As communities around the nation work to develop more sophisticated antiviolence plans, experts assembled by a University of Maryland center have published a white paper offering guidance on how to structure such efforts.
The publication outlines ways to conduct community violence problem analyses (CVPA) to define and combat a locality's violence problem, often measured by the numbers of homicides and non-fatal shootings, and how to share some elements but diverge on others.
The experts suggested that CVPAs divide their attention among incidents, people, and places.
Looking at incidents, the experts urged evaluating "sensitive information about the victim, perpetrator, and/or the location the violence occurred to identify weaknesses in policies." The work would be done not only by law enforcement but also public health and social service agencies, and community-based organizations.
The white paper says the first such effort started in Milwaukee in 2004 with the establishment of a Homicide Review Commission that "used in-depth incident reviews to develop innovative homicide prevention and intervention strategies," a program that helped reduce homicide numbers by 52% over eight years.
People-based analyses examine the people involved in serious violence. Demographic and criminal history reviews analyze the characteristics and criminal justice histories of victims and suspects involved in homicides and shootings.
A technique called group audits gathers information on active criminal groups, approximate number of members, activities, conflicts, rivals, allies, and territory, among other key characteristics.
The white paper discusses "social network analysis" to help understand how social relationships affect violence. The procedure "can show how someone directly or indirectly tied to a victim (or victims) is at an elevated risk of victimization compared with someone who is not. It can also demonstrate how group membership and violent victimization are connected."
The third major element, place-based analyses, identify the locations where crime and violence concentrate.
This is often termed "hot spot mapping," to identify hot spots where crime concentrates, to help target and deploy resources.
Dallas police officials, along with researchers from the University of Texas, San Antonio, used grid-based mapping to identify the .05% of the city where crime concentrated the most, then deployed a “high visibility” strategy involving emergency lights and foot patrols that helped cut violent crime by 11%.
The white paper says "these strategies are most effective when police use problem-oriented, community-engaged approaches and avoid aggressive, indiscriminate enforcement."
Another technique, called risk terrain modeling, examines environmental features that connect with crime patterns to produce a model indicating where crime is statistically most likely to occur.
The Newark Public Safety Collaborative (NPSC) uses this kind of analysis. In 2019, the organization identified specific areas with the highest risk of criminal behavior during the night and prioritized these areas for street light upgrades, resulting in 35% decrease in violent crime incidents.
In a variation called "place network investigation," analysts identify crime-prone areas and seek ways to stop potential offenders from using them, relying on moves such as civil law remedies, remedying blight, improving street lighting, and altering traffic patterns. Las Vegas used the method to help reduce gun offenses by 39% in one year.
The experts discussed various cautionary notes about the CVPA process, including that it "had sometimes been misused in the past to support aggressive law enforcement action that was neither effective in reducing violence nor perceived as legitimate by ... community members."
CVPAs are not intended to "create enforcement lists," David Muhammad of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Rreform told a webinar last week discussing the new white paper.
Muhammad said research his organization had done in eight cities on perpetrators of gun violence showed that the average age of homicide suspects was 28, that many shootings did not involve drugs or gangs and that many shooters did not live in the communities where their crimes occurred.
Some cities may lack the resources to produce a good analysis, partly because of poor data about nonfatal shootings. Some areas may lack the funds for non-law enforcement strategies.
The white paper was based on a symposium sponsored by the University of Maryland's Center for the Study and Practice of Violence Reduction, supported by the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund and the Joyce Foundation.
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