Violence in Urban America Mobilizing a Response (1994) / Chapter Skim
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Part 3 Tactics
Part 3 Tactics
Pages 11-45
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From page 11... ...
First, there is no scientific certainty about how to reduce violence, and few of the tactics recommended here have passed the test of scientific evaluations. Therefore, these tactics should be considered as options in portfolios of plausibly effective responses to urban violence.
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From page 12... ...
Objective 1: Promote a more effective criminal justice response to violence. A more effective criminal justice response to Cornet City's recent siege of violence was widely seen as essential.
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From page 13... ...
Between 1974 and 1990, the percentage of felony cases dismissed due to witness problems approximately doubled for violent crimes and grew 12-fold for drug and other "vice" crimes in Cornet City. A judge there has called witness intimidation the major problem facing the local criminal justice system.
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From page 14... ...
Expanding Intermediate Sanctions and Postzrlcarceration Aftercare The limitations of some juvenile and criminal justice system standard approaches, including incarceration, as tools for reducing violence, were raised in the briefings on National Research Council reports and in task force discussions. Understanding and Preventing Violence reported that while average prison time served per serious violent crime nearly tripled between 1975 and 1989, the level of those crimes merely oscillated, so that their number in 1989 was almost exactly the same as in 1975- about 2.9 million.
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From page 15... ...
Fines and restitution go unpaid, community service is not done. It is an important challenge for Cornet City and real cities to find or create the organizational capacity to implement this strategy.
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From page 16... ...
In addition, the task forces discussed five ideas for making traditional criminal justice responses to violent crimes more effective without departing sharply from existing practice: extending court hours into the evening to reduce police overtime and detention costs; increasing the number of police officers; broadening access to juvenile court records; sentencing nonviolent offenders to military-style "boot camp" programs; and targeting gang leaders for arrest and incarceration. Extending court hours was the only noncontroversial recommendation.
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From page 17... ...
increasing the Number of Police Officers Placing additional officers on the streets occupies a central place in current federal thinking and legislation. Therefore, it seems worth noting that none of the mayors or mock task forces expressed the view that more officers, by itself, would be valuable in Cornet City or their home cities.
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From page 18... ...
However, conference participants expressed the view that boot camps alone result in neither lower recidivism rates than traditional punishments nor lower costs per inmate than prisons. In addition, some states that introduced boot camps for nonviolent offenders were surprised to experience increases in regular prison populations.
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From page 19... ...
Objective 2: Mobilize neighborhoods to cooperate with police in violence prevention. All five task forces urged that public recognition of the violence crisis in Cornet City and in real cities nationwide serve as a signal to begin a sustained process of building or rebuilding the will and the institutions needed for cooperation among community residents, law enforcement, juvenile and criminal justice, and other public agencies.
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From page 20... ...
Finding and Fixing Violence Hot Spots One task force advised Cornet City's mayor to issue the following order to the police chief: Within two weeks, produce a list of locations in Cornet City where the patterns and concentration of police calls, ambulance responses, community perceptions, and other indicators suggest high risk of violence occurring. Prepare plans for addressing the underlying problems at those locations, whether they be the most dangerous bars, the most virulent open-air drug markets, or particular addresses, telephone locations, intersections, or cash teller machines where the distinguishing features are less apparent.
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From page 21... ...
Another task force, noting that spouse assaults are among the crimes with the highest rates of recidivism, called for collaboration between family physicians, hospital emergency departments, social service agencies, and police to find and assist families whose homes are potential hot spots for domestic violence. Reclaiming Public Spaces Four of the five task forces recommended tactics for reclaiming public spaces in which signs of physical or social disorder discourage public use.
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From page 22... ...
neighborhood clean-ups-of alleys, vacant lots, and street corners, especially those that are sites of crime, illegal markets, or social disorder; · making drug purchasers feel conspicuous as citizen patrols visibly record their license plate numbers, or police stop nonlocal cars for "safety checks" or "warnings" that drivers are entering drug market areas where they may not be safe even though police are watching closely; creative "No Turn" and other traffic restrictions during drug market hours to make it harder for nonlocal drug purchasers to cruise past drug markets, much as wealthier residents demand restrictions to keep commuters from taking short cuts through their neighborhoods; · civic functions operated by churches and other formal and informal neighborhood groups, in places and at times of day or night when drug markets or disorderly groups customarily congregate: examples included lemonade stands, bake sales, ethnic festivals, neighborhood beautification efforts, free rock concerts, sports team autograph signings, and neighborhood block parties; · city agencies timing disruptive services to coincide with drug market operations wherever and whenever drug markets or other "magnets for violence" are operating: examples included noisy and well-lighted street or sidewalk repairs, installation of speed bumps, repainting street lane markings, tree planting or pruning, checking for gas line leaks, or replacing street lamps (preferably with high-intensity units)
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From page 23... ...
The historically grounded suspicion of police in minority communities will not be quickly or easily overcome. Cooperative police-community efforts to clean up hot spots and to reclaim public spaces are in fact exercises in community policing.
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From page 24... ...
As noted above, the federal government could advance conference participants' apparent unanimous goal of community policing by structuring the delivery of resources for new police officers (e.g., provisions in the pending crime bill to increase police) so as to help and encourage jurisdictions to adopt this model.
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From page 25... ...
Recognizing that one mayoral task force was likely to have little influence on national firearms policy, the task forces devoted most of their discussion of firearms to local policy: new laws and sanctions, enforcement priorities, and public education efforts that Cornet City itself could take. Each recommendation was intended to accomplish at least one of the following objectives: to reduce violent gun uses; to reallocate guns away from high-risk users, especially unsupervised juveniles; to reduce the number of guns flowing into Cornet City; or to reduce the lethality of guns flowing into Cornet City.
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From page 26... ...
Participants' support for such a program seemed nearly unanimous, but there was explicit concern that it emerge from the local community, that it be implemented constitutionally, and that, because its purpose would be to deter illegal carrying rather than to apprehend illegal carriers, it should be implemented only following wide publicity. The task forces could not carry out a full constitutional analysis of the recommendation, but several points were noted.
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From page 27... ...
Reallocating Guns Away from Juveniles The task forces noted the concentration of murders of youth by youth, and several decided that any benefits of allowing unsupervised urban youth to carry guns were outweighed by the risk that these guns will be used in murder. They therefore called for consideration of new laws and new law enforcement priorities to reduce this risk: · a ban on unsupervised juvenile gun possession, including such severe penalties as incarceration in a specialized age-appropriate facility, plus a suspended adult sentence, plus a term of probation; · a stringent local firearm dealer licensing requirement that includes criminal record checks and requirements to do business from a fixed location built to prevent thefts; · a ban on gun sales to minors in Cornet City; · a "safe storage" ordinance requiring owners to store their guns in places inaccessible to children; and · stiff sentence enhancements for burglary and fencing when the stolen property includes a gun.
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From page 28... ...
Reducing the Lethality of Guns One task force called for several measures to lessen the threat to public safety posed by guns that do enter Cornet City: requiring combination trigger locks on guns sold in Cornet City; a local excise tax on ammunition, with rates especially high on the types of ammunition most frequently used in violence; and a law making gun manufacturers liable for the costs of injuries and deaths in Cornet City resulting from use of their products according to directions. Reducing Alcohol Abuse The task forces generally accepted two themes of Understanding and Preventing Violence: that alcohol is a drug and that violence frequently follows alcohol abuse.
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From page 29... ...
police attention to the frequency of alcohol abuse at scenes of domestic violence and a policy of police referral for alcohol abuse treatment as needed, even when a criminal justice response is unwarranted or impossible; and . greater use and enforcement of alcohol abuse treatment as a required postrelease sentence condition for persons convicted of violent crimes.
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From page 30... ...
Like the other task forces, however, this one recognized that those charged with urban violence reduction "will carry a very heavy load" until the demand for drugs decreases and joined several others in calling for expansion of drug treatment capacity and improvement of drug abuse prevention technology as methods of violence prevention. Reducing Other Violence Hazards The various task force reports called for a number of specific measures to alleviate violence hazards in Cornet City that were only peripherally associated with firearms, alcohol, and illegal drugs.
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From page 31... ...
More likely, the troubled family is suffering from several or all of these problems simultaneously and therefore needs a variety of supports. A basic difficulty in supporting troubled families is that they are discovered by, and the necessary services are typically delivered by, a complex, uncoordinated network of service providers, scattered across a host of
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From page 32... ...
Fifth, the centers would provide coordinated outreach to troubled families as they are discovered by schools, community organizations, welfare agencies, community police officers, the juvenile justice system, probation officers, pretrial services agencies, or other neighborhood residents. Sixth, with informed family consent, the service providers would share information.
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From page 33... ...
Making prevention the first step will require a significant reorientation of child welfare services systems in many localities, including, it was believed, in Cornet City. The goal would be to identify and solve family problems before a child is injured, physically or psychologically, and before parents' inability to manage marital conflict and anger without violence imprints damaging images, and teaches patterns of violence, to the children.
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From page 34... ...
At least in the short term, both programs appear to improve family functioning in ways that reduce rates of child abuse and neglect in high-risk families, although only the Prenatal/Early Infancy Program has been subjected to rigorous evaluation. As health programs, these interventions also expand families' access to primary health care, nutrition, and substance abuse prevention for expectant mothers, which improves fetal neurological development; and training in the prevention of head injuries to infants and children.
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From page 35... ...
Developing Other Community Services Beyond the reach of child protective services and full-service schools, the task forces recommended other programs and services that the mayor of Cornet City should consider for helping children and families prevent violence: · alternative schools, beginning at the elementary level, staffed by teachers and professional counselors with specialized knowledge of children with behavior problems, using Americans with Disabilities Act funds to support services for children whose problems stem from cognitive or communicative disorders; · youth aid panels following the Philadelphia model, in which a citizen board is set up to identify youths whose behaviors are problematic for the community but do not warrant criminal justice action, to recommend community service restitution and monitor the youths' performance;
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From page 36... ...
Therefore, the task forces called for two immediate steps to detect and interrupt chronic family vio lence. First, analyze all domestic violence police calls received in the past 6 months, identify high-risk homes where the pattern suggests continuing and escalating violence presents an imminent risk, develop a plan tailored to specific conditions in each high-risk home, and carry out the plan- an extension of the hot spot concept to family violence.
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From page 37... ...
Therefore, one task force called for criminal justice sanctions to punish batterers with sanctions that were firm yet tailored to solve specific family problems. The first recommendation was to create a "domestic violence protocol" that contemplates any of the following sanctions when they seem useful and appropriate: issuance and enforcement of restraining orders, obtaining safe havens and psychological services for victims, providing to perpetrators anger management training and substance abuse treatment when those appear useful, and sentencing perpetrators to prison when that appears useful.
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From page 38... ...
In addition, the task forces called for four less global initiatives: . expand programs modeled after `'I Have a Dream9'9 but broadened to offer financial incentives for high-school students to pursue either specialized vocational training or college-level academic work after graduating from high school; · enrich school programs for high-risk youth, especially by updating vocational education course offerings, to develop skills needed to enter the modern work force; · develop programs modeled after Boston's City Year and Harlem's Youth Build, local service program models that give youth needed skills and engage them in a year of community service; and · develop systems for identifying and serving youth and young adults
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From page 39... ...
Their recommendations for removing these barriers included: · use the mayor's "bully pulpit," the urgency of the violence crisis, community action, and financial incentives to promote nondiscriminatory hiring practices and to encourage the hiring of minority youth; · subsidize corporations for training new employees from high-violence neighborhoods in job- or employer-specific skills perhaps working through the local Private Industry Council and tapping Job Training Partnership Act funds; and · promote business/school partnerships. Programs such as the "Pathways to Success" have shown considerable success in motivating children to remain in school and facilitating their transition from school to work while indirectly combating the problems of idleness and hopelessness.
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From page 40... ...
For two reasons, they doubted that tax subsidies for locating enterprises in targeted high-risk neighborhoods would create jobs there: fear of violence was thought likely to neutralize the effect of any tax incentive, and recent research findings suggest that even when firms are drawn to minority communities by tax incentives, they hire local residents only when required to do so. Several task force members lamented the lack of business community representation at the conference, thinking that members of that community might have produced creative ideas for attracting financial capital to Cornet City and its high-violence Southwood neighborhood.
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From page 41... ...
Two mayors pointed out "zero-cost" ways that the federal government could create jobs for residents of minority communities. One way is to locate new federal facilities in urban areas, which would provide job opportunities; the mayor noted that compliance with an executive order of the Carter administration would accomplish this at no cost because the funds were to be spent anyway.
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From page 42... ...
In addition, several task forces called for immediate steps by the mayor of Cornet City and other local officials to encourage religious organizations, entertainment media, and other cultural institutions to assume voluntarily their shares of responsibility for preventing violence: use the "bully pulpit" of public office to charge all elements of the community with the mission of violence prevention; discourage public and private actions that aggravate ethnic tensions or promote negative, violent stereotypes; enlist celebrities in voluntary antiviolence campaigns; and encourage the media to publicize early successes in responding to violence.
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From page 43... ...
~ Press pastors to open their churches to new uses that permit formation of new supports for struggling single parents: respite centers for beleaguered single parents, hot meals to draw families together [to hear offers of support services of various kinds, such as] training in management of households, conflict resolution, discipline, and child development.
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From page 44... ...
Increasing Sensitivity to Negative Stereotypes One task force recommended that Cornet City's mayor take two actions to reduce the violence-promoting effects of negative stereotypes of young minority males: sensitize government press officers and other staff to actions-speech mannerisms, treatment of city agency clients, for examplethat may aggravate ethnic tensions or promote stereotypes of young minority men as people to be feared, and call on the community to take actions against billboards, movies, concerts, and other vehicles that portray violence, underage drinking, and related negative behaviors by young minority men as "cool," "macho," or justified by oppression. These recommendations reflected two concerns: first, that violence, and its uneven distribution across society, feeds a stereotype of young minority men as people to be feared rather than led into adult society and charged with adult responsibilities; and, second, that the stereotype itself promotes violence in two ways.
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From page 45... ...
Although public officials have no direct control over media content, one task force recommended that Cornet City's mayor use personal appearances at scenes of successes, background briefings, and press conferences to publicize local success stories, to publicly recognize the leaders responsible, and to highlight encouraging statistical trends in violence.
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