WHAT WORKS IN PREVENTING AND REDUCING COMMUNITY VIOLENCE? · Community Policing Juvenile Curfews...

07/11/17 1

WHAT WORKS IN PREVENTING

AND REDUCING COMMUNITY

VIOLENCE?

Thomas Abt

Senior Research Fellow

Harvard Kennedy School

Center for International Development

White Paper: What Works in

Preventing and Reducing

Community Violence?

13/09/18 2

• Objective

– To better understand “what works, and why” with regard to

community violence

• Methodology

– Reviewed 264 individual studies as well as systematic reviews,

meta-analysis, meta-reviews to identify which programmatic

strategies worked (and which didn’t)

– Selected studies based on strong designs (experimental, quasi-

experimental methods with solid comparison groups)

– Analyzed each programmatic strategy in depth to better

understand why it worked (or didn’t)

– Conducted fieldwork to understand whether “what worked” in

other contexts could work in Mexico

13/09/18 3

WHITE PAPER

What do we mean by

community violence?

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TYPOLOGY OF VIOLENCE CONTINUUM

Rarely lethalOccurs in privateInvolves fewSpontaneousExpressiveCommon

Frequently lethalOccurs in public

Involves manyPlanned

InstrumentalUncommon

Home School Community Gang Organized State

• Different types of violence require different strategies; what works to

reduce one type of violence will not work for another

• Mexico has high rates of both disorganized and organized violence

• Efforts to curb community violence have been rigorously studied, those

to control organized violence have not

• Because the white paper is based on the most rigorous evidence, it

speaks to community, not organized, violence

• That said, all forms of violence demand a policy response, especially

organized criminal violence

DIFFERENT VIOLENCE, DIFFERENT STRATEGIES

13/09/18

Elements of effective

community violence programs

13/09/18 7

Some practical elements were common among effective programs:

• Targeting: identify and focus on highest-risk people, places, behaviors

• High intensity and dosage: do more with less, using higher treatment

dosages with fewer participants

• Strong program design: have a well-defined theory of change, based

on sound evidence

• Fidelity/Adherence: stay true to theory of change, even with adversity

• Monitoring and evaluation: use M&E to continually assess

effectiveness

• Financial and technical capacity: have sufficient and sustainable

resources, as well as properly trained management and staff

ELEMENTS OF EFFECTIVENESS

13/09/18

Anti-violence programs

12/09/18 9

• Looked at 23 different program types for reducing community violence,

arranged them into 4 groups according to effectiveness

• Determined which interventions fell into which groups based on:

– The number of existing rigorous experimental and quasi-

experimental studies identified for each specific intervention

– The size of that intervention’s effect on youth violence and crime

outcomes, as described in the papers

• Limitations

– No rigorous studies were found from Mexico; few from Latin

America; most US-based

– Few studies studying institutions (as opposed to programs) due to

methodological challenges

ANTI-VIOLENCE PROGRAMS

13/09/18

ANTI-VIOLENCE PROGRAMS

Strong evidence Modest evidenceInconclusive or

contested evidence

Evidence of

ineffectiveness

Focused DeterrenceVocational Training and

Employment

Crime Prevention Through

Environmental Design

Hospital-based Prevention

Programs

Cognitive Behavioral TherapyRestorative Justice (Direct

Mediation)Disorder Policing Scared Straight

Multidimensional Juvenile

Therapy

Non-custodial Sanctions

(Alternatives to Incarceration)Community Policing Juvenile Curfews

Drug Courts and Drug

TreatmentConditional Cash Transfers

Community-based Prevention

Programs Drug Law Enforcement

Alcohol ControlGang Outreach

(Streetworker) ProgramsGun Buyback Programs

Hot Spot Policing Mentoring

School-based Programs

(Supervision)

13/09/18

CASE 1: FOCUSED DETERRENCE

contested evidence

Evidence of

ineffectiveness

Employment

Programs

Therapy

(Supervision)

(Behavior-based / Tertiary Prevention and Suppression)

13/09/18

• What does it involve?

– Strong partnerships

between police,

prosecutors, communities,

and service providers

FOCUSED DETERRENCE

– Directly communicate to chronic offenders a varietyof both sanctions and rewards (“pulling levers”)

– Designed to provide clear incentives for refraining from engaging infurther criminal activity.

– Target group as well as individual behavior

13/09/18

Officers at Philadelphia police department’s 17th District Headquarters at 20th and Federal streets begin

their shift around 5p.m. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY file)

• Why does it work?

– Offering a clear list of sanctions can push offenders’ perceived riskcalculation beyond a certain threshold (“tipping” effect)

– Face-to-face meetings with repeat offenders and presenting bothsanctions and rewards can greatly improve the perceivedprocedural fairness and legitimacy of the police in the eyes of thecommunity

• Opportunities moving forward

– No RCTs so far, only strong quasi-experimental evidence

– Local institutional settings and capacities are key

– Highly localized, does not necessarily require police ”buy-in” atnational level

FOCUSED DETERRENCE

13/09/18

CASE 2: COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPY

contested evidence

Evidence of

ineffectiveness

Employment

Programs

Cognitive Behavioral

Therapy

Restorative Justice (Direct

Therapy

(Supervision)

(People and Behavior-based / Tertiary Prevention and Offender Rehabilitation)

13/09/18

– Sessions help youth evaluate

and modify the way they

think and make decisions

– Adapt unhelpful thinking and

self-destructive behaviors.

– In a limited number of

sessions, participants work

with a specialist to identify

COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPY

the problematic behavior, view challenging situations differently, and

practice different responses.

13/09/18

– Produces changes in:

• Self-control

• Time preferences

• Values

• Social skill

• Social identity

Training of treatment providers and supervision appears to be

key, as well as their ability to connect with youth

13/09/18

– Effects sometimes time-limited; how to extend?

• Make therapy last longer?

• Offer booster sessions?

• Pair with economic assistance programs?

– Adapt CBT-inspired programs to a more criminally engaged and

high-risk population

– Innovate with more cost-effective intervention models, potentially

through lay counselors

13/09/18

CASE 3: HOT SPOTS POLICING

contested evidence

Evidence of

ineffectiveness

Employment

Programs

Therapy

(Supervision)

(Place-based / Suppression)

13/09/18

– Focuses additional law

enforcement resources on

small geographical areas with

disproportionally high crime

– Strategies used by the police in

these hot spots vary from

traditional law enforcement to

various forms of proactive,

problem-oriented policing

HOT SPOTS POLICING

13/09/18

– Increasing foot patrols and officers assigned to an area raises the

likelihood of disruption, apprehension, and arrest, creating a

deterrent effect

– Applying problem-oriented interventions in hot spots can change

the relationships between offenders, targets, and guardians at

treatment locations

HOT SPOTS POLICING

13/09/18

• Limitations

– Recent studies have raised concerns regarding the possible

displacement of crime to neighboring areas under this program

• Most studies to date have drawn on relatively small samples and may

have lacked the statistical power to detect small displacement effects

• A recent study in Bogotá (Blattman et. al.) with a large sample size

found that crime moved to neighboring streets

– Maximize effectiveness by exploring targeted, problem-oriented

strategies in hot spots - not just “cops on dots”

HOT SPOTS POLICING

13/09/18

CASE 4: VOCATIONAL TRAINING AND

EMPLOYMENT

contested evidence

Evidence of

ineffectiveness

Employment

Programs

Therapy

(Supervision)

(People-based / Secondary, Tertiary Prevention and Offender Rehabilitation)

13/09/18

– Offers marketable career

skills to at-risk and/or

offender youth

– Aims to provide youth with

the means to attain a secure

and legal income

– Secure legal employment

occupies time youth may

otherwise devote to criminal

activities

VOCATIONAL TRAINING AND EMPLOYMENT

13/09/18

• What is the theory?

– Employment opportunities (through job-skills training and

connections) can give youth a legal alternative to criminal

involvement

– Offering conditional or unconditional cash grants to people with

unstable jobs and little access to credit may also lead to reductions

in criminal activity

• Limitations

– Increasing employment alone has not been particularly effective in

reducing violent crime; must be more targeted, offer additional

assistance

13/09/18

– Explore the potential complementarity between Vocational Training

and Employment and other interventions (with CBT, for example)

– More targeted efforts to engage high-risk individuals

– Greater coordination with the private sector and technical schools

is an important strategy

13/09/18

CASE 5: CRIME PREVENTION THROUGH

ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN (CPTED)

contested evidence

Evidence of

ineffectiveness

Employment

Crime Prevention

Through Environmental

Design

Programs

Therapy

(Supervision)

(Place-based / Primary prevention)

13/09/18

– Programs that seek to prevent

crime by changing the physical

design of the urbanized built

environment

– Examples: improved street

lighting, revamping public

spaces, expansion of public

transport systems, etc.

CRIME PREVENTION THROUGH

13/09/18

• What is the theory?

– Interventions that create public spaces where neighbors can interactand develop relationships show more promising results

– Improvements to physical spaces can build community pride andconfidence, thereby strengthening informal social contro

– When CPTED creates stronger communities, it may also improverelationships between citizens and the police

• Limitations

– Even successful interventions produce only weak effects, mostly onproperty crime

– Not well-targeted to high-crime, high-violence locations

– Neighborhood involvement is key, when they are not involved in theprocess there seems to be no impact

13/09/18

– Given weak impacts, when using CPTED keep costs low and do

not depend on it for large impacts

– Can supplement other anti-violence efforts

13/09/18

Key principles for community

violence

13/09/18 31

• To achieve maximum impact, must focus on risk, not need

– Crime and especially violence concentrate among small numbers

of high-risk people, places, and behaviors

• To achieve maximum impact, must use multiple strategies

simultaneously

– Most anti-violence strategies work a little, a few work well, and a

few don’t work at all

– Because of this, there are no magic bullets – must concentrate the

impacts of individually modest but collectively robust effects

produce big results

• What if crime moves around the corner? Large body of evidence says

that disorganized crime will not, but organized crime might

CONCENTRATION PRINCIPLE

13/09/18

• To achieve maximum impact, stakeholders must coordinate and align

anti-violence activities

– Cannot concentrate efforts without coordinating them

– More is not necessarily better, should only have as many

stakeholders as can be meaningfully coordinated

– Stakeholders must agree to be part of group effort aligned around

high-risk people, places, and behaviors

COORDINATION PRINCIPLE

13/09/18

PROACTIVITY PRINCIPLE

REACTIVE

Respond to violence that has

already taken place

Standard law enforcement

approach

Necessary but not sufficient

to achieve success

PROACTIVE

Seek to prevent violence

before it takes place

Identify patterns to better

anticipate violence

Address underlying factors

causing violence

13/09/18

• To achieve maximum impact, use both reactive and proactive

approaches

• In Mexico and around the region, many jails and prisons are

overcrowded, allowing criminal activity to fester and inhibiting

rehabilitation

• In Mexico and around the region, there is widespread impunity for the

most serious violent offenses

• Evidence-informed community-based rehabilitation for non-violent

offenders is cheaper and more effective in reducing recidivism than

incarceration

• Given overcrowding, impunity, and the availability of alternatives, jail and

prison capacity is best spent on dangerous violent offenders, not low-

level drug dealers and addicts

A CONCLUDING THOUGHT ON

REHABILITATION, INCARCERATION

13/09/18

QUESTIONS?

13/09/18

Thank you!

WHAT WORKS IN PREVENTING AND REDUCING COMMUNITY VIOLENCE? · Community Policing Juvenile Curfews...

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