Strategies that have produced drastic reductions in gun-related crime in cities around the country form the foundation for Attorney General Mike DeWine’s new Safe Neighborhoods Initiative.
In Boston, youth homicides fell by two-thirds and all homicides by half. In Cincinnati, homicides involving gangs dropped 41 percent and other violent firearms incidents fell 22 percent. In Chicago, a program aimed at parolees returning to certain neighborhoods cut homicides by almost 40 percent.
The Attorney General’s Office has begun a pilot of the Safe Neighborhoods program in Akron in collaboration with local law enforcement, community and church leaders, social service providers, and victims’ families. The plan — there and later statewide — is to target the most violent career criminals, a small segment of the population shown to commit the majority of Ohio’s violent crimes.
“Our goal is to revitalize and restore the spirit of neighborhoods paralyzed by crime and gun violence,” Attorney General DeWine said. “My office is going to help communities across the state implement holistic solutions.”
Assistant Attorney General Bob Fiatal will lead the effort and work with local authorities interested in expanding it to their communities. A former FBI agent, he headed the Attorney General’s Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy from 2010 until this past May, when he began his new assignment.
How it works
Here’s how the strategy is implemented:
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A city’s high-crime groups or gangs are identified, and the most violent is targeted first.
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The most violent offenders and gang leaders who are on parole or probation are ordered to appear for a “call-in.”
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At this meeting, local, state, and federal law enforcement warn offenders of the prison time they will face if they continue to commit crime. (See sidebar on proposed Armed Violent Career Criminal Act.) They are told they are being watched and have one more chance to stop. If they commit another gun-related violent crime, law enforcement comes out in full force on the entire gang.
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Clergy, community leaders, and residents who have lost family members also speak at the call-ins, sharing the community’s plea that the violence end.
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Information on job training, alcohol and drug rehab, GED prep, and other social services is provided in a “one-stop-shop” approach for those who want help.
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The process is repeated with the second-most violent group and so on.
“The call-ins are an efficient and effective method of communicating the strategy’s key message back to the entire universe of violent groups in the neighborhood,” Attorney General DeWine said. “As these groups come to understand that violence by one may lead to law enforcement attention to all, the peer pressure that drives violence is reduced.”
Why it works
Three elements of the strategy address much of what drives violence on the streets. First, it conveys that the community wants to see the violence end, values the offenders, and wants them to succeed. Second, it offers help to offenders who want it. And finally, it spells out specific consequences for homicides and shootings.
“This is more than an enforcement-based action. It’s proactive work,” Fiatal said. “We want to stop crime before it happens. The mindset in law enforcement has been to lock them up. And until a couple years ago, that’s where I was, too. But it doesn’t work in the communities we have now.”
David Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, developed the model, first piloted as Operation Ceasefire in Boston in the mid-1990s. He has since worked with more than two dozen cities on firearms violence and drug market disruption.
Kennedy lays out the strategy — and the challenges of implementing and sustaining it — in his 2011 book, “Don’t Shoot: One Man, a Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America.”
“It takes about 10 minutes to explain it,” he writes. “… What we need to do is identify those core offenders, which is easy. Then we need to put together a core partnership of law enforcement, service providers, and community voices. If we can add strong figures close to the offenders — parents, elders, ‘influentials’ — so much the better.
“We need to organize law enforcement so it can provide a clear, crisp, predictable strategic response, particularly to the groups … at the center of the action. We need to organize the social services and the community voices. We need to build a sustained relationship between the partnership and the streets in which we clearly, crisply, and repeatedly spell out standards, opportunities, and consequences.”
AG provides additional resources
As part of Safe Neighborhoods, the Attorney General’s Office has designated $7 million for grants to fund community efforts that offer alternatives to violence. The grants will fund social service and community programs.
The Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) also will play a role. Criminal intelligence analysts can help establish data baselines, measure results, and identify patterns of gang activity, violent crimes, and firearms use to complement local agencies’ efforts. Agents can provide advanced crime scene reconstruction to identify locations where shots were fired and conduct forensic investigations of crime scenes. BCI also can provide a “virtual command center” for local coordination, and agents can be part of a visible presence when violent crimes occur.
“Some of the concepts of the group violence reduction strategy have been tried in Ohio cities previously. What the Attorney General’s Office can bring to the table are resources and continuity that can help sustain these efforts over the long haul,” Fiatal said.
Cincinnati offers an Ohio example
Cincinnati is among many cities that have worked with researcher David Kennedy to reduce gun violence.
It implemented the Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence (CIRV) in 2007 after the homicide rate rose from 41.3 per year in the 1990s to 88 in 2006. Loosely modeled after Operation Ceasefire, the program produced impressive results, including a 41 percent drop in gang-related homicides within 42 months, said University of Cincinnati researcher Robin Engel, who has been involved from the start.
Sustaining such gains can be a challenge, and that’s been the case in Cincinnati, Engel said, noting that a recent increase in gang-related homicides has coincided with CIRV leadership changes, the loss of key partnerships, and reduced funding.
Still, Assistant Police Chief James Whalen supports the concept.
“The application of the focused deterrence principles to gun violence saves lives,” he said. “It’s a technique that we’ve employed here that has been very effective for us. It’s a work in progress, and it requires constant attention and adjustment, but we’ve been very satisfied with the results.”
Legislation seeks stiffer penalties
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Attorney General DeWine formed a Violent Crimes with Guns Advisory Group in 2011 to examine how to reduce gun crimes. The group included law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, victim advocates, and gun rights proponents.
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Members worked with Ohio State researcher Deanna Wilkinson to understand the nature of gun violence in Ohio and developed recommendations to reduce it.
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As a result, Sen. Jim Hughes, an advisory group member, introduced the Armed Violent Career Criminal Act. Now under consideration by legislators, the bill proposes longer prison terms for repeat violent offenders convicted of a gun-related crime.
What others are saying
“We need more conversations. We need more creativity. We need more community initiatives like this. I applaud the efforts to bring government, businesses, and churches together to address these problems.” — Bishop Joey Johnson of The House of the Lord church, Akron
“We have reached a point where innocent people are being killed — gunned down while taking out the garbage at work, shot for warning about oncoming traffic, caught in the crossfire of rivals.” — Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh
“I wake up every morning wondering why. I pray that something can be done, and I’m here to help in any way that I can.” — Veronica Greene, who lost her 24-year-old son, Phillip, to gun violence in 2011
“The Ceasefire program has proven to be effective in the fight on violent crime in other cities. It (is) a multi-agency, multidisciplinary approach, and we expect good results ourselves.” — Akron Police Chief James Nice
For more on these efforts
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For details on the Safe Neighbor-hoods Initiative, contact Bob Fiatal at Robert.Fiatal@OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov or 216-787-3030.
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Read “Don’t Shoot: One Man, a Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America” by David Kennedy.
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Visit the National Network for Safe Communities website at www.nnscommunities.org.