LVMPD Gang Violence Reduction

Abstract

To combat the increase in gang member involved violence, the LVMPD has developed a three-prong crime reduction strategy that includes the following components: 1) focused deterrence, 2) hotspots, and 3) place-based interventions. The first component – focused deterrence – includes the uses of offender notification meetings to direct intensive enforcement and deterrence messaging on identified gang members (see Braga and Weisburd, 2012). The second component – hotspots – involves the deployment of saturation patrols to specific locations identified as hotspots with persistent violence problems that generate a disproportionate amount of crime (see Braga, Papachristos, and Hureau, 2014). The third component – place-network investigations – targets the criminogenic place networks at crime hot spots using situational crime prevention to alleviate the conditions at these locations, which contribute to why they have stable levels of violence over extended periods of time (see Clarke, 1995). To evaluate the impact of these various components on incidents of violent crime, a mixed method approach will be used. The first component will be evaluated using a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design to determine the influence of offender notification meetings on levels of re-arrest of gang members, as well as the impact on overall violence. The second component will also be evaluated using a RCT design to assess reductions in violent crime in treatment hot spots (i.e., street segments). A quasi-experimental design and additional qualitative techniques will assess the effectiveness of the situational crime prevention strategies