The @washingtonpost editorial board wrote a reasonable piece on the rising rates of violent crime confronting the country right now. But there's an important point that they, and others, are leaving out... washingtonpost.com/opinions/viole…
Many in media and politics are finally citing "community-based" efforts to reduce violence and the evidence showing they can reduce shootings and killings. That's good. Very good. But what they leave out is this...
The "community-based" anti-violence intervention with the strongest results is not EXCLUSIVELY run by the community. In fact, it is a police-community partnership called focused deterrence, the violence reduction initiative, or sometimes just ceasefire.
In Oakland, researchers documented a large reduction in gun violence after focused deterrence was initiated. The intervention was credited with cutting shootings in the city in half. Mayor @LibbySchaaf recently discussed this on our @CouncilonCJ webinar. counciloncj.org/page/Reducing-…
Looking across the country, a rigorous @Campbell_CrmJst systematic review of focused deterrence found positive results in 19 of 24 evaluations it examined. And these results were large, not just statistically significant. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.10…
The strategy, among many others, is also profiled in my book #BleedingOut. basicbooks.com/titles/thomas-…
What does this mean for policy? It means that we need to remember we need BOTH the community AND law enforcement fully committed to preserving safety while delivering justice. It can't be one or the other.
Yes, we should scale up street outreach, hospital-based interventions, cleaning and greening, and other non-enforcement anti-violence options. But those efforts should be coordinated with the work of police and prosecutors.
We need cops and communities to come together. That's hard to say politically in some corners, but if we really care about saving lives, we must have the courage to follow what the science is telling us. And that science says it's not either police or communities, it's both.
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