes the poor more vulnerable, not less. Some cities (@PhillyPolice) are developing innovations with sppt of foundations (@StoneleighFdn) to reduce the imprint of arrest and lockup. 15/N
8. Reduce Drug Use. Researchers have known for decades that the costs from illegal drugs was caused at least as much by drug prohibition and enforcement as it was by illegal use. But the legal structures to fight the crack epidemic of the 1980s remained. @GermanLopez 16/N
In the 2010s, we have only nibbled at the edges of this massive legal artifice. While marijuana is now fully legal in 8 states, innovation has been stifled beyond emergency measures. Even common sense policy—like safe injection—remains too controversial. @abgutman 17/N
9. Reduce child poverty. Long-term, there is simply no better solution to violence in America than reducing the number of children in poverty. In 2010, childhood poverty rate was the highest it has been since 1993, when 22.7 percent of children were poor. 18/N
At the end of the 2010s, there is still no comprehensive national plan to cut child poverty. While the 2010s trended in the right direction, child poverty in the US remains a large-scale moral failure. npscoalition.org/child-poverty-… 19/N
10. Take science seriously. In 2010 then Pres Obama sought to improve the translation of evidence into practice. The National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention—supporting local implementation of evidence-based best practice in violence prevention was a hallmark @Abt_Thomas 20/N
As @bradplumer & @CoralMDavenport report, the role of science in Fed policymaking is being greatly curtailed going well beyond controversial climate studies to include many critical programs. The negative consequences will trickle down to communities. nytimes.com/2019/12/28/cli… 21/N
Finally, we must expand the use of trauma-informed practices in all parts of the criminal justice system. A decade ago, few knew what ACEs were. We were only starting to understand the short and long-term harms of traumatic experiences like witnessing a shooting. @CaterinaGRoman
Errata: I mistagged my extremely talented wife @CaterinaGRoman and the talented @JohnFPfaff in this thread. I have to live with that, but you should read the thread anyway!
@threadreaderapp please unroll
