Focused Deterrence Violence Prevention At Community And Individual Levels

The focused deterrence violence prevention model emerged as part of Boston Ceasefire in the mid-1990s. Since that time, solid research evidence has emerged indicating focused deterrence can influence community levels of violence, particularly gang- and group-related violence. It is considered an evidence-based violence reduction strategy. The evidence of the impact on individuals, however, is much more limited and mixed. This Article presents the focused deterrence model, reviews the research evidence and considers the implications for reducing violent recidivism. Several lingering research questions as well as considerations for leveraging focused deterrence along with other recidivism reduction strategies are discussed

Restorativeness, Procedural Justice, and Defiance as Long-term Predictors of Re-Offending of Participants in Family Group Conferences

This study extends Hipple and colleagues’ variation analysis by examining how varying degrees of restorative justice, procedural justice, and defiance in family group conference (FGC) processes and outcomes affect long-term juvenile recidivism measures in one large Midwestern U.S. city. The current study uses two data sets from the Indianapolis Juvenile Restorative Justice Experiment that include conference observations, juvenile histories, and adult criminal histories to examine how variations in FGC elements shape juvenile recidivism outcomes in a long-term follow-up period. Findings reveal that the greater fidelity of FGCs to the theoretical foundations of restorativeness and procedural justice, the better outcomes in the long term as measured by future offending. Specifically, offense type and conference restorativeness influenced the probability of recidivism in the long term. Results are consistent with the theoretical predictions of reintegrative shaming and procedural justice theories, providing further support that FGCs are a viable youth justice program option

Law Enforcement’s Information Sharing Infrastructure: A National Assessment

The September 11 attacks impacted society generally, and law enforcement specifically, in dramatic ways. One of the major trends has been changing expectations regarding criminal intelligence practices among state, local, and tribal (SLT) law enforcement agencies and the need to coordinate intelligence efforts and share information at all levels of government. In fact, enhancing intelligence efforts has emerged as a critical issue for the prevention of all threats and crimes. To date, an increasing number of SLT law enforcement agencies have expanded their intelligence capacity, and there have been fundamental changes in the national, state, and local information sharing infrastructure. Moreover, critical to these expanding information sharing expectations is the institutionalization of fusion centers (FCs). Despite these dramatic changes, an expanding role, and the acknowledgement that local law enforcement intelligence is critical to the prevention and deterrence of threats and crimes, very little research exists that highlights issues related to the intelligence practices of SLT law enforcement agencies and FCs.1 This research describes what agencies are doing to build an intelligence capacity and assesses the state of information sharing among agencies. Specifically, a national survey was developed to examine the experiences of SLT agencies and FCs for building an intelligence capacity as well as to understand critical gaps in the sharing of information regarding intelligence

The effects of “pulling levers” focused deterrence strategies on crime

A number of American police departments have been experimenting with new problem-oriented policing frameworks to prevent gang and group-involved violence generally known as the “pulling levers” focused deterrence strategies. Focused deterrence strategies honor core deterrence ideas, such as increasing risks faced by offenders, while finding new and creative ways of deploying traditional and non-traditional law enforcement tools to do so, such as directly communicating incentives and disincentives to targeted offenders. Pioneered in Boston to halt serious gang violence, the focused deterrence framework has been applied in many American cities through federally sponsored violence prevention programs. In its simplest form, the approach consists of selecting a particular crime problem, such as gang homicide; convening an interagency working group of law enforcement, social-service, and community-based practitioners; conducting research to identify key offenders, groups, and behavior patterns; framing a response to offenders and groups of offenders that uses a varied menu of sanctions (“pulling levers”) to stop them from continuing their violent behavior; focusing social services and community resources on targeted offenders and groups to match law enforcement prevention efforts; and directly and repeatedly communicating with offenders to make them understand why they are receiving this special attention. These new strategic approaches have been applied to a range of crime problems, such as overt drug markets and individual repeat offenders, and have shown promising results in the reduction of crime. Objectives: To synthesize the extant evaluation literature and assess the effects of pulling levers focused deterrence strategies on crime. Conclusions: We conclude that pulling levers focused deterrence strategies seem to be effective in reducing crime. However, we urge caution in interpreting these results because of the lack of more rigorous randomized controlled trials in the existing body of scientific evidence on this approach

Focused Deterrence Violence Prevention At Community And Individual Levels

The focused deterrence violence prevention model emerged as part of Boston Ceasefire in the mid-1990s. Since that time, solid research evidence has emerged indicating focused deterrence can influence community levels of violence, particularly gang- and group-related violence. It is considered an evidence-based violence reduction strategy. The evidence of the impact on individuals, however, is much more limited and mixed. This Article presents the focused deterrence model, reviews the research evidence and considers the implications for reducing violent recidivism. Several lingering research questions as well as considerations for leveraging focused deterrence along with other recidivism reduction strategies are discussed

Community-Based Violence Prevention: An Assessment of Pittsburgh's One Vision One Life Program

Assesses the implementation, operations, and impact of the One Vision One Life violence prevention strategy, including community-building, conflict intervention, and mediation; impact on violence trends; comparisons with other cities; and lessons learned