What Can the Federal Government Do To Decrease Crime and Revitalize Communities

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

National Institute of Justice

Research Forum

Executive Office for Weed and Seed

➤

What Can the Federal

Government Do To

Decrease Crime and

Revitalize Communities?

January 5–7, 1998

Panel Papers

A Message From the

Assistant Attorney General

“What can the Federal Government do to decrease crime and revitalize communi-

ties?” This is a question policymakers, practitioners, and researchers have debated

for more than 30 years. Over the past few years, the Justice Department’s Office of

Justice Programs (OJP) has brought together former administrators of OJP and its

predecessor agencies and a broad range of other criminal justice experts to examine

Federal criminal justice assistance over the past three decades and what lessons this

experience holds as we move to shape criminal justice policy for the future.

In January 1998, OJP posed this question to a group of practitioners and researchers

at a symposium sponsored by two OJP components—the Executive Office for Weed

and Seed (EOWS) and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). This session brought

together those who are thinking and writing about crime from a practice or research

perspective. It was a result of ongoing collaboration between NIJ, our research

agency, and Weed and Seed, one of the Department’s premiere community-based

initiatives. It marked the first time these two OJP components have come together to

focus on the issue of crime and its impact on communities, and I commend EOWS

Director Stephen Rickman and NIJ Director Jeremy Travis for their vision and en-

ergy in designing this symposium.

I also want to thank the symposium participants for taking the time to ponder and

discuss this critical question—and for their recommendations on how we should be

setting priorities, what role the Federal Government should play, how OJP can best

provide leadership and demonstrate new programs, what approaches are proving

successful, what factors we need to learn more about, and what questions our

research should be trying to answer.

It is so important for those of us at the Federal level to listen to those of you in the

field—to see programs in action, to talk to people on the frontlines, and to get a

better understanding of what’s working, what’s not, and what’s needed. The Attorney

General strongly believes that this kind of engagement is critical if we are going to

keep our Federal programs responsive to the communities they serve, and I have yet

to meet anyone “beyond the Beltway” who disagrees.

These are critical and complex issues we must continue to assess if criminal justice

is to be prepared to meet the challenges of the future. I hope you will find that the

products of our EOWS/NIJ symposium can help make a contribution to this ongoing

debate.

Laurie Robinson

Assistant Attorney General

A joint publication of the National Institute of Justice

and the Executive Office for Weed and Seed

October 1998

NCJ 172210

➤

What Can the Federal

Government Do To

Decrease Crime and

Revitalize Communities?

January 5–7, 1998

Panel Papers

Opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The National Institute of Justice is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the

Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency

Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime.

Jeremy Travis

NIJ Director

Stephen Rickman

EOWS Director

➤

iii

Introduction

We are pleased to present this volume of panel papers from the January 1998 Depart-

ment of Justice symposium, “What Can the Federal Government Do To Decrease

Crime and Revitalize Communities,” which was jointly sponsored by the National

Institute of Justice (NIJ) and the Executive Office for Weed and Seed (EOWS).

While NIJ and EOWS often collaborate, this partnership was a unique opportunity

for us to highlight important research, discuss problems facing the Nation’s commu-

nities, and share some of the imaginative solutions to address them that are being

implemented by cities and towns across the country. Conference participants dis-

cussed various ways to effectively address the needs of changing communities and

initiated dialogues that we hope will continue.

We were delighted to host the speakers whose papers are included here. We were

equally pleased with the active involvement of program participants who listened,

questioned, and made observations about the speakers’ presentations.

Teaming with EOWS to achieve the goal of reducing crime and revitalizing commu-

nities is a natural extension of NIJ’s research, evaluation, and development mission

and activities. It also reflects one of NIJ’s strategic challenges that focuses on under-

standing the nexus between crime and its social context. The Weed and Seed strategy

is essentially a coordination effort, making a wide range of public- and private-sector

resources more accessible to communities. With the assistance of the U.S. Attorneys,

the strategy brings together Federal, State, and local crimefighting agencies, social

services providers, representatives of the public and private sectors, prosecutors,

businessowners, and neighborhood residents—linking them in a shared goal of

“weeding” out violent crime and gang activity while “seeding” the target area with

social services and economic revitalization. The strategy combines law enforcement;

community policing; prevention, intervention, and treatment; and neighborhood

restoration. EOWS also provides a range of training and technical assistance activi-

ties to help communities plan, develop, and implement their programs. Combining

EOWS’ community focus with NIJ’s research and development expertise made this

symposium exceptionally productive.

This volume is intended to share the beneficial outcomes resulting from the sympo-

sium. It is our belief that discussions begun between participants at this conference

will lead to action at the community level. It is our hope that these actions will pro-

vide new, creative, and effective approaches to address the issues of crime prevention

and community revitalization that concern all of us.

Jeremy Travis

NIJ Director

Stephen Rickman

EOWS Director

➤

Contents

Introduction

Jeremy Travis and Stephen Rickman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

Panel One: The Context

The Context

Bailus Walker, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Economic Shifts That Will Impact Crime Control and Community Revitalization

Cicero Wilson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

The Context of Recent Changes in Crime Rates

Alfred Blumstein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Luncheon Speaker

Community Watch

Amitai Etzioni . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Panel Two: The Roles of Federal, State, and Local Governments and

Communities in Revitalizing Neighborhoods and in Addressing

Local Public Safety Problems

Revitalizing Communities and Reducing Crime

Robert L. Woodson, Sr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Cooling the Hot Spots of Homicide: A Plan for Action

Lawrence W. Sherman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Communities and Crime: Reflections on Strategies for Crime Control

Jack R. Greene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Panel Three: Promising Programs and Approaches

Crime Prevention as Crime Deterrence

David Kennedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Revitalizing Communities: Public Health Strategies for Violence Prevention

Deborah Prothrow-Stith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

➤

Lawyers Meet Community. Neighbors Go to School. Tough Meets Love: Promising Approaches

to Neighborhood Safety, Community Revitalization, and Crime Control

Roger L. Conner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Panel Four: What Do We Do Next? Research Questions and Implications for

Evaluation Design

Dynamic Strategic Assessment and Feedback: An Integrated Approach to Promoting

Community Revitalization

Terence Dunworth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Community Crime Analysis

John P. O’Connell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

What Do We Do Next? Research Questions and Implications for Evaluation Design

Jan Roehl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Appendix A: Author Biographies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Panel One:

The Context

➤

The Context

Bailus Walker, Jr.

within traditional national, State, or neighborhood

borders and have created quality-of-life problems

that have spread among nations at an accelerating

pace. Indeed, the movement of more than 2 million

people each day across national borders and the

growth of international commerce are inevitably

associated with the transfer of health risks, includ-

ing such obvious examples as infectious diseases,

contaminated foodstuffs, and terrorism, which have

multiple dimensions and a broad spectrum of

impacts—some subtle, some overt.

Transnational connections in health imply that

health threats, including violence, can no longer

be contained by national frontiers; most diseases

do not require passports to travel. Due to the ease

of rapid travel, emerging diseases in one country

represent a threat to the health and economies of

all countries. In the United States, local community

leaders are now seeing clear evidence that the

suburbs, which sprang up as an “escape” from the

stress of urban decay, are themselves feeling the

impact of “city ills.” This was clearly delineated in

a recent Wall Street Journal article headed, “More

Suburbs Find City Ills Don’t Respect City Limits.”

Demographics

At the same time, the demographic picture is

changing. Demography is the study of the size,

composition, and distribution of human populations.

Although quantitative methods are employed, de-

mography is also centrally concerned with the quality

of human populations, such as their health status. It

should be noted that demographic trends are already

causing an increase in the demand for health services

and altering the character of the demand.

The U.S. Bureau of the Census estimates that the

United States population increased by 2.4 million

people in 1997 to 268,921,733 as of January 1,

1998. The projection is based on the number of

births (3.9 million), the number of deaths (2.3 mil-

lion), and the number of people returning or

This brief discussion will review, in broad outline,

selected health parameters of the context within

which efforts to reduce crime and revitalize com-

munities must be pursued.

My principal underlying thesis is that health condi-

tions, the health status of populations, and the ser-

vices available to address them are among the key

determinants of community stability, economic

viability, and the incidence of crime. Indeed, when

the history of the 1990s is written, health status and

access to health care for large segments of the pop-

ulation in the Nation’s urban centers will appear

repeatedly in many chronicles. Along with pictures

of the homeless, the charts and tables of the rates

of acute and chronic diseases and premature death

among the poor and disadvantaged will illustrate

many texts about crime, community instability, and

family disruption. These data will also illustrate

that the lack of access to comprehensive physical

and mental health care, including health promotion

and disease prevention, has a broad range of social

and economic ramifications that lacerate the civic

fabric and drive people from shared institutions—

subways, buses, parks, schools, and neighborhoods.

Even to casual observers, a discussion of the pre-

vention and control of crime and the revitalization

of communities raises many issues that do not have

a single or unambiguous solution because both

crime and community development are affected by

economic, health, social, behavioral, political, and

scientific factors. Many of these factors are chang-

ing at an unprecedented pace, both in the United

States and abroad. “Abroad” must be emphasized

here because economic, health, and social systems

have become increasingly interconnected and

globalized.

As competition and trade have increased, people

in virtually every country have benefited, and a

remarkable degree of mutual interdependence has

emerged. These changes have also brought risks

that frequently cannot be adequately addressed

The Context

➤

immigrating to the United States (867,600) during

the previous year.

As the population grows, it will

increasingly become more diverse along many

socioeconomic dimensions. The increasing diver-

sity will create challenges and opportunities for

both the public and private sectors. In addition to

population size, the age structure will be important

in planning for community redevelopment and

crime prevention.

Changes in the Age and Racial

Makeup of the U.S. Population

Today, much attention is being focused on the

“aging” of the U.S. population. Citizens 65 and

older doubled in number between the 1950s and the

1980s. The fastest growing age group is between

55 and 65—now at 21.5 million but expected to

increase to 30 million by 2000 as baby boomers ap-

proach retirement age.

This trend raises concerns

about the economic and social aspects of care for

the elderly and the ratio of elderly dependents to

productive adults, whose caring responsibilities

will shift increasingly from children to the elderly.

Another trend on the demographic landscape is

the growth of the population share of nonwhite

citizens. The minority population numbered nearly

70 million in 1996, about one in four Americans.

By the middle of the 21st century, however, the size

of the minority population should just about equal

that of the non-Hispanic white population. In 1996,

African-Americans made up the largest segment of

the minority population—32 million people, about

12 percent of all Americans. Hispanics followed

closely with 27 million (10 percent).

Moreover, because of differential birth rates, a

disproportionate fraction of the country’s children,

adolescents, and young adults will be nonwhite.

Think of the economic and social implications of

an aged population mostly white, combined with a

youth population mostly minority.

New Health Stresses on Women

in the Workplace

Another demographic trend is the large-scale move-

ment of women from the home into the workplace,

particularly into jobs that subject them to health

risks of the kind previously prevalent among men.

In addition to traditional industrial hazards and

workplace pollution, both men and women now

suffer the putative side effects of a range of new

technologies. But our considerations must include

the less overt but long-term impact of job stress on

women’s health along with the psychological and

economic burden of single parenthood.

Women who work outside the home still do most

of the housework as well. Added to the pressures of

long hours of work inside and outside the home are

the time conflicts that emerge when one is both a

homemaker—and usually family caretaker—and a

wage earner. Sick children, school holidays, and ill

elderly relatives all contribute to stress and frustra-

tion in the context of inadequate health and social

services and employers support for working

women. Additional problems include inflexible

work schedules, the trend among employers to

“do more with fewer employees,” and the lack of

high-quality, accessible, and affordable child and

elder care.

Each of these demographic trends has serious

ramifications for social policy, economic planning,

and health care reform. For example, the aging of

Americans clearly implies a need for increased at-

tention to a broad spectrum of geriatric health and

social services. The age group between 55 and 65 is

losing health benefits at a faster rate than any other

group except children. Many in this age group

cannot qualify for health insurance because of the

preexisting health condition criterion imposed by a

number of insurance plans. Another segment of this

population no longer has health coverage because

when they were in early retirement their former

employers canceled their benefits to reduce costs.

Unfortunately, women have a greater chance than

men of being uninsured.

“Social Diseases” and the

Growth of Economic

Inequality

The growth in the nonwhite share of the population

is distressingly bound up with the persistence of,

and even increases in, certain familiar pathologies

of disenfranchisement—substance abuse, teenage

pregnancy, family disintegration—as well as more

recent challenges to the health services system,

Bailus Walker, Jr.

➤

such as that of devising, supporting, and delivering

culturally appropriate services to new immigrants

(both legal and illegal) and refugees.

Within this matrix, there is another subset of prob-

lems that might be characterized as new “social dis-

eases.” By social disease, we mean a mixed bag of

pathologies—some physical, some psychological,

some both. They range from homelessness among

veterans and others to child abuse (every 11 sec-

onds a child is reported abused or neglected), with

its long-term neuropsychological impacts from

substance dependency to obesity. Some of these are

pathologies of poverty due to changes in the distri-

bution and location of jobs and in the level of edu-

cation and training required to obtain employment.

Let me hasten to insert here that there have always

been homeless people in the United States. As eco-

nomic circumstances have fluctuated, so have the

size and composition of the homeless population.

The homelessness problem has increasingly cap-

tured public attention. Take, for example, Washing-

ton, D.C. Evidence of the problem is not hard to

find in the Nation’s capital. Twenty-five families

spent the Christmas holidays in an emergency

shelter. Many others were housed elsewhere. The

population at the shelter has been growing since it

opened last November. Similar trends have been

identified in other cities, according to a telephone

survey of community leaders conducted in late

1997 by the Joint Center for Political and Economic

Studies.

Of particular relevance to the present discussion is

the fact that many homeless individuals, particu-

larly single young men, have histories of encounters

with the criminal justice system and a glaring lack

of experience with the health care system. Most

disheartening are the cases of adolescents and

post-adolescents who grow out of foster care or

child mental health and mental retardation facilities

because they are no longer eligible for residentially

based services for their age group, yet they have

nowhere to live. They then resort to illegal means

to get food and shelter.

Unfortunately, the otherwise robust economy of

today has helped create the illusion that everyone is

prospering, but that is not the case. Indeed, there is

a rapidly widening gap between rich and poor.

Although it is tempting to add the influence of the

historic legacy of racial segregation and discrimina-

tion, that would only be assigning blame—which is

not a productive exercise—and would blur the chal-

lenges and opportunities to recognize and address

the underlying forces that have provoked economic

stress for many Americans.

In this direction, William Julius Wilson, a long-time

student of economic and social problems of urban

America, writes:

Many of today’s problems in the inner-

city neighborhoods—crime, family

dissolution, welfare—are fundamen-

tally a consequence of the disappear-

ance of work. Work is not simply a

way of making a living and supporting

your family. It also constitutes a

framework for daily behavior because

it imposes discipline.

The Troubling Issue of

Mental Health

Then there is the deeply troubling issue of mental

health, a problem so serious that it must be consid-

ered separately. It cuts across boundaries of race,

class, and neighborhood. If it differs from group to

group or community to community, it is in com-

plexity, not in fundamentals. The relevance of men-

tal health to our discussion today was underscored

three decades ago in a 1967 paper of the American

Bar Association (ABA). It is worth quoting at

length:

If one observes both persons who

crowd our criminal courts and the

population of our mental hospitals, one

is struck not by differences between

the two but by similarities. Our pre-

occupation with trying to separate the

“mentally ill” from the “criminals”

may have led us to overlook a more

central reality; both mental illness and

criminality are tributaries of some

deeper mysterious channels. Certainly,

there are differences between “crimi-

nals” and the “mentally ill,” but it

seems possible that the problems of

The Context

➤

mental illness and crime lend them-

selves to identical methods of

handling.

The ABA report goes on to state that there is a

limited supply of mental health resources and

inefficient use of those that exist.

This resource issue has been brought into much

sharper focus by a recent study that shows that un-

der the pressure of competition and managed care,

two-thirds of the Nation’s private hospitals that are

equipped to take in mentally ill patients dump them

on hard-pressed, financially weak public hospitals.

The study also reports that hospitals discharge

mental patients prematurely, either when their

health insurance runs out or when the cost of their

coverage exceeds the reimbursement rate that

their insurance companies pay hospitals. Among

adolescent psychiatric patients, it is more difficult

for those without health insurance than those with

insurance to obtain needed behavioral health serv-

ices. How many of those who cannot get care

become “students” in the juvenile justice system

is not clear.

Added to this is the shortage of mental health care

professionals. For example, in 1997, the Department

of Health and Human Services—which recognizes

areas with a paucity of mental health care serv-

ices—designated 536 mental health care profes-

sional shortage areas in the United States. This trend

could get worse if the organizational landscape of

health care delivery continues to be rearranged

(i.e., by mergers, consolidations, and alignments of

health care organizations and institutions).

Health Care to Meet the

Nation’s Changing Needs

The demographic trend pertaining to women raises

basic questions about what health services are most

critical for female heads-of-household and their

children as well as about how, when, in what set-

ting, and at what cost such services should be

provided. Each of the other demographic trends

previously cited expands or lends weight to a group

with new or greater needs or with needs that have

so far been inadequately addressed in the health and

social services system. These needs have not been

met for a number of reasons. One of the most

prominent reasons is that many members of the

group lack a regular source of health care with an

emphasis on preventive health services. They lack

these services because they do not have health

insurance or other means to pay for care. In a recent

study by the National Center for Health Statistics,

it was found that African-American persons were

four times more likely than whites to report

“no insurance/can’t afford” as their main reason

for poor health.

I will close by underscoring the fact that near the

top of any agenda for revitalizing communities and

reducing crime must be a health care system that

successfully addresses the issue of equity between

the young and aged and among social and ethnic

groups. The health care system must have the

capacity, commitment, and community orientation

to be an active part of efforts to address health care

needs of adolescents, including behavioral disor-

ders and related dysfunctions. It must also address

past inattention to women’s health issues that have

created serious gaps in knowledge about the cause,

treatment, and prevention of disease in women.

Unfortunately, the health care system that exists

today in the United States is not fully prepared to

meet these and other challenges of the 21st century,

as we are constantly reminded by the media,

advocates for the poor and medically underserved,

policymakers, and participants in forums and

workshops.

As managed care has emerged as a principal system

for health care and evidence indicates that the profit

margins of health maintenance organizations are

falling and services may be reduced, it is becoming

increasingly clear that more health care reform is

needed. These organizations are also confronted

with angry consumers demanding better services

and hospitals and physicians determined to resist

further cutbacks in fees.

Clearly, health care must be substantially reformed

to meet the changing needs of all stakeholders in a

system so essential to community revitalization and

to a reduction in the incidence of crime and related

social problems.

Bailus Walker, Jr.

➤

Notes

1. “More Suburbs Find City Ills Don’t Respect City

Limits,” Wall Street Journal, January 2, 1998, B1.

2. U.S. Bureau of the Census, “U.S. Population Nears

269 Million as 1998 Begins,” Press Release, Washing-

ton, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Bureau

of the Census, December 24, 1997.

3. Day, J.C., “Population Projections of the United

States: 1995–2050,” Current Population Survey,

Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1995.

4. U.S. Bureau of the Census, March 1994 Supplement,

Current Population Survey, Washington, DC: U.S.

Bureau of the Census, 1995.

5. See The Commonwealth Fund, “Survey Finds Missed

Opportunities to Improve Girls’ Health,” The Common-

wealth Fund Quarterly 3 (3)(Fall 1997); Mushinski, M.,

“Teenagers’ View of Violence and Social Tensions in

U.S. Public Schools,” Statistical Bulletin, Metropolitan

Life Insurance Company (July–September 1996);

Children’s Defense Fund, “Key Facts About Children,”

CDF Report, Washington, DC: Children’s Defense Fund,

1995; and Cropper, C.M., “10 Heroin Deaths in Texas

Reflect Rising Use by Young,” New York Times, Novem-

ber 18, 1997, 28.

6. Wilson, W.J., “Work,” New York Times Magazine,

August 18, 1996, 28.

7. Matthew, A.R., “Mental Health and the Criminal Law:

Is Community Health an Answer?” American Journal of

Public Health 57 (September 1997): 1571.

8. See U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,

Mental Health, United States, Rockville, MD: U.S. De-

partment of Health and Human Services, 1996; National

Advisory Mental Health Council, Health Care Reform

for Americans With Severe Mental Illness: Report of the

National Advisory Mental Health Council, Rockville,

MD: National Advisory Mental Health Council, 1993;

and Kilborn, P.T., “Mentally Ill Called Victims of Cost-

Cutting,” New York Times, December 10, 1997, A20.

9. See General Accounting Office, Medicaid Managed

Care: Challenge of Holding Plans Accountable Requires

Greater State Effort, Washington, DC: General Account-

ing Office, May 1997; United Hospital Fund, Primary

Care Capacity and Medicaid Managed Care, New York:

United Hospital Fund, 1998; and Knickman, J.R., R.G.

Hughes, H. Taylor, K. Binns, and M.P. Lyons, “Tracking

Consumers’ Reactions to the Changing Health Care Sys-

tem: Early Indicators,” Health Affairs 15 (Summer 1996):

22–32.

➤

Economic Shifts That Will Impact

Crime Control and Community

Revitalization

onset of criminal careers by youths. Few criminal

justice reforms and innovations directly address

poverty or the systems charged with addressing

poverty—housing, education, welfare, and employ-

ment and training. In the future, the criminal justice

system must be more proactive in influencing anti-

poverty, community revitalization, family, and edu-

cational programs and policies. To have a stronger

voice in the design of these programs and policies,

economic trends need to be monitored and analyzed

from a crime control and community revitalization

perspective.

Three of the general trends that will influence the

American economic landscape in the 21st century

will have a special impact on crime rates and the

success of efforts to revitalize distressed communi-

ties. These three trends are:

● Increases in populations with higher-than-

average risk of participating in crime, including

long-term unemployed adults and youths,

unemployed ex-offenders, school dropouts,

and children reared in fatherless homes.

● Increases in the number of high-poverty commu-

nities because of failing schools, unemployment,

underemployment, and community abandonment

strategies.

● The continued reliance on ineffective programs

and policies to promote family self-sufficiency

and revitalize distressed communities, including

“deconcentration of poverty” approaches and the

emphasis on income maintenance rather than on

asset-building strategies.

Cicero Wilson

As we approach the year 2000, the United States

is nearing the end of a prolonged period of prison

construction. The growth of violent crime and sen-

tencing reforms in the 1980s and 1990s have led to

record numbers of incarcerated adults and juve-

niles. Although crime rates declined in 1995 and

1996, it is not clear what the long-term crime

and incarceration trends will be during the next

20 years. If crime rates do not continue to decline,

local officials may divert government resources

away from schools, community development,

parks, and other public amenities for prison con-

struction. Two important priorities for our Nation

are to reduce the rate of crime and to minimize

the impact of crime on children, families, and

communities.

Despite improvements in the criminal justice sys-

tem, such as community policing, drug courts, and

increases in prison beds for violent offenders, the

incidence of crime remains high in the United

States. The focus of our attention in the criminal

justice system is on improvements in how we deal

with crime after it is committed. The criminal jus-

tice system must begin to monitor more carefully

economic and community trends that influence the

rate and depth of poverty. The efforts of policy-

makers and practitioners to achieve crime reduction

goals in the next 20 years will require greater atten-

tion to the reduction of poverty. Rates of crime may

be influenced more by rates of persistent poverty

than by criminal justice interventions. Poverty, not

race, sex, or age, still has the highest correlation

with crime and violence.

Poverty helps create and maintain the behaviors and

attitudes that contribute to crime, violence, and the

Economic Shifts That Will Impact Crime Control and Community Revitalization

➤

Population Trends

Trend One: For Dropouts and

Unskilled Workers, Finding Family

Wage Jobs With Benefits Will

Become More Difficult

It will be difficult for unskilled and uneducated

labor to find family wage work in the 21st century.

The globalization of the economy and technology

are producing greater productivity, greater competi-

tion, larger profits, and fewer family wage jobs.

Although foreign competition and lower overseas

wages in some countries have cost the United States

jobs, most of our job losses were because of com-

petition from high-wage, high-technology countries

such as Germany and Japan. Technology will have

a greater impact than foreign competition on job

loss and disruption of career paths. Technology will

not only eliminate some jobs in industries such as

banking and manufacturing, it will also change the

educational skills needed for the new jobs.

Another major source of labor market problems

is the corporate culture that promotes maximizing

profits by downsizing, or converting full-time jobs

with benefits into part-time jobs with no benefits.

Jeremy Rifkin, in his book The End of Work,

predicts technology and corporate culture will

determine unemployment levels in the 21st century.

If unemployment grows to levels of 20–25 percent

nationally as Rifkin and other authors predict, then

the pressure on all of our social systems will be

enormous. While such dire predictions are far from

guaranteed, these trends must be carefully moni-

tored by agencies and advocates concerned about

reducing crime and revitalizing economically and

socially distressed communities.

Trend Two: The Number of Youths

Failing School Will Continue to

Escalate Without Changes in School

Policies, Tutorial Support Systems,

and Parental Involvement

Youth crime prevention is often deemed synony-

mous with school failure prevention. Unfortunately,

school failure is a growing trend in poor urban and

rural areas. Two sources of school failure are

extremely important to criminal justice and com-

munity development advocates: unaddressed learn-

ing difficulties and school suspension and expulsion

policies.

Unaddressed learning difficulties. Students who

fall behind two grades in school are more likely to

drop out or become involved with drugs, alcohol,

or the courts. Despite the emphasis on education

standards, our schools are still struggling to help

students master basic reading, math, and communi-

cations skills. Many students who are experiencing

learning difficulties have nowhere to go for help.

Working parents, especially single working parents,

have limited time to check homework or tutor their

children. Teachers are overburdened. Most churches

do not offer latchkey or tutorial programs. The

absence of adequate rural transportation is a major

impediment to getting students to programs, if pro-

grams exist.

Without tutorial assistance for students in schools

and juvenile institutions to supplement classroom

instruction, many students will continue to fail and

either drop out or graduate functionally illiterate.

These youths lack the skills needed to succeed in

the 21st-century working world and are at high risk

of becoming involved in criminal activities to sup-

port themselves.

School expulsion and suspension policies. In

response to student disruptive behavior, violence,

weapons, and illegal substances, most schools

have adopted zero-tolerance rules to quickly expel

offending students. Schools penalize minor misbe-

havior with suspensions. However, unlike suspen-

sions of two decades ago, some schools have added

procedures to automatically fail students in courses

in which they have five unexcused absences. A stu-

dent who is suspended for 5 days fails all of his/her

classes for the entire semester. Old policies would

require students to attend afterschool detention and

do more work and suspended students to make up

all assigned work. Today, schools expel students

without adequate provision for alternative schools.

Schools also suspend students so frequently that

they fail enough classes to fall more than 1 year

behind their graduating classes. These students

usually drop out of school. These policies remove

the most troublesome students, but they also push

Cicero Wilson

➤

out students who could be helped. These policies

are at odds with everything we know about school

absence, dropouts, school failure, and delinquency.

These school policies are filling communities with

teenagers who are unsupervised most of the day.

These out-of-school youths are at high risk for sub-

stance abuse, teen pregnancy, and criminal activity.

Whatever the sources of school failure, more than

1,100 youths drop out of school every day in the

United States. Many students will graduate without

the basic skills needed to succeed in the rapidly

changing working world. Unabated, this school

failure trend intensifies the problems of unemploy-

ment and poverty, which are primary contributors

to crime rates.

Trend Three: The High Incarceration

Rates of the 1990s Will Result in a

Flood of Unemployed Releasees

From Prisons and Jails in the Next

Two Decades

The efforts of economic and community develop-

ment programs, work force development projects,

and welfare reformers erode when adult and juve-

nile parolees return to the community unemployed.

They attempt to make money through street crime,

drug sales, and extortion from women on welfare.

The current lack of sufficient reintegration pro-

grams, high recidivism rates, and the number of

persons to be released from jails and prisons during

the next 25 years should alarm everyone. Further-

more, large numbers of these releasees are return-

ing to the communities we are trying to revitalize.

The criminal activities of unrepentant parolees

make the neighborhoods inhospitable to efforts to

revitalize the family, community, and local eco-

nomy. Crimes such as carjacking, school violence,

and random shootings have fueled the move of

many families and businesses to communities per-

ceived as safe. Business tax incentives, business

retention strategies, and community development

efforts such as Empowerment Zones are severely

diminished as development tools when businesses

and residents perceive a community or city as crime

ridden. Controlling community crime and violence

is an important prerequisite to community

revitalization.

Trend Four: There is an Increase in

the Number of Fatherless Children,

Who Are More Prone to Delinquency

and Other Social Pathologies

As the incidence of father absence grows, commu-

nity disintegration and crime, especially youth

crime, will continue to grow. Between 1960 and

1990, the percentage of children living apart from

their biological fathers increased from 17 to 36 per-

cent. By the year 2000, half of the Nation’s children

may not have their fathers at home. While the he-

roic efforts of single women to raise their children

alone are laudable, the economic and social require-

ments for raising healthy and productive children

are hard to achieve by poor single parents alone.

Reengaging fathers in the economic and social life

of their children is an important but overlooked

aspect of addressing poverty, community revitaliza-

tion, and crime.

Many of our problems in crime control and com-

munity revitalization are strongly related to father

absence. For example:

● Sixty-three percent of youth suicides are from

fatherless homes.

● Ninety percent of all homeless and runaway

youths are from fatherless homes.

● Eighty-five percent of children who exhibit

behavioral disorders are from fatherless homes.

● Seventy-one percent of high school dropouts are

from fatherless homes.

● Seventy percent of youths in State institutions

are from fatherless homes.

● Seventy-five percent of adolescent patients in

substance abuse centers are from fatherless

homes.

● Eighty-five percent of rapists motivated by

displaced anger are from fatherless homes.

Without fathers as social and economic role mod-

els, many boys try to establish their manhood

through sexually predatory behavior, aggressive-

ness, or violence. These behaviors interfere with

Economic Shifts That Will Impact Crime Control and Community Revitalization

➤

schooling, the development of work experience,

and self-discipline. Many poor children who live

apart from their fathers are prone to becoming court

involved. Once these children become court in-

volved, their records of arrest and conviction often

block access to employment and training opportuni-

ties. Criminal histories often lock these young per-

sons into the underground or illegal economies.

Behaviors related to father absence that directly

contribute to the growth of welfare and the difficul-

ties in creating jobs in communities include:

● Sexually predatory behavior that results in out-

of-wedlock births. (Most teen mothers are

impregnated by older men, not teen boys.)

● Domestic violence that occurs as a result of

arguments over enforcement of child support

payments.

● Welfare pimping, which is the practice of men

collecting part of the welfare check from girl-

friends or the mothers of their out-of-wedlock

children. Some pimps collect from five or six

mothers on welfare per month.

Innovative father engagement programs have had

an impact on child rearing, family economic stabil-

ity, and gang involvement. Unless community revi-

talization and crime reduction programs begin to

address the need for father engagement programs

and services, the cycle of poverty and crime could

continue virtually unabated.

Community Revitalization

Trends

Trend Five: There is an Increase

in the Number of High-Poverty Areas

Socially and economically distressed communities

tend to promote behaviors and attitudes conducive

to crime and dependency. High levels of crime also

help to maintain and increase high-poverty commu-

nities. The 1990 census indicated that the number

of high-poverty census tracts had increased since

the 1980 census. The proportion of poor persons

living in extreme poverty census tracts in the

100 largest U.S. cities tripled between 1970 and

1990, from 12.6 percent to 36.2 percent.

Apparently, approaches to law enforcement and in-

come maintenance in extremely poor communities

had limited impact on poverty and crime during the

last two decades. Although current welfare reform

and broken windows approaches to law enforce-

ment appear to have some impact, the underlying

poverty and propensity for crime have been sup-

pressed, not reduced. If recessionary economic

conditions reappear with high levels of unemploy-

ment, the rates of poverty and crime could rise sig-

nificantly. Federal programs and policies that have

an impact on employment and education in poor

communities are very important components of an

effective crime reduction and community revitaliza-

tion strategy.

Federal criminal justice and antipoverty policies

need to consider more effective resource targeting

to reduce the number of high-poverty communities.

However, these policies and programs to combat

the concentration of poverty should not rely on

“deconcentration” or “dilution” approaches. These

dilution approaches deconcentrate poverty by mov-

ing poor families into mixed-income communities.

Generally, these programs do not help families im-

prove their family income, gain economic literacy,

or reduce or eliminate such problems as drug addic-

tion before moving the family. Dilution programs

should not be “problem export” programs. Simply

moving to a better neighborhood will not automati-

cally change destructive attitudes and behaviors.

Trend Six: Community Abandonment

Frustrated criminal justice, housing, and economic

development officials often view communities with

very high rates of crime, housing abandonment,

substance abuse, and gangs as beyond help. Invest-

ing police and economic development resources

in these communities is deemed a waste of limited

resources. This approach is called a “community

abandonment” strategy. The problems with this

approach are numerous. First, these communities

often spread their misery to neighboring communi-

ties. Second, crime and barriers to economic devel-

opment extend far beyond the particular abandoned

community. The presence of such a community

adversely affects the reputation of entire segments

of towns and cities. Third, these abandoned com-

munities also serve as safe havens for criminals

Cicero Wilson

➤

who prey on other communities. Fourth, most of

what we have learned about successful community

revitalization has been learned from the efforts of

local residents and their partners in distressed com-

munities. The transformation of the Kenilworth

Parkside Public Housing Development in

Washington, D.C., is one of many successful

transformations.

The frustration and failure associated with revital-

ization efforts in very distressed areas is the result

of weak strategies that do not engage the support

of local residents. These strategies also fail to focus

on asset building and lack strong criminal justice

responses to crime. An example of a good strategy

is the Weed and Seed program. The Weed and Seed

program has a major positive impact on economic

development and revitalization when a coalition of

community and law enforcement agencies work

together to eliminate local crack houses. This

strong law enforcement response, with media cov-

erage of local residents cheering, boosts community

development efforts. This program says to the pub-

lic that something can be done about crime and that

residents of poor neighborhoods want crime elimi-

nated. Without such efforts, community abandon-

ment is viewed as a logical response.

Trend Seven: Without Policies to

Correct Asset Deficiencies, an

Increasing Percentage of Families

Will Not Achieve Self-Sufficiency

and Efforts to Revitalize Poor

Communities Will Continue to

Have Limited Success

Until recently, our approaches to poverty and com-

munity development have been focused on deficits,

problems, and income security programs. Programs

that do not focus on teaching and asset building

consistently fail to reduce poverty and revitalize

distressed communities on a large scale. Asset

building has been the primary vehicle for lifting

individuals and families out of poverty. Assets such

as savings, homeownership, property ownership,

business ownership, and postsecondary education

and training are the resources most Americans use

to become self-sufficient and decrease the likeli-

hood of poverty for themselves and their children.

Asset-building programs increase family income

rather than supplement inadequate income and also

create local jobs and local stakeholders in commu-

nities. Poor families that rise out of poverty through

education and employment often leave poor com-

munities because of crime, poor schools for their

children, and lack of business ownership and home-

ownership opportunities. When these successful

families leave, they take their disposable income,

civic involvement, and examples of positive achie-

vements with them, leaving the familiar concentra-

tion of poor families and problems behind.

Asset-building programs also create a positive eco-

nomic future for youths. Many youths join gangs or

engage in street crime because they feel they have

no other economic options. Programs that provide

youth enterprise skills or education trust funds

influence their view of themselves and their risk-

taking behavior. Crime prevention and treatment

programs as well as community revitalization strat-

egies need to include asset building to be effective.

Poor and working poor families and individuals

can effectively build assets when provided with

specialized programs to help them. By increasing

the availability of these programs and promoting

asset building for the poor, families and communi-

ties can be strengthened. Policymakers and practi-

tioners should explore the expanded use of the

following programs and policies in reducing

poverty and crime:

Economic literacy programs. Economic literacy

programs provide basic budgeting and banking and

savings skills for low- and moderate-income indi-

viduals and families.

Microenterprise and youth enterprise programs.

Microenterprise and youth enterprise programs

provide entrepreneurial training for low-income

individuals. After assessing their talents and inter-

ests, each trainee is taught how to develop a real

business plan by program staff. The program then

makes small amounts of capital available to the

trainees to launch their businesses.

Homeownership programs for low-income fami-

lies. Homeownership programs provide counseling

on the homeownership process and assistance with

budgeting, savings, and the downpayment. These

services create community stakeholders.

Economic Shifts That Will Impact Crime Control and Community Revitalization

➤

Individual Development Accounts. Individual

Development Accounts (IDAs) are restricted sav-

ings accounts that can be used for buying a home,

starting or expanding a business, or postsecondary

education and training. Individuals or families are

required to save for their dream, and their savings

are matched by the private, nonprofit, and public

sectors. For example, a family saves $20 a month,

and those savings leverage $80 in matching contri-

butions. IDAs are included in the new welfare law.

The law also allows recipients of income main-

tenance benefits to have these accounts without

affecting their eligibility to receive benefits. Legis-

lation is pending in Congress to provide $100 mil-

lion for IDA demonstrations.

Conclusions and

Recommendations

Our real crime reduction and community revitaliza-

tion challenges involve finding ways to reduce

poverty, the number of high-poverty communities,

family disintegration, and the number of young

people entering criminal careers. Community devel-

opment and crime reduction agencies must not sit

by while employment, welfare, child support, and

school agencies institute rules and guidelines that

increase the difficulty of controlling crime and

reversing community decline. For example:

● Local employment agencies have always put

ex-offenders and youths at the bottom of priority

lists for employment and training services. The

willingness of noncustodial fathers to support

their children is not considered when selecting

participants for training programs. The impor-

tance of employment for noncustodial fathers,

especially ex-offenders, will not become a prior-

ity without Federal guidance.

● New child support and paternity establishment

rules have great potential to increase violence

against women and children. State and local

agencies need guidance in considering how to

reduce these risks.

● Schools not only institute expulsion and suspen-

sion policies that push too many children out,

they also are initially inept at addressing the

emergence of gangs in schools. Information on

best practices to prevent and control gangs and

violence in schools is available at the Federal

level, but few school administrators use it. Fed-

eral incentives to get schools to use this informa-

tion are needed.

The U.S. Department of Justice has developed

accessible databases on best practices in violence

prevention, gang control, victim assistance proce-

dures, and other important areas. In addition, the

Department of Justice has funded demonstrations

and evaluations of important innovations such as

drug courts, community policing, Weed and Seed,

and prison industries. These programs are having

an important impact at the community level.

Greater attention should be given to these databases

and to innovations by other Federal, State, and local

agencies.

Federal agencies with mandates to reduce crime

and rebuild communities need to focus more atten-

tion on asset building, reshaping school suspension

policies, and designing programs and policies to

engage fathers as positive economic and social

agents in families. Without these changes in our

approaches, poverty, employment, school failure,

and family trends will block efforts to reduce crime

and revitalize communities.

Notes

1. Rifkin, Jeremy, The End of Work: The Decline of the

Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market

Era, New York: Putnam Publishing Group, 1995.

2. Kasarda, John D., “Urban Industrial Transition and

the Underclass,” Annals of the American Academy of

Political and Social Science 501 (1990): 26–47. Also see

Wilson, William Julius, When Work Disappears, New

York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1996.

➤

The Context of Recent Changes

in Crime Rates

Alfred Blumstein

more buyers and with more transactions per buyer),

there was major recruitment of young minorities

to serve in that role. They were carrying valuable

property—drugs or the proceeds from the sale of

those drugs—and so they had to take steps to pro-

tect themselves from robbery. Because they were

dealing in an illegal market, they could not call

the police if someone tried to steal their valuables.

Their self-protection involved carrying handguns.

Because young men are tightly networked and

highly imitative, their colleagues—even those not

involved in selling drugs—armed themselves also,

at least in part as a matter of self-protection against

those who were armed. That led to an arms race in

many inner-city neighborhoods.

It is widely recognized that violence has always

been part of teenage males’ dispute-resolution

repertoire, but that has typically involved fights,

the consequences of which were usually no more

serious than a bloody nose. The lethality of the

ubiquitous guns contributed in a major way to the

doubling of the homicide rate by (and of) those 18

and under.

The emphasis on the presence of guns as a critical

instrument in this process is reflected in the fact

that gun suicide rates by young people, especially

young African-Americans, escalated at the same

time as homicide rates.

There were no comparable

trends in nongun homicides or suicides.

At the same time, the homicide rate for older ages

diminished. For those 30 and older, the reduction

was about 20–25 percent. The growth in the prison

population during that time (a doubling in the incar-

ceration rate between 1985 and 1996) has undoubt-

edly contributed to that reduction, although no one

has isolated that incapacitation effect from other

factors (e.g., a general decline in intimate partner

homicides) that may have contributed to the decline

in the homicide rate by older offenders.

The late 1980s saw a dramatic growth in U.S.

homicide rates, particularly in homicides commit-

ted by young people. Between 1985 and 1992, the

homicide arrest rate for youths and children age 18

and under more than doubled. This gave rise to con-

siderable rhetoric about the “bloodbath” that was

coming and the new generation of “superpredators”

who had to be dealt with in harsh new ways. Fortu-

nately, that growth peaked in the early 1990s and

has declined appreciably since then. Aggregate

homicide rates are now lower than they have been

for more than 25 years, but the rate of homicides by

young people is still well above the stable rates that

prevailed from 1970 through 1985.

In this paper, I would like to address some of the

contextual issues behind the growth in violence of

the late 1980s, examine the decline since 1991, and

explore some of the speculations about the factors

that contributed to that decline. I will then follow

with some suggestions for potential Federal roles

in helping to decrease crime and revitalize commu-

nities.

Growth in Violence in the

Late 1980s

In a recent paper,

I examined the time trends in

three measures—youth homicides, handgun homi-

cides by youths, and arrests of nonwhite juveniles

for drug offenses. Each of these rose dramatically

beginning in about 1985 and had more than

doubled by 1992. Similar changes were not dis-

played in adult homicides, nongun homicides, and

arrests of white juveniles for drug offenses.

My hypothesized link among these three trends is

that crack arrived in the mid-1980s, initially in the

larger cities, and spread from there to the smaller

cities. Because crack required many more sellers

to meet the increased demand (composed of many

The Context of Recent Changes in Crime Rates

➤

Shifts During the 1990s

The number of homicides by young people leveled

off in the early 1990s and did not begin a signifi-

cant decline until 1994. With the growth in the

homicide rate among young people stopped, the

continuing decline in the homicide rate by older

offenders resulted in a peak national homicide rate

in 1991 and a subsequent decline. That decline was

dominated by the changes in the largest cities—

New York in particular—which displayed very

sharp declines, beginning in 1994.

One explanation that has been offered for the

decline in crime rates is “demographic change.”

This probably harks back to the last time we saw

a significant decline in crime rates, in the early

1980s, when demographic change—the aging of

the baby-boom generation out of the high-crime

ages of the late teens and early 20s—was indeed a

major contributor to the crime rate decline.

Today,

however, demographic change is working in the

other direction—to increase crime rates. As can

be seen in exhibit 1, which shows the number of

people at each age in the United States in 1998, the

smallest age cohort in the Nation under age 40 is

now about 23. These are the people who were born

in 1975 following the baby boom, which peaked in

about 1960.

Thus, we are seeing a growing number of individu-

als entering the high-crime ages of the late teens

and early 20s, and that will continue for at least the

next 10 years. But we should also note that those

changes are not dramatic, with the cohort sizes

expected to grow by about 15 percent in 15 years,

or roughly 1 percent per year. Even when one parti-

tions this analysis by race (see exhibit 2, which

shows the white and black male populations sepa-

rately by age), we see that the young black male

population (which is multiplied by a factor of seven

to show the comparative growth, since the U.S.

white population is about seven times the black

population) follows a pattern very similar to the

white male population, but with a somewhat faster

rate of growth. Nevertheless, the growth rate of the

black male population is only about 30 percent in

15 years, or about 2 percent per year.

Exhibit 1. Age Composition of U.S. Population, 1998

Number of Persons at Each Age

(Millions)

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census

Age

5 101520253035404550556065

Alfred Blumstein

➤

1.5

2.5

5 1015202530354045505560 65

These demographic shifts represent but one factor

contributing to changes in crime rates. If crime

rates within each demographic group stay constant,

then an increase in the size of the demographic

groups with the highest rates contributes to an in-

crease in the aggregate crime rate. But other factors

are contributing to changes in demographic-specific

crime rates well in excess of even 2 percent per

year. During the late 1980s, for example, homicide

rates by young people were growing by 10–20 per-

cent per year. Declines in recent years, especially in

the largest cities, have also been of that magnitude.

An important avenue to pursue is finding an

explanation for the recent decline in homicides by

young people. Possible explanations include:

● Changes in the nature of drug markets (crack

markets in particular), induced by changes in

the nature of the demand, that has led to less

violence associated with those markets.

● Vigorous police and community efforts in at

least some cities to get guns out of the hands of

young people.

● Police and community efforts to resolve gang

conflicts and encourage disarmament.

● Improvement in the economy that not only has

provided jobs to young people but also has been

a source of improved hope for succeeding in the

legitimate economy.

● Increased incarceration of potentially violent

offenders.

● Improvement in the largest cities that may be

masking a situation that could be very different

in many smaller cities.

These explanations certainly are not mutually ex-

clusive, and different explanations could apply to

different cities. We still need more effort to sort out

these and possibly other contributors to the decline.

Even though the decline in the homicide rate by

young people is encouraging news, it is important

to note that the homicide rate by juveniles is still at

least 60–80 percent above the rate that had pre-

vailed for the 15 years from 1970 to 1985. Thus,

Exhibit 2. Age of U.S. Males by Race, 1997

Number of Males of Each Race at Each Age

(Millions)

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census

Age

White

Black x 7

The Context of Recent Changes in Crime Rates

➤

we still have a long way to go in bringing that rate

down.

Incarceration has been the Nation’s dominant strat-

egy against crime over the past 25 years. That has

led to an incarceration rate (prisoners per capita)

that is more than four times the rate that prevailed

with remarkable stability for the previous 50 years.

Incarceration with reasonable sentences is likely to

have an important incapacitation effect on older of-

fenders (ages 25 and older), whose lengthy criminal

careers may reasonably predict future offending.

Such predictions are far more difficult with younger

offenders, so it is important to address opportunities

for investment in crime-prevention efforts targeting

individuals in high-risk situations at an early age.

Even though the payoff from such investments will

take several years to be realized, it is likely to ex-

ceed the fiscal cost—let alone the social cost to the

society and the economy—of widespread use of

long-term incarceration of young people. But no

one can make that assessment definitively because

the evidence on the comparative payoffs is still

poorly known and the payoffs will vary with differ-

ent kinds of interventions with different target

groups. A major national challenge lies in finding

what approaches can be most effective with each of

the different kinds of young offenders. We still do

not have definitive solutions, but it is extremely

important to invest in the research that will enable

us to develop and identify them.

Windows on the Future

As we look to the future, there is little we can say

with certainty. One strong predictor is the demo-

graphic composition of the Nation. It has already

been indicated that demographic trends will con-

tribute to making matters worse, but only at the rate

of about 1–2 percent per year. The other matter of

concern is the greater number of people who will be

unemployed or without reliable sources of income

if the economy turns down—a likely eventuality—

but few people can say with any confidence just

when that will occur. When that happens, we might

see more people resorting to criminal activity

to offset their displacement from the legitimate

economy. One group in particular for whom that is

an important issue is the people who will be dis-

placed from welfare support when their time of

eligibility expires. So far, we have seen an impor-

tant reduction in the welfare rolls by those best able

to move into the legitimate economy, while those

without such opportunities have stayed on welfare.

Within the next few years, more of that latter group

will find themselves without welfare support, and—

especially if there is concurrently a significant

growth in unemployment—there is a serious risk

that they will pursue illegitimate means for their

sustenance.

Another important cloud on the horizon is the con-

cern about the arrival of new drug epidemics in our

major cities. We have seen an ebbing of serious

drug abuse in recent years as young people have

eschewed the crack cocaine that so often did seri-

ous damage to the lives of their parents and sib-

lings. As that awareness fades in coming cohorts of

young people, or if new drugs without the compa-

rable stigma arrive, we might well see a reignition

of some of the serious crime epidemics that charac-

terized the late 1980s. The data to be collected in

75 cities by NIJ’s Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring

(ADAM) program, involving urinalysis of booked

arrestees, should provide some early warning of the

arrival of those problems.

The Federal Role

As one builds on this background to identify an

appropriate Federal role for dealing with these

problems, one is first faced with the complexity of

the division of labor between the Federal Govern-

ment and State and local governments. It is widely

accepted that the primary operational responsibility

for local crime control is inherently State and local.

But there are important aspects of the crime prob-

lem for which the primary responsibility is Federal.

One relates to interdiction of criminal activity in

which interstate transactions are particularly impor-

tant. The most evident of these is the area in which

there is already widespread Federal involvement—

interstate trafficking in drugs. But it is also impor-

tant to focus on another crime-related product,

which is much more directly associated with

violence and one in which the Federal role is still

poorly developed. That relates to the illegal traffick-

ing in firearms, particularly the semiautomatic

handguns that have been implicated as a major

factor in the rise of juvenile violence over the past

Alfred Blumstein

➤

decade. Crime-gun tracing by the Bureau of Alco-

hol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) through its Na-

tional Gun Tracing Center has seen some important

growth over the past several years, but the capabil-

ity and the effort applied are still far less than is

needed to become effective in interdicting that

illicit traffic. Better collaboration between local

police and ATF could result in more effective

interdiction of that traffic.

The other general role of the Federal Government

relates to “public goods” that States or localities

need but whose creation is expensive and is broadly

beneficial, so the Federal Government appropriately

becomes the agent to serve the combined interests

of States and localities. These public goods include

creation and maintenance of shared operational

databases such as the National Crime Information

Center (NCIC); fostering and evaluating a wide

range of innovations and disseminating the results

of evaluations of those innovations so that the

successful ones can be replicated elsewhere; and

organizing and sponsoring research and statistical

projects and disseminating the information and new

insights they generate. This last—the research and

statistics function—is the critical one, and it is not

likely to occur without major Federal involvement.

These activities are the province of the U.S. Depart-

ment of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs—NIJ,

the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Bureau of

Justice Assistance, the Office of Juvenile Justice

and Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for

Victims of Crime.

Most people see these functions as merely a trans-

fer of Federal money to alleviate local costs. The

agencies’ participation in providing the knowledge

to enhance the overall effectiveness of the agencies

of the criminal justice system is a far more critical

Federal role because the functions could not be

performed without that participation. In view of

their importance, it is astonishing how little money

the Federal Government invests in those functions.

Notes

1. Blumstein, Alfred, “Youth Violence, Guns, and the

Illicit-Drug Industry,” Journal of Criminal Law and

Criminology 86 (1) (Fall 1995): 10–36.

2. See Blumstein, Alfred, and Daniel Cork, “Linking

Gun Availability to Youth Gun Violence,” Law and

Contemporary Problems 59 (1) (Winter 1996): 5–24.

3. See Blumstein, Alfred, Jacqueline Cohen, and Harold

Miller, “Demographically Disaggregated Projections of

Prison Populations,” Journal of Criminal Justice 8 (1)

(January–February 1980): 1–25.

➤

Community Watch

Amitai Etzioni*

urges: we all occasionally experience aggressive

feelings, inappropriate sexual desires and selfish

inclinations. The best families and schools can

do—and this is crucial for our understanding of

crime and how to deal with it—is to develop a

conscience that serves as a counterweight. Human

nature is condemned to an eternal struggle between

theses urges (which make us offend mores and

often laws) and our conscience.

Most important, how law-abiding (and good) we

are as adults is very much determined by the extent

to which the conscience we acquired as children

receives external reinforcement. This is particularly

effective when it comes from those in whom we

have an emotional investment: members of our

communities. The stronger the communal bonds

and the more they support pro-social behaviour, the

more we are able to curb our urges, and the lower

the level of crime. This is why we are all so sur-

prised at crime in a small, tight-knit community,

such as Dunblane.

The crimes I am talking about include not merely

street violence, but also child and spousal abuse,

white-collar crimes (embezzlement), corporate

crime and political corruption.

Crime occurs in all social classes, not only in inner

cities. While communities can curb even the most

serious violent crimes, they are particularly effec-

tive in minimising most other crimes, releasing

resources to fight the hard core.

Tony Blair’s anti-crime programme, as drafted be-

fore his election, was successful in deflecting Tory

accusations that Labour was soft on crime. Its focus

on moving police from behind desks to the streets,

“zero tolerance” for petty crimes, and fast-track

punishment for persistent youth offenders, leaves

plenty of room to make it more communitarian.

The government programme could now take into

The way one thinks about and deals with crime

depends on one’s assumptions about human nature.

If one assumes that people are good by nature, as

many liberals do, then one blames conditions in

society on ill conduct. Giving people jobs—well-

paying jobs and not dead-end ones—is the most

obvious treatment for anti-social behaviour. Educa-

tion, rehabilitation, and psychotherapy are close

seconds.

But if one shares the assumption of social conserva-

tives (from the religious right to Michael Howard)

that people have strong aggressive and sexual im-

pulses, then one seeks ever stronger measures of

law and order. In the US, Steve Forbes campaigned

in favour of one strike and you’re out. Yet there is

a mountain of social-science evidence to support

a third, communitarian position; infants are born

without values (there are no altruistic genes) but,

given the proper moral infrastructure, they can

acquire values.

The building blocks of such an infrastructure are

well known. Historically they have included fami-

lies, schools, and communities (which encompass

places of worship and voluntary associations).

From this viewpoint, the sharp rise in crime in

western societies is due to the weakening of all

these moral elements. The family has clearly

declined, and no new social agency has taken its

place. Whatever one thinks about child-care cen-

tres, their focus is on custodial care, perhaps learn-

ing, but hardly on moral education. Schools in

Britain still do a fair job of character-building, but

as pluralism rises they are under increasing pressure

to be value-neutral.

The sad fact is that even when families and schools

are functioning to perfection as values-transmitters,

as the moral agents of society they do not suffice.

This takes us back to the pesky question of human

nature. It is impossible to expunge all anti-social

*This article is reprinted with permission from The Guardian, London, England. It appeared in The Guardian on

Saturday, June 28, 1997.

Community Watch

➤

account that crime is best prevented from the begin-

ning rather than deterred by punishment after the

fact. And that if one simply arrests most kinds of

criminals (for instance, drug dealers), other people

soon take their place. Both issues are best addressed

when members of communities censure anti-social

behaviour.

To mobilise communities to censure crime strongly,

they must be treated as true partners with the

police. Community policing does not quite cut it.

While it is helpful to move more police on to the

beat, it is also necessary to change the demographic

composition of local police forces so they will not

differ too much from the communities they are sup-

posed to co-operate with. Community leaders must

be involved in setting police priorities. Should the

police concentrate on drug-dealers or on school

safety? Should they focus on outsiders or entrap

kerb-crawlers?

Some communities cannot be reached because they

are hostile in general and to the police in particular.

Yet in some instances, for example in Los Angeles,

even gangs have been won over to help curb vio-

lence. Many disadvantaged communities already

realise that they bear the brunt of crime. If they

could be convinced that the police would deal fairly

with them, they would be more likely to collabo-

rate. Recently we learned that the curbing of qual-

ity-of-life offences—minor crimes such as playing

cassette players loudly in public places, graffiti,

and aggressive begging—is surprisingly effective

in reducing more serious offences. Such drives

re-establish community mores and mobilise the

community to back crime-fighting.

Stigma is a useful device for addressing criminal

behaviour; unfortunately it ruffles the feathers of

liberals. They speak of returning to putting people

in stocks. But while most everyone would agree

that it would be a better world if one could prevent

crime only by positive incentives, realistically,

negative sanctions are unavoidable. Stigma is the

least costly and the most—yes, the most—humane.

A young accountant is caught for the second time

having embezzled money from a pension fund.

Send him to jail, and he is most likely to graduate

with even less respect for the law, be subject to

punitive conditions, and carry the stigma of a crimi-

nal conviction, all at a high public cost. Make him

carry a sign in his neighborhood (as a judge re-

cently did in the US) and he will be deterred from

repeating his offence—at minimal public cost.

Another way for communities to prevent crime is

for them to wall themselves in—troubling, because

communities sometimes employ these gates to keep

out those of a different class or race. One notes that

affluent communities and public institutions already

have stringent entry controls. I cannot get into

Parliament, the BBC, the High Court, and well-off

people’s residences, without identifying myself

and explaining my business. Working-class

neighbourhoods should be allowed the same

protection, given that they are the likely victims of

violent crime and that the state has not succeeded in

keeping crime at bay. Gates and other methods of

shielding target areas have proven surprisingly

effective.

Gates have another constructive effect. They can

help build community. When a neighbourhood

in Dayton, Ohio, was flooded with drug-related

crimes, gates—only to cars, not to pedestrians—

blocked the traffic from the highway and divided

the neighbourhood into six cul-de-sacs. Each of the

six areas developed its own identity and social web.

Children were heard to comment on the way to

school that they must behave themselves because

throwing stones or yelling aloud was not welcome

in these parts. The undesirable effects of gated

communities can be avoided by ensuring that

neighbourhoods treat all who seek entry in the

same manner. One still would prefer open commu-

nities, but gates seem necessary until crime, includ-

ing terrorism, is better controlled.

Some pundits insist that the real issue is the exag-

gerated fear of crime, rather than crime itself. Fear

is more pervasive in communities where crime rates

are relatively lower. (A recent survey—which relies

on self-reporting—found that in England more

people reported themselves to have been a victim of

crime last year than in the US, although crime rates

in the US are several times higher.) This fear has

barely declined even as crime has been reduced.

Many liberals draw from this the somewhat pre-

sumptuous conclusion that the members of such

communities are irrational (the term “hysterical” is

Amitai Etzioni

➤

sometimes used) and need reassurance, rather than

more protection. But communities are sensible to

worry about crime, even if after rising drastically

(by more than five times between 1960 and 1990 in

England and Wales) crime rates have now levelled

off or been curtailed.

Crime has such devastating and lasting effects that

limited changes in statistics do not much matter.

Parents who yearn for a day when their children

will be able to play outside unsupervised derive

little comfort from a fall in crime of 11 percent.

People won’t walk at night in the “wrong” parts of

a town simply because the murder rate is not as

high as it used to be.

Among the more innovative ideas is an approach

highlighted during the first Talk to Tony town meet-

ing: restorative justice. It calls for offenders to meet

their victims in the presence of other community

members. The offenders are expected to apologise

as well as perform community service that will help

compensate the victim—for instance, restoring their

vandalised property. The community determines the

nature and scope of the compensatory service.

Untested so far is an idea from the Communitarian

Network, which advocates sharing with communi-

ties savings that result from falling crime. The plan,

“it takes a village to prevent a crime”, offers com-

munities a deal: it gives the community an estimate

of the public cost caused by crimes committed on

its turf. If the community agrees to fight crime, and

if as a result crime falls in the following year, the

community is awarded half the savings. These can

be used for shared purposes, from building a play-

ground to a swimming pool, but not for projects for

the benefit of individuals. This further enhances the

communal bonds, which in turn enables the com-

munity to combat crime.

These measures are not meant to supplant the con-

servatives’ law-and-order measures or the liberals’

job-creation. Communities are partners which can

shoulder an important part of maintaining public

safety, but they can hardly combat it single-

handedly. One should note that for many crime-

fighting purposes, police are over-skilled and

expensive. It is best to draw as much as possible

on alternative sources, and sentence first offenders

to community work rather than jail.

When it comes to policing, a certainty of punish-

ment is more effective than extensive punishment,

and communities would be better off if the numbers

of cops and courts were increased, rather than the

number of jail cells. Jails should accommodate

more people, for shorter sentences, to better effect.

Providing the right jobs can significantly reduce

crime; unfortunately such jobs are difficult for gov-

ernments to produce, especially for the areas in

which violent crime is most common. Yet law-and -

order and socio-economic cures have long been the

focus of the debate over the best ways to deal with

crime. These have overshadowed the importance

of community as a reinforcer of pro-social mores.

Whatever portion of crime community-based meth-

ods can prevent, they eliminate it in ways that are

low in cost and humane.

Panel Two:

The Roles of Federal, State, and

Local Governments and

Communities in Revitalizing

Neighborhoods and in Addressing

Local Public Safety Problems

➤

To reduce crime and revitalize communities, it is

necessary to develop a strategy that can effectively

intervene in the cycle of violence before it claims

the next generation. A primary focus of our efforts,

therefore, should be to reach and guide our Nation’s

youths who now, by the age of 18, confront more

crucial moral decisions than their parents’ genera-

tion faced in an entire lifetime.

A model of effective youth intervention does exist.

There are hundreds of men and women throughout

the country who have the proven capacity to pro-

vide the guidance and example that have the power

to redirect at-risk youths to productive and positive

activities. The importance and unique power of

these dedicated community leaders can be appreci-

ated best in light of the scope of the problems expe-

rienced by today’s youths and the dismal track record

of many conventional, professionally designed

programs for at-risk youths.

A Generation in Jeopardy

Throughout the Nation, crimes committed by

juveniles, who often express a haunting sense of

indifference, have created a public perception that

a portion of the upcoming generation is already

lost—beyond help. Reports and statistical analyses

also reveal that the epidemic of spiritual malaise

and violence is not an isolated “inner-city” problem

and that it is affecting families of every income

level. Throughout the Nation, youths from suburban

neighborhoods and rural communities, like inner-

city youths, are wasting, losing, and taking their

lives. Five thousand children die each year as a

result of assaults, illness, or suicide.

It is projected

that 1 in 7 youths who are now between the ages

of 10 and 18 will run away from home. Each year,

1.5 million young people are living on the streets.

Many of these children turn to the drug trade or

prostitution as a source of money.

Trends in behavioral choices among adolescents

indicate that the crisis will grow worse if effective

intervention and support are not provided. In a

recent survey of eighth graders, one-third of the re-

spondents said they use illicit drugs and 15 percent

said they had drunk more than five alcoholic bever-

ages in a row in the preceding 2 weeks.

In 1996,

the greatest increase in birth to adolescents was to

girls younger than 15 years old. The firearms homi-

cide rate among 10- through 14-year-olds more

than doubled between 1985 and 1992, and suicide

rates for these youths increased by 120 percent

from 1980 to 1992.

Clearly, our Nation’s conventional responses to the

problems of youth violence have not been effective

in spite of the millions of dollars that have been

invested in them. Researchers project that juvenile

arrests for violent crime will more than double by

2010. A recent nationwide survey reported that gang

membership in the United States has grown to more

than 650,000 youths who are involved in 25,000

gangs. In response, a massive crackdown was

launched by the FBI, which created 133 task forces

that resulted in 92,000 arrests and 35,000 convic-

tions nationwide throughout a 4-year period.

Yet in

many cases, these arrests did no more than move a

“bubble” of crime to a new location. In the words

of one corrections officer in a State where half of a

38,000-person prison population has been identified

as gang members, “The problem does not go away.

When the community gets rid of its gang problem,

that problem is then transferred to the correctional

institution. In fact, it becomes more intensified.”

To date, most resources and efforts to rescue our

Nation’s children have been targeted to inner-city

populations. Young people in low-income neighbor-

hoods have felt the most severe impact of the moral

free-fall that is afflicting the next generation be-

cause their communities lack the economic stability

Revitalizing Communities and

Reducing Crime

Robert L. Woodson, Sr.

Revitalizing Communities and Reducing Crime

➤

that has provided a temporary buffer for middle-

and upper-income youths. Yet, although millions of

dollars have been invested in programs for inner-

city at-risk youths, many of these projects have had

little impact on the crisis.

Consider, for example, the case of a teenager in

Washington, D.C., who murdered a taxi driver. The

youth was sent to a psychiatric treatment center in a

resort town in upstate New York where he received

$100,000-a-year therapy. After several months of

therapy, he simply walked away from the facility,

returned to the District, and committed a second

murder at a convenience store just blocks away

from the first homicide. Psychiatrists who had

treated the youth argued they had made progress

because he reportedly expressed regret regarding

the second murder.

Pitfalls of Conventional Approaches

The failures of a number of professional programs

that have been launched for at-risk youths will show

us that there is a need for a fundamental change in

our approach to the problem, not that the situation is

hopeless. There are at least four reasons why many

conventional approaches have not been effective.

● Many conventional programs have been designed

on the mistaken premise that the source of the

problems faced by young people is external and

that the root causes of the current youth crisis

are economic and financial. It is assumed that

if young people are simply offered employment

and adequate educational opportunities, the crisis

will eventually be resolved.

The spread of the youth problems across all income

brackets provides evidence that the problem is not

the result of economic and social disadvantage

alone. Even when the economy of our Nation hit

bottom in the Great Depression, families and com-

munities remained strong, and young people did not

suffer the alienation and anxiety they suffer today.

The problems affecting our Nation’s youth are fun-

damentally spiritual and moral in nature. Commu-

nity leaders who have addressed the crisis as a

spiritual problem have been remarkably effective in

changing the lives of the young people they serve.

The most powerful agents of transformation are

grassroots leaders whose outreach rests on prin-

ciples of personal responsibility and reciprocity.

Most of their efforts are faith-based and are guided

by a steadfast conviction in the God-given potential

of every human being. These neighborhood-based

initiatives stand in sharp contrast to the conven-

tional social service industry that, in essence, re-

wards deviance. The clients of conventional social

services are identified only in terms of their defi-

ciencies. If you are unwed and pregnant, there is a

program for you. If you are addicted to drugs or

alcohol, there is a program.

Effective community outreach, on the other hand,

is aligned with the principles implied in the parable

of the prodigal son. In order to be rewarded, young

people are first expected to fundamentally change

their attitude, values, and behavior. In the parable, a

young man demands his share of his father’s house-

hold, only to waste it away through a life of de-

bauchery and immediate gratification. The father’s

heart may have been broken as he witnessed his son

reaching his lowest point in life, lonely and impov-

erished. Yet, he could not embrace his son unless he

first “came to himself” and underwent an internal

transformation through repentance and resolve.

Otherwise, the father’s embrace could have been

perceived as sanctioning his son’s debauchery.

In the same way, grassroots leaders first lead the

youths they work with to a point of conversion,

where they personally accept responsibility for their

wrongdoings and determine to change. Conven-

tional programs for youths apply therapy and envi-

ronmental modifications to produce a change in

behavior, but the change is often temporary. When

many “rehabilitated” youths reenter their old envi-

ronments, they adapt to them and revert to their pre-

vious behavior. In contrast, faith-based neighbor-

hood programs have the power to produce a lasting,

substantial, internal transformation. This conversion

then results in a long-lasting, consistent change in

behavior. When “transformed” youths go back to

their old environments, many are not only able to

resist their influence but often bring about a major

transformation in their communities.

● Academic degrees and professional credentials

have been considered necessary prerequisites

of “experts” who should be entrusted to solve

societal problems.

Robert L. Woodson, Sr.

➤

In the arena of social policy, firsthand experience

and personal commitment are not considered to be

an essential part of a credible resume. Many authors

who have reaped profits from books on the crisis of

today’s young people did not even talk with their

subjects before pontificating on their problems.

Professional sociologists, psychologists, and acade-

micians who have negligible personal experience of,

and have had no impact on the problems they talk

about, have dominated lecture circuits and television

shows. Meanwhile, the true experts—those who

have proven track records of success in solving the

problems—have been ignored.

In arenas including gang activity, unwed teen

parenting, and substance abuse, many of the most

effective agents of change are individuals who have

personally experienced and overcome the problems

they encourage others to overcome. Their daily

lives provide a practical example of the values and

standards they promote, and their unwavering,

long-term commitment to the young people they

serve has won the confidence, trust, and respect of

youths, even those who had been considered incor-

rigible by the social service system. In spite of their

effectiveness, in many cases regulations have pro-

hibited such grassroots volunteers from providing

services in their neighborhoods because they lack

academic degrees or professional certification.

● “Rescuing” a young person from his or her

environment may not be the solution.

The rescue mode of conventional programs ignores

the value-generating, mediating structures that exist

within the youths’ own communities (families,

neighborhood associations, etc.) and may, in fact,

undermine and usurp them. It is assumed that the

solution lies in the beneficence of those who are

outside the community.

This is true even of the much-lauded mentor pro-

grams, which frequently bypass parents and neigh-

bors. What message does a young person receive

through programs that are built on the assumption

that role models must be imported into their homes

and communities? The lives of young people can-

not be salvaged through outside intervention that

ignores the necessity of supporting and strengthen-

ing their communities. The key to establishing con-

sistent and sustainable support lies in using the

indigenous, “natural antibodies” of a community,

which have the power to ward off societal disease.

● Focusing on only one area of a complex of

interrelated problems may not work.

In contrast, personal neighborhood-based outreach

addresses the whole individual and the interrelated

factors that affect a person’s life. For example, one

of the most effective substance abuse programs I

have encountered, the San Antonio-based Victory

Fellowship, does not focus exclusively on eradicat-

ing drug and alcohol addiction but also incorporates

programs to reunite and strengthen families, meet

the needs of the children of addicts, and provide

educational and employment opportunities.

Through Victory Fellowship’s impressive Christian

version of the Boy Scouts, the Royal Rangers,

young men who have successfully overcome their

addictions function as role models for boys age 5

and older, guiding them in projects of community

service and civic responsibility.

Recently, a collaboration of grassroots initiatives in

Washington called Hands Across DC has created a

model comprehensive strategy. Five groups have

joined forces to ‘go deep’ into troubled neighbor-

hoods, supporting the survivors of homicide vic-

tims, equipping incarcerated men to fulfill their

responsibilities to their families and communities,

and providing productive activities and educational

opportunities for young people.

Indigenous, grassroots, youth intervention pro-

grams throughout the Nation have shown us that

solutions to this crisis exist. Neighborhood-based

strategies have been remarkably effective in elimi-

nating rather than simply displacing youth violence.

Accounts of their efforts show us, however, that

there is no shortcut to engendering the change in

young people’s vision and values. Such internal

transformations are the harvest of long-term consis-

tent effort, around-the-clock availability, and the

personal example of adults who have committed

themselves to a calling to salvage young lives.

Revitalizing Communities and Reducing Crime

➤

Effective, Community-Based

Youth Intervention

Two men, Leon Watkins in south central Los Ange-

les and Carl Hardrick in Hartford, Connecticut, live

hundreds of miles apart but are linked by a common

commitment to salvage the lives of young people

from the lures of gangs and street violence. Both of

these men have been active for more than 20 years

and have worked tirelessly with minimal financial

resources. Both have recognized that the most ef-

fective way to influence gang members is through

existing youth leadership structures, working with

the leaders to establish peace and to redirect activi-

ties of the group toward a positive end. This is not

an easy or safe venture. In the volatile world of

gang violence, street-savvy youths demand authen-

ticity and proven commitment before they will

enter a relationship of mutual trust. Through consis-

tent investment, perseverance, and in spite of great

personal risk, both men have been able to have a

significant impact on the incidence of gang vio-

lence in their communities.

Leon Watkins: Los Angeles, California

In 1979, Leon Watkins launched his effort to stop

the waste of young lives in senseless violence in

south central Los Angeles. He created the San

Pedro Business Association to develop alternative

activities and employment opportunities for youths.

In a door-to-door campaign to business owners in

the community, Leon enlisted support for the jobs-

creation project. In return for their participation,

Leon worked to protect store owners who were

often the targets of theft and extortion. He posted

reward notices throughout the community, asking

that any tips regarding crimes in the neighborhood

be reported to what he dubbed the “Family

Helpline.” In time, this helpline would become an

anchor of information exchange and crisis counsel-

ing for the community, but in the beginning, the

hotline was simply one man, Leon, and a telephone

booth.

Fearless, Watkins began his antiviolence efforts

by seeking out the leader of one of the city’s most

notorious gangs, a youth whose street name was

Quake. Leon recalls:

I just put the word out on the streets that I

was looking for Quake, and then one day as

I was walking through an alley, a car pulled

alongside and one guy stepped out and was

flanked by four of his friends. He said he

heard I was looking for him and asked what

I wanted to talk about. I just answered,

“about what you are doing with your life.”

We talked that day, and then many other

times when I found him on the street. A

relationship began to build, and he could

see that what I was saying made sense.

Gang life was a one-way street to prison or

a coffin. He was ready to change, and he

was willing to help me reach the kids that

were under his control.

The majority of Quake’s gang members did respond

and followed his lead in participating in the first

graffiti removal project in the neighborhood. There

were some who didn’t want to stop “gang banging,”

but most, like Quake, were ready to change. The

graffiti was a constant reminder of the lives that had

been claimed in turf wars. It was a powerful state-

ment for the gang members to paint over the graf-

fiti. Since the day of that historic cleanup project,

Leon has continued to reach and change the lives

of young people. In the following statement, he

describes an attitude that is necessary to win the

response of gang members:

Before you come into a young person’s life,

telling him to change, you must understand

the vital role that gang membership plays

in his life. You have to recognize the value

that the gang has in the eyes of these young

people, and you have to give their reality its

due respect. Many gang members would

literally rather die than renounce this life,

because it is the only place in their entire

lives where they have found respect. It is

the only culture that has embraced them.

They have been rejected by the larger soci-

ety. Here in their gangs, young people who

have been abused in their own homes have

found a place to go where they will not only

be accepted but respected and where it is

possible for them to receive a rank of ac-

complishment [different levels of leadership

Robert L. Woodson, Sr.

➤

and standing within the gang]. You cannot

just walk in and tell them to drop what they

have found. If you understand this, and

respect it, you will have some foundation

to begin to talk with these kids, and you can

establish a level of communication where

they can hear what you have to say.

Some people just come in and criticize the

gangs and tell the kids how bad it is to be in

a gang. What are they offering as an alter-

native? What are they telling those kids that

they can do if they leave their gangs? The

kids already know what society considers

to be right or wrong. What we fail to under-

stand is the far-reaching impact of despair.

How can you measure the pain a person

feels when he is hurt and shut out from

society? When there is no trustable alterna-

tive, when they have seen other lifestyles

filled with hypocrisy, all young people are

susceptible to the call of the gang. Recruit-

ment begins in elementary schools, and it

knows no racial or economic boundaries.

Even a young boy singing in a choir can be

drawn to affiliate with this culture. All the

kids know about it. It is always there, pull-

ing them, and the first time they get into a

serious crisis, they will enter that culture.

I try to get to the most practical level. I

work with an individual until he can verbal-

ize his own personal goal. I try to uncover

what his own dream for his life is. I very

seldom talk about negative things when I

talk with them about what they are doing.

I work on the premise that, deep inside,

they have a vision for what they could be,

and I work to pull out what they have inside

and to make them aware of the intelligence

and talent they possess. In most cases, I can

sense that these young people are in pain,

deep pain. That pain turns to anger, and it

erupts in situations where they lash out and

begin killing each other. And a cycle of vio-

lence begins. You have to cut through all

of this and get down to the individual. You

have to get him to the point where he can

look at himself and the overall picture. He

has to believe that he has a future and that

he is worth something.

Carl Hardrick: Hartford, Connecticut

Like Leon Watkins, Carl Hardrick began his youth

intervention efforts in the 1970s. Residents of the

Belleview Square community of Hartford were be-

ing held in a virtual state of siege by warring gangs.

The elderly locked themselves inside their homes

and were afraid to come out. Only three residents

dared to come out to a public meeting in the neigh-

borhood about the rampant violence. Carl describes

the strategy he adopted to reach the gangs. Similar

to Leon Watkins’ strategy, it involved working

through the gang structure and its leader.

One of the most notorious gangs in Hart-

ford in 1975 was the “Magnificent Twen-

ties.” Its leader represented a huge popula-

tion of nearly 1,100 youths who came from

all over the city. Senior citizens and other

residents of the Belleview Square commu-

nity couldn’t function. They locked them-

selves in the house when they came home,

and they were afraid to come out. We had

a meeting in Belleview Square and only

about two or three people showed up. They

told me that they were very concerned

about the gang and the violence that was

going down in the community.

At that point, I went out to seek the leader-

ship of the gang. The name that kept com-

ing up was Steven Holter. Steven was a

young man who was labeled as ‘learning

disabled,’ yet he controlled 1,100 young

men and was pretty much responsible for

their actions. I began to work with Steve

and talk about what he was doing.

There was another gang at that time that

wasn’t as strong as Steve’s but was pretty

big, with a membership of about 500. The

two gangs were having feuds and going at

each other. What I attempted to do with

Steve was to talk about the things that he

was doing that were negative and to begin

to work with him to turn around to do posi-

tive things. As I worked with the leader-

ship, Steve, in turn, worked with the youths

who were directly under him. The strategy

I developed to work with the gangs and my

discovery of the things that work started

back then.

Revitalizing Communities and Reducing Crime

➤

At that time, we were invited to attend a

gang workshop at the Urban League to talk

about our successes and to see what other

people were doing. That is where I first met

Bob Woodson, who was coordinating that

first gang workshop. Sister Falaka Fattah

was there from the House of Umoja, a gang

intervention effort that reached thousands

of youths in Philadelphia. We also met

“Fat Rob,” a former gang member who had

played an important role in addressing the

problem of gang violence in Philadelphia,

and we began to exchange information.

We were able to dialogue with people who

were working with young people through-

out the Nation, and at that time Philadel-

phia had the biggest gang problem. As the

youths interacted, they began to talk about

what could be done to stop the violence.

After that time, we established a good rela-

tionship with the people in Philadelphia,

and Fat Rob would come to Hartford when-

ever there was difficulty. Fat Rob was com-

mitted to making peace. He was responsible

for bringing all those brothers to the table.

So that was the beginning of my work. We

took a negative situation, in a very explo-

sive environment, and we turned it into a

positive. Steven and his followers went

from gang banging to hosting dances in

the community, providing escorts for senior

citizens, and sponsoring a youth day and

a community day. They served in every

aspect where there was a way for them to

fit in. We found out that when you give kids

positive things to do, you get positive re-

sults. It’s difficult to dismantle a gang. But

you can change the attitude and behavior of

a gang, and once you do that, they will

change themselves.

As the years went on, these kids grew up.

Some of them went to school. Some went

to college. Some of them remained out

there and went to jail. But the majority of

them got jobs and married and are doing

fine today.

In that process, we learned that Steve

Holter and Fat Rob had much in common

and that they were natural leaders. But we

couldn’t give them the tools or the expertise

that they needed to diffuse a lot of what

they saw was happening on the streets. In a

sense, they predicted what would be hap-

pening now. Back in the ’70s and ’80s they

said, “If you think that we are tough, watch

what our little brothers will be like. They

will be much harder, much crueler, and

much deadlier.”

When we sought the reason that young

people were involved in gangs, we learned

that the gangs filled a gap that was left in

the absence of solid family and community

structures. The gang fulfilled the role of an

extended family. The need for this kind of

relationship was natural, though the gangs

themselves turned to negative activities.

The gang became an essential part of the

lives of many young people and we could

not just step in and tell them to leave those

relationships behind. Instead, our task was

to work through the leadership structures

and network of influence to lead the youths

to positive behavior. Our first challenge

was to convince them to bring their differ-

ences to the table—where they could talk

them out—rather than the streets where

they fought them out.

There are times when I am criticized for

meeting with gang members by people who

would rather address the problem through

officials and community representatives.

But I know of a meeting called by those

officials that was organized with 3-months

notice yet had only 8 participants. Compare

that with 1,300 who came to a meeting with

1-day notice. Compare the responses to

those two meetings and you will see who

is controlling that community.

To turn the situation around, you had to

deal with the leadership. In some cases,

kids were being forced into gang activity.

When Steve Holter and I visited schools

Robert L. Woodson, Sr.

➤

and talked about making the right deci-

sions, kids would come up and ask, “What

do you do when someone comes up to you

and puts a gun to the side of your head and

asks, ‘Who are you down with?’ You would

say ‘I’m going with you.’” You have to

show the kids that what they are doing is

damaging to the community. You have to be

there for them and sacrifice for them until

they believe in you. And once you approach

them, you have to be in there for the long

haul and offer solutions.

In Hartford, we were able to convince a

number of gang leaders, who had street

names such as “Bird” and “Bookman,” that

there is another way. They were ready to

change. They didn’t want to continue down

a pathway to destruction. Yet, there was no

one to tell them how they could make that

change. When they did, the turnaround was

remarkable. They went from being enforc-

ers to being peacemakers. They knew that

it was better to solve their problems at the

table than on the streets. I believe that there

were more people who wanted peace than

war, but no one was talking to these young

people. When you get them to the table and

clear up the confusion and find out what

the real issues are, you will get a sense that

they all want the same things. Then you can

work together to address those issues.

First, you have to establish yourself and

show your sincerity and commitment over

time if the young people are to respond.

There is no shortcut to that. It takes time

and investment. It doesn’t happen over-

night, but once there is visible progress,

the whole community will begin to change.

Once the young people declare, “This is

what we want to do,” you can hold them to

that. In a sense, they will force themselves

into doing the right thing.

Often, when grassroots leaders approach

government agencies, they are ques-

tioned—not about their outcomes and strat-

egies but about their credentials. When a

city launches a program to do gang media-

tion, the people who are successful with the

kids on the streets seldom apply for the job.

If these programs are to be effective, they

should value effective experience as much

as certificates and diplomas, and they

should enlist the people who can reach the

youths who are making decisions.

The value of an intervention strategy is

determined by its fruits, its results. One of

the first gang leaders I worked with, Steve

Holter, is now the owner of a bonded con-

struction company and has currently been

contracted for a $4-million project. From a

position of success, he is now able to reach

back and hire former gang members and

at-risk youths. He understands where they

are coming from. He sets down the rules,

and then he trusts them and assigns them

the work. He knows that someone once

took the time and made the investment to

give him a break. I just wish that I had

more Steves, and that he had more work.

It is important, once the young people are

willing to turn themselves around, that you

have opportunities for them and that you can

keep them busy. In Hartford, the Upper Al-

bany Neighborhood Collaborative launched

a project for youth enterprises. Young people

had entrepreneurial skills and innovative

ideas, but they were selling the wrong prod-

ucts. This project came as a result of an as-

sessment we conducted on the neighborhood’s

needs and capacities. It was one example of

how, with proper support, young people can

turn their negatives into positives.

The kids responded immediately. They

wrote business plans and even talked of

franchising some services. Former gang

members came up with detailed plans for

small enterprises such as Jeanie’s laundromat,

Bird’s bakery, and Bookman’s barbershop.

But now that [entrepreneurial] project is

on hold. The most pressing need was for

capital investment. Conventional lending

institutions did not want to take the risk

involved in new businesses such as these.

Even if the project has come to a halt, the

kids are still looking forward to these enter-

prises: they still have their dreams.

Revitalizing Communities and Reducing Crime

➤

The strategies that were successful in Hart-

ford can work in other cities as well. I wish

we could take a corps of these young

people and “go deep” into other cities, stay-

ing there for a year and setting the founda-

tion for things to turn around. Kids from

other cities will respond to what the former

gang members from Hartford have to say

because they can relate to them, and they

recognize leadership. The ones who have

come through successfully have “been

there.” They did it. They know the situation

that other kids are in, and they also know

the consequences of not falling in line.

A transformation could spread in the same

way that destructive behavior spread. When

the Crips and Bloods spread out from Los

Angeles, they were organized around violent

gang enforcement. The same network and

organization can apply in a positive direction.

It’s important to reach the kids before they

go to prison or get involved in the kinds

of activities that will take them to prison.

Once you have identified the youths who

are ready to change and you start working

with them, they will respond. They really

don’t want to live a life on the line. There

is a “ripple” effect from the kids who turn

their lives around. Once Steve Holter made

that change, he was able to reach thousands

of other young people I couldn’t reach. As

each young person is helped, they will pass

on the baton. That is why you can antici-

pate expanding results. There is power

when someone says, “That is where I was.

I used to do that, but I’m not doing it any-

more, and let me tell you why.”

Acknowledging Grassroots

Victories

In spite of the remarkable success of neighborhood-

based initiatives for at-risk youths, grassroots

outreach has received little public recognition.

Typically, even the most effective programs have

received one of the following responses: they are

ignored, they are dismissed as chance occurrences

of charismatic leadership, or they are awarded to-

ken accolades rather than substantial support. It is

said that, when compared to the scale of the prob-

lem, their successes are limited.

Rather than dismissing the success of these

grassroots efforts, we should be investing all of our

energy and resources to learn how we can expand,

multiply, and “export” their effective strategies.

We should treat their victories as we would treat a

medical breakthrough. If, for example, in laboratory

experiments, just three out of hundreds of mice that

were exposed to the AIDS virus were discovered to

be immune from the disease, all resources would be

invested in an effort to understand what factors con-

tributed to their survival. Their case would inspire

hope and would be on the front pages of newspa-

pers throughout the world.

The success of grassroots leaders such as Leon

Watkins and Carl Hardrick has precedents in com-

munity-based outreach that has been going on for

more than two decades. One of these precedents is

the effective youth intervention strategy that was

employed in the city of Philadelphia during the

summer of 1973. At that time, the city was para-

lyzed with fear as small gangs of marauding black

youths arbitrarily targeted citizens on the streets

and in shopping malls. In what police termed as

“wolf pack” attacks, the victims were knocked to

the ground and stripped of rings, watches, gold

chains, wallets, and purses.

A virtual reign of terror spread as reports of the at-

tacks were published and other youths joined in the

melee. Because these robberies were not connected

to organized gangs and occurred sporadically, police

and law enforcement officials found it impossible

to predict or contain the rash of attacks. Neither

increased police patrols nor emergency funding to

traditional social service institutions had any impact

on the problem. As the city was held hostage in this

crime wave, movie theaters closed early, stores and

shopping centers shut down, and many civic events

were canceled. Public officials were at a point of

hopelessness when two grassroots leaders stepped

forward with a unique strategy. Within 1 day of the

implementation of their plan, the attacks ceased and

never again resumed.

Robert L. Woodson, Sr.

➤

Valuable guidelines for addressing the current

epidemic of youth crime and gang violence can

be gained by studying who it was who solved

Philadelphia’s crisis and the resources they enlisted

in their solution. The agents of this successful strat-

egy, David and Falaka Fattah, were well-known

veteran community activists who had discovered

that one of their own six sons was an active gang

member. At that time, Philadelphia was known as

the youth gang capital of the Nation. Newspapers

published statistics of victims of gang violence

weekly next to the death tolls of the Vietnam war.

In responding to their son’s gang activity, the

Fattahs reached out to embrace his circle of friends

rather than trying to isolate him from them, inviting

13 of the youths to come to live with them in their

small row house in West Philadelphia. This infor-

mal arrangement blossomed into a gang rescue

program called the House of Umoja.

Word of the safe haven soon spread on the streets,

and the number of young gang members seeking

asylum steadily increased. Within a few years, the

influence of the Fattahs’ outreach spread throughout

the entire city, and they were able to coordinate a

citywide peace pact that dramatically reduced the

annual number of gang-related homicides. The

Fattahs brought this established reputation and foun-

dation of trust and respect with them when they

came to the table to address the crisis of the wolf-

pack attacks. Their first step was to call in the

“experts” with invaluable street experience, former

gang members—the “Old Heads” or “OGs”—they

had worked with. This group suggested a collabora-

tive effort with their counterparts who were incarcer-

ated at the local prison, the “House of Correction.”

When the Fattahs sent out a call for help in stopping

the violence, more than 130 inmates signed up to

join a crime-prevention task force. The prisoners

identified young people who were influential on

their “corners” in their neighborhoods who were

invited to a conference at the prison the following

Saturday. The response was overwhelming. On

the day of the conference, buses ferried more than

300 youths to the prison. After hearing presentations

from the inmates on personal responsibility and

moral obligation, the group broke up into smaller

workshops and discussion groups focused on ending

the violence. The following day peace prevailed.

Although the Fattahs and their group received offi-

cial recognition from the mayor, the acknowledg-

ment of their unique ability to reach the city’s

young people was more ceremonial than substan-

tive. When funds were later allocated for crime pre-

vention or youth services, they were designated for

conventional social service programs and for in-

creased police patrols. The Fattahs were applauded

but then ignored.

Our national strategy, likewise, has failed to provide

substantial support for alternative grassroots re-

sponses to youth crime and gang activity, in spite of

its undeniable effectiveness. While plaques may be

bestowed on numerous successful neighborhood-

based antigang efforts, there has been no effort to

develop structures that can harness the capacities of

grassroots initiatives to sustain and expand their im-

pact. Instead, as in the case of the Fattahs, massive

funding has been channeled to conventional social

programs, therapeutic treatment, police interdiction,

and incarceration.

We cannot afford to continue to ignore our most

powerful agents of healing and transformation. The

Nation’s attention should be focused on the impact

that these models of excellence have had on the

youths in their communities. All our energies and

resources should be invested in understanding how

successes that have been achieved in low-income

neighborhoods could be adapted and applied

throughout society. Until now, we have been un-

willing to study the strategies of grassroots leaders

who have claimed a beachhead in the battle against

youth crime and gang activity. Men and women

who have reached and changed the lives of hun-

dreds of young people have accomplished dramatic

results, against the greatest odds, with meager

resources. If we were to invest in them just a small

portion of what we have squandered on ineffective,

top-down programs, we could salvage the future of

the next generation.

Exporting and Adapting a

Successful Youth Intervention

Model

Recently, a remarkably effective grassroots youth

intervention effort in one of Washington, D.C.’s,

most crime-ridden areas has alerted policymakers

Revitalizing Communities and Reducing Crime

➤

and law enforcement officials to the power of

neighborhood healing agents.

The Benning Terrace public housing development

appeared a hopeless case to David Gilmore, the offi-

cial in charge of Washington, D.C.’s, public housing,

when he conducted his first tour of the properties

that were entrusted to his management. His driver

refused to turn into Benning Terrace and opted to

merely slow down as they passed the site, which

was notorious for its violence: 59 homicides had

been reported in a 5-month period. Gilmore re-

counts, “I saw the devastated conditions that have

been a day-to-day reality for families for many,

many months, perhaps even years. The area was

filthy, ill-maintained, and ill-equipped. It was silent

and deserted, with one exception. The stoop of one

unit was guarded by a group of fierce-looking young

men. With their caps pulled down, huddled in big

Starter jackets, even in the sweltering summer heat,

their message was clear: ‘We dare you to approach

us.’” At that time, Gilmore believed that he had only

one option for dealing with this property. He would

tear the buildings down and disperse their residents

to other locations.

In spite of the hopelessness of the scenario in the

summer of 1997, those buildings were not razed, and,

though they remain, today the site bears little resem-

blance to the scene Gilmore encountered scarcely

more than a year ago. The graffiti that once defaced

those buildings is gone. Well-planned flower beds

and lawns have replaced litter-strewn lots. Neigh-

bors chat on their front stoops and little children are

everywhere—playing on a once-desolate football

field, riding bicycles, and practicing basketball

shots. The members of youth factions whose turf

wars had once virtually held the residents hostage

still reside in the development, but they, too, are

scarcely recognizable. In Gilmore’s words, “Today,

there is not only life and laughter in the community,

but there is light and hope beginning to shine in the

eyes of those young men. Their dreams and aspira-

tions had always been there, but now they have been

awakened. They have been given the opportunity

to step back from the conflict and to see who they

really are. Recently, two of those once-calloused

young men risked their lives and suffered injuries

to pull babies from a burning unit in their develop-

ment. They possess more heart than you can imag-

ine, and they have a desire to live.”

The agents of this transformation are members of a

grassroots organization, the Alliance of Concerned

Men, which evolved from a common commitment

that five men made to help the next generation of

young men deal with the lures of gangs, drugs, and

crime that had once nearly claimed their own lives.

The Alliance first became affiliated with the Na-

tional Center for Neighborhood Enterprise (NCNE)

as members of a project entitled Hands Across DC.

The eight participants in this project are Washing-

ton-based grassroots initiatives ranging from

safehouses and youth intervention programs to sup-

port groups for families of homicide victims. Hands

Across DC provided two types of linkage. Internally,

participants shared ideas, strategies, and encourage-

ment with one another. Externally, connections were

made with private institutions and individuals who

could provide resources for their efforts.

The Alliance was aware that NCNE’s nationwide

network of community-based programs included

a number of counterparts that had implemented

effective strategies to quell gang warfare. When

youth violence at Benning Terrace climaxed with

the abduction and murder of a 12-year-old boy, the

members of the Alliance made a commitment to

go into that community and devote themselves to

stopping the violence. They requested NCNE’s

assistance in coordinating communication with

other youth intervention programs as a first step

in developing their strategy.

NCNE arranged for a conference call between

members of the Alliance and two other grassroots

youth intervention “experts”—Carl Hardrick, who

has worked with youths in Hartford, Connecticut,

for more than 20 years, and Omar Jahwar, a

23-year-old in Dallas, Texas, who established an

antiviolence youth development program that has

instilled a sense of vision and value in hundreds of

young people, both within correctional institutions

and in the community.

The advice given by these grassroots leaders coin-

cided with the experience and natural instincts of

the Alliance: to reach the youths and win their trust,

they should identify and work through the estab-

lished leaders of each of the youth factions. The

men went into the neighborhood and went to the

homes of residents who were familiar with them

and their work. The residents told the Alliance

Robert L. Woodson, Sr.

➤

which youths were influential, and they arranged

for them to meet and talk with these leaders. After

a period of consistent outreach by the Alliance, the

youths admitted that they wanted the killing to stop

but didn’t know how to begin: unilateral disarma-

ment seemed the equivalent of suicide.

The Alliance convinced representatives from each

faction to meet to discuss the possibility of a peace

pact. The offices of NCNE were neutral territory

where the talks could be held. A series of closed-

door meetings were held in which the youths

worked out terms of a truce. The Alliance per-

formed the role of facilitator as the young men

described their vision for what the neighborhood

could be and listed the resources that they thought

would be needed to bring revitalization to their

community: Among these were a recreation center

and the means for themselves and their families to

travel beyond the neighborhood boundaries.

On January 29, 1997, a peace pact was forged, and

NCNE went into swift action to alert the press, hop-

ing that media coverage of this victory would elicit

private-sector support for the renewal of the com-

munity. The story of Benning Terrace appeared in

news media from the New York Times, Washington

Post, and Washington Times to ABC News. While

the story engendered inspiration and hope, it

evoked little concrete support—with the exception

of the response of public housing official David

Gilmore, who was moved to offer crucial opportu-

nities for job training and employment to the young

men who were at a vulnerable point in their trans-

formation. The youths eagerly embraced jobs such

as landscaping, graffiti removal, and repair work for

$6.50 an hour, dispelling the notion that they would

never give up a lucrative life of crime or drug trade

for low-paying but steady jobs.

One of the greatest skeptics of the truce, a gang

leader named Derrick who had been dubbed by po-

lice as one of the seven most dangerous individuals

in the District, became one of its most faithful con-

verts. He would rise early to inspect and water the

flower beds his crew had planted before reporting

for work. Another young man who was inspired by

the potential of a job training opportunity exhibited

remarkable determination to complete his course.

When his car broke down, he rode a bicycle to his

classes. When even the bike broke down, he picked

it up and literally carried it to the job training site.

Through the committed efforts of the Alliance, the

lives of 35 young men and their families have been

changed forever. A newspaper column recently re-

counted how one newly employed young man liter-

ally broke into tears as he signed health insurance

papers for his little daughters, realizing that, for the

first time, he could provide them with security and

reliable support.

The courageous intervention of the Alliance of

Concerned Men, supported by the National Center

for Neighborhood Enterprise, has yielded the

following results:

● Thirty-five young men have rejected a lifestyle

that destroyed their neighborhood and have

become productive, contributing members of

their community.

● A cycle of despair and violence has been

stopped and reversed as young fathers take

responsibility for their children and older youths

function as positive role models for youngsters

in the neighborhood.

● A community once considered off-limits for

business ventures or services is now “open for

business.”

● To date, the housing authority projects cost sav-

ings of nearly $2 million from this intervention,

at a site that was previously slated for demolition

due to crime that was deemed uncontrollable.

This immediate assistance from the housing

authority provided a “missing link” that previous

grassroots youth crime interventions have lacked

due to bureaucratic indifference to such efforts

in many cities.

● A model of youth intervention has been estab-

lished that can be exported and adapted in other

cities and regions throughout the Nation. The

truce between rival youth factions that was

brokered by the Alliance with NCNE support

has become a catalyst for initiation of other

youth peacemaking efforts by the Alliance in

10 crime-ridden Washington, D.C., public

housing sites to date.

Revitalizing Communities and Reducing Crime

➤

Policy Recommendations

The grassroots intervention at Benning Terrace has

received consistent support from Eric Holder, who

offered his offices as a former U.S. Attorney and as

the current Deputy Attorney General to support law

enforcement partnerships with the youth initiative. A

new effort with the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan

Police Department—Operation Fresh Start—could

serve as a model for bringing formerly delinquent

youths through a process of legal validation as a re-

ward for renouncing destructive behaviors. Through

this program, youths receive counsel and guidance

to deal with past offenses and outstanding child

support payments.

On May 8, 1997, House Judiciary Committee

Chairman Henry Hyde and Ranking Minority

Member John Conyers convened a full committee

hearing to examine the policy implications of this

grassroots youth intervention success. In addition

to the Alliance of Concerned Men, Carl Hardrick of

the Hartford Youth Peace Initiative, Leon Watkins

of the Los Angeles Family Helpline, and their coun-

terparts from other cities were invited to testify.

The Judiciary Committee leadership has committed

itself to a partnership with NCNE to fully examine

the national policy implications of this grassroots

youth crime intervention.

With the support of the U.S. Department of Hous-

ing and Urban Development (HUD), NCNE has

commenced planning for the Hartford Youth Peace

Initiative and hired a third-party evaluator to docu-

ment program results. A “best practices” manual

and tool kit will be developed for use in other high-

crime housing sites around the country.

Among the policy recommendations NCNE is

making are the following:

● A seven-city National Demonstration of

Grassroots Youth Crime Intervention Success

should be established, with the goal of creating

“Violence Free Zones” similar to the Benning

Terrace intervention in Washington, D.C. NCNE

is already planning the intervention in four of the

cities (Hartford, Dallas, Los Angeles, and the

District of Columbia). With appropriate invest-

ment, NCNE is prepared to establish a 3-year,

multisite demonstration through a public-private

partnership in support of local grassroots anti-

crime initiatives that could be fully documented

in terms of cost savings as well as its impact in

reducing the death rate among at-risk youths.

● The District of Columbia Housing Authority’s

affirmative support for the grassroots youth crime

intervention success at Benning Terrace should

be examined by policymakers as a model for

public housing agencies nationwide. NCNE is in

the process of capturing this process through a

best practices manual supported by HUD.

● Operation Fresh Start should be supported by the

U.S. Department of Justice for replication in

other communities, as a vehicle to “mainstream”

youths who are making the constructive transi-

tion from violent to productive citizens and

“ambassadors of peace” to other communities.

● The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency

Prevention’s antidrug technical assistance

voucher program operated by NCNE can serve

as a model of support to build capacity for

grassroots youth crime initiatives. The proce-

dures and lessons learned from this national

initiative could be incorporated as an eligible

activity within State juvenile justice block

grants.

● The prohibition of effective faith-based drug

treatment programs for juvenile delinquents

should be removed through reform of archaic

and counterproductive licensing and credentialing

requirements. In addition, “Charitable Choice”

provisions, which bar discrimination against

faith-based drug treatment programs, should be

expanded to include all forms of Federal anti-

drug assistance.

The biggest hurdle that remains to be overcome

is a prejudice against information and experience

offered by the untutored, the uncredentialed, the

unanointed. For the sake of this Nation, we must

overcome the elitism that is at the core of this bias.

We must have the wisdom to listen and learn from

the men and women who, with quiet tenacity, have

established track records of success and effective-

ness in addressing our Nation’s most critical prob-

lems. We must have the humility to recognize them

as our guides and to provide the support they will

need to continue and expand their efforts.

Robert L. Woodson, Sr.

➤

Notes

1. National Network of Runaways and Youth Services,

telephone conversation, March 1995.

2. Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development.

3. National Network of Runaways and Youth Services,

telephone conversation, March 1995.

4. Studies prepared for “Great Transitions: Preparing

Adolescents for a New Century,” The Carnegie Corpora-

tion of New York, 1995.

5. Ibid.

6. Greene, Marcia Slacum, “Outside Allegiances Exert

Lethal Force, Even Behind Bars,” Washington Post,

September 9, 1996, A01.

7. Ibid.

➤

Cooling the Hot Spots of Homicide:

A Plan for Action

Lawrence W. Sherman

The Rocky Mountains and

the Prairie

The geographic distribution of homicide can be

compared to the geographic distribution of elevation

in the United States. Consider an elevation map of

the country. Most of us recognize the familiar bulge

of the Eastern mountains in the Appalachian chain

and the high peaks of the Rocky Mountains in the

West. Few are surprised that the highest mountain in

the United States is Mount McKinley in Alaska at

20,320 feet and that Death Valley in California is the

lowest point at 282 feet below sea level.

What many people find surprising is that the aver-

age elevation of the United States is 2,500 feet,

even though most Americans live far below that

average. (For comparison, the average elevation

of Washington, D.C., is 150 feet above sea level.)

Forty-two States have average elevations lower than

the national average, and only Denver and a few

other cities have large populations at or above the

average elevation. It is safe to assume that 90 per-

cent or more of all Americans live below the aver-

age elevation (Wright, 1992: 47).

It is equally safe to assume that 90 percent or more

of all Americans live within census tracts or small

geographical neighborhoods where the homicide

rate is well below the national average. Even in cit-

ies like Chicago, the homicide rate in middle-class

neighborhoods such as Hyde Park is comparable to

that of Sweden and is 80 percent lower than the na-

tional average. Yet 100 yards to the south of Hyde

Park lies Woodlawn, where the homicide rate in

1996 was 12 times the national average (Crime Pre-

vention Effectiveness Program, ongoing research).

The cumulative effect of neighborhoods like

Woodlawn on the overall homicide rate is similar

to the effect of the Rocky Mountains on the mean

The most useful role the Federal Government can

play in decreasing crime is to develop and support

effective methods for reducing gun violence in na-

tional hot spots of homicide. While other goals are

important, this one is by far the most important. It

is also the most challenging. It requires that we put

recent good news into context, that we understand

the geographic concentrations of gun violence, that

we rethink the current patterns of Federal spending,

and that we focus on learning about what works in

the small number of neighborhoods that suffer most

of the gun violence.

Good News in Context

The good news is that homicide rates are dropping.

The decreases are substantial. They are long term.

And they are concentrated in the inner-city poverty

areas where homicide increased in epidemic pro-

portions in the late 1960s and late 1980s. New York

City experienced a drop from 2,262 homicides in

1992 to 767 in 1997, a two-thirds decrease. The

number of homicides in Los Angeles in 1997

dropped more than 40 percent from 1993, when

they hovered around 1,000. In 1997, Washington,

D.C., had the lowest homicide count in a decade at

slightly over 300, down from almost 400 the year

before (Roane, 1998; Suro, 1997).

The bad news is that homicide rates in urban areas

of concentrated poverty remain far higher than they

are in the rest of the United States. Our national ho-

micide rate therefore remains far higher than it is in

any other economically advanced nation. Although

the rates of white-on-white homicide in the rural

United States remain much higher than national

homicide rates in many other comparable nations

(Zimring and Hawkins, 1997: 80), the extraordinar-

ily high concentrations of homicide in certain inner-

city areas drive the national homicide rate to a

degree that few Americans appreciate.

Cooling the Hot Spots of Homicide: A Plan for Action

➤

elevation of the United States. Almost half (44 per-

cent) of all homicides in 1996 occurred in only 47 of

approximately 14,000 police jurisdictions in the

United States (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1997).

The concentration within those cities is almost as

great. A recent University of Maryland survey of

homicides by census tract in large cities found that

less than 1 percent of the U.S. population produced

more than 10 percent of the homicides (Crime Preven-

tion Effectiveness Program, ongoing research).

Most Americans live at a very low risk of homicide,

by both national and world standards. If we want

to reduce homicide in America, we would be ill

advised to spread our resources equally across

the entire Nation. If we want to lower our average

elevation, we would be ill advised to bulldoze the

prairie simply because more land mass is there.

Knocking down the mountain peaks would lower

the average elevation far more effectively.

The case for focusing on homicide is very strong.

As Zimring and Hawkins (1997) have shown, the

rates of most types of crime in the United States

are as low or lower than they are in other advanced

economies. Even the rate of all violent crimes is

lower in the United States than it is in Australia,

Canada, and New Zealand (Crime Prevention

Effectiveness Program, ongoing research). What

gives the United States its reputation as a high-

crime country are its homicides and robberies,

which comprise only a small fraction of all violent

crimes. The United States has a very high rate

among the advanced economies for these crimes

and these alone, although even these rates are lower

than in many developing nations.

Serious injuries from gun violence remain unmea-

sured in the national crime data, but such injuries

are believed to closely track homicide rates. These

injuries occur at several times the rate of homicides

and cause far more pain and suffering through

disability and lifetime impact on quality of life.

Economic costs of these injuries make gun violence

among the most expensive of all crimes (Crime Pre-

vention Effectiveness Program, ongoing research).

Crime prevention programs could easily pay for

themselves in reduced health and social welfare

expenditures of tax dollars if effective programs

focused on the peaks, or hot spots, of gun violence.

But that is far from how Federal dollars are focused

at present.

The Spending Mismatch

Almost $4 billion per year in Federal crime preven-

tion assistance is given out primarily on the basis of

population rather than homicide rates. Put bluntly,

the money goes where the votes are, not where

the crime is. If we divide the number of dollars of

Federal aid based on population by the number of

homicides, we see that four of the lowest homicide

States get almost $1 million in Federal aid per

homicide, while a city with an above-average homi-

cide rate like Mobile, Alabama, gets only $200,000

per homicide, and the highest homicide rate neigh-

borhood in Chicago gets only $6,000 per homicide

(Crime Prevention Effectiveness Program, ongoing

research).

This distribution does not reflect the concentration

of homicide in America. In 1996, there were almost

as many homicides in Mobile, Alabama (51), as

there were in New Hampshire (20), Vermont (11),

South Dakota (9), and North Dakota (14) com-

bined. Yet with only 207,000 residents in Mobile

and 3.1 million in these 4 States, a population-

based formula allocates 15 times as much Federal

funding per homicide to the low-crime areas.

Compared to West Garfield Park in Chicago, these

4 States receive approximately 150 times as much

Federal aid per homicide (Crime Prevention Effec-

tiveness Program, ongoing research).

Even within States and cities, there is no formula

requirement to put Federal money where the homi-

cides are. Even the one Federal program (Local

Law Enforcement Block Grants) that takes crime

explicitly into account in allocating funding makes

no attempt to direct funds to the highest crime

neighborhoods (Crime Prevention Effectiveness

Program, ongoing research). It is entirely legal,

although arguably a missed opportunity, to spend

Federal funds outside of the areas that need them

the most—again because those areas in need may

lack sufficient political clout.

Learning What Works

Even if Federal funds were spent in the areas of

greatest need, there is no guarantee that “throwing

money” at the homicide rates will reduce them.

“Throwing knowledge” at the problems, however,

could do more good. The role for which the Federal

Lawrence W. Sherman

➤

Government is uniquely suited is as the producer of

such knowledge, through the proven methods of

trial and error, research, and development.

Nowhere is the distinction between money and

know-how more apparent than in the Woodlawn

area of Chicago. At a rate of 91 homicides per

100,000 residents (or 21 homicides among its esti-

mated 23,000 people), Woodlawn is not the highest

homicide peak in the Chicago mountain range;

that distinction went to West Garfield Park in 1996,

at 217 homicides per 100,000 residents, almost

30 times the national average rate (Crime Preven-

tion Effectiveness Program, ongoing research).

But the Woodlawn rate is important for what it says

about our capacity to use community organizations

and government intervention to decrease crime and

revitalize communities. If there is any neighbor-

hood in America that has attempted or received

more efforts of that kind in the past three decades,

I would be surprised.

Despite the resources and the community control

that have been created in Woodlawn, the homicide

rate remains far too high. So what is to be done?

My distinguished former colleague George Kelling

has recently suggested that communities need to

do many things, but they do not need social science

evaluations to guide them in choosing effective

policies (COSSA Washington Update, 1997).

Offered by the leader of one of the most important

social science evaluations in history, the Kansas

City Preventive Patrol Experiment (Kelling et al.,

1974), Kelling’s opinion on this question is very

important, although I disagree with it.

The reasons we have failed to see a good return on

Federal investment in many hot spots of homicide

are complex and manifold. One reason is that we

have failed to approach the process systematically,

in a way that allows us to learn from our mistakes.

It is often said that a nation capable of putting

people on the moon ought to be able to solve its

homicide problem. Yet it is rarely said that we have

failed to use careful methods of controlled testing

in our attempts to deal with homicide. Had we used

the same sloppy methods on the space program, we

would still be trying to get a rocket off the ground.

Crime prevention programs need evaluations as

their primary purpose, not as an afterthought. Until

we know what works, our primary task is to answer

that question and not just throw in everything but

the kitchen sink. Once we know what works and

what doesn’t work, we can do more of the former

and less of the latter. But if we disregard the need

for evaluation, we will be fooling around with the

problem from here to eternity.

This point is most important when defining the

Federal role. It is arguable as to whether the Federal

Government should redistribute income to support

effective homicide prevention programs in high-

homicide areas. After all, that can also be done by

States and cities. But what the States and cities can-

not do is launch national tests of effective methods.

Such field tests are absolutely vital, yet they have

never been done.

As a matter of science, it is essential to study what

scientists call the “unit of analysis.” To attack the

homicide problem in the United States and learn

what works, we must focus on the relevant unit of

analysis: the hot-spot neighborhoods where most

homicides are concentrated. Most federally funded

evaluations of programs in such neighborhoods

have examined them one at a time. As a matter of

scientific method, that is a woefully inadequate

approach and may be a major waste of money.

Unless we start to use larger samples of homicide

hot spots, including multicity experiments, we will

remain uncertain about what works to reduce gun

violence.

A Plan for Action

The following steps are not easy to accomplish, but

they do offer the best prospect for the long-term

capacity of this Nation to control its number one

crime problem: the high rate of homicides. If we

fail to take these steps, we will watch homicide

rates rise and fall without any knowledge of what

causes them to change. If we do take these steps,

we can start to build on what the National Institute

of Justice and other federally funded research has

already shown about the patterns and control of

Cooling the Hot Spots of Homicide: A Plan for Action

➤

crime (Sherman et al., 1997). To summarize, the

steps include:

1. Putting the money where the homicides are.

Census tracts or other small geographical areas

with homicide rates five or more times higher than

the national average should receive at least half of

all Federal crime prevention funding.

2. Making evaluation the primary purpose of

Federal aid. This means that Federal programs

should be designed around strong evaluations,

rather than weak evaluations tacked onto programs

after they are already set in motion.

3. Using large samples of homicide hot spots,

including multicity evaluation programs. Only

this approach will make it possible to rule out the

many rival explanations for changes in homicide

rates and provide reasonable certainty about what

works.

The specific content of the programs that merit

testing is properly a matter for partnerships and

negotiations between local communities and

the Federal Government. Many programs have

already been found effective against some crimes,

including early-infancy home visits and one kind

of mentoring (Crime Prevention Effectiveness

Program, ongoing research). But few programs

have been tested using decreased gun violence as

the primary measure of program success. The Bos-

ton and Kansas City gun program evaluations have

produced the most encouraging case study results

to date, but they urgently need large-scale testing

(Crime Prevention Effectiveness Program, ongoing

research). Unless these programs are tested in a

systematic fashion, we will continue to see the

homicide rates of inner-city poverty areas rise

above the national average like the Rockies rise

above the prairie.

References

COSSA Washington Update, Consortium of Social

Science Associations, December 1997.

Crime Prevention Effectiveness Program. College Park,

MD: University of Maryland, ongoing research.

Federal Bureau of Investigation. Crime in the United

States. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice,

Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1997.

Kelling, George L., Tony Pate, Duane Deickman, and

Charles Brown. The Kansas City Preventive Patrol

Experiment. Summary Report. Washington, DC: Police

Foundation, 1974.

Roane, Kit. R. “Eight Killed in 6 Incidents Over 12

Hours.” The New York Times, January 4, 1998, A17.

Sherman, Lawrence W., Denise Gottfredson, Doris

MacKenzie, Peter Reuter, John Eck, and Shawn D.

Bushway. Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn’t,

What’s Promising. A Report to the U.S. Congress.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office

of Justice Programs, 1997.

Suro, Robert. “Drop in Murder Rate Accelerates in

Cities.” The Washington Post, December 31, 1997, A1.

Wright, John, ed. The Universal Almanac 1993. Kansas

City, MO: Andrews and McMeel, 1992.

Zimring, Franklin, and Gordon Hawkins. Crime Is Not

the Problem: Lethal Violence in America. New York:

Oxford University Press, 1997.

➤

Communities and Crime: Reflections

on Strategies for Crime Control

Jack R. Greene

Communities and Crime:

An Overview

The relationship between crime and disorder in

community settings is complicated by many factors,

including land use (e.g., residential, commercial, in-

dustrial), population and residential density, housing

stock age and infrastructure, the local economy, and

local social ethos. These factors conspire in many

ways to either stabilize or destabilize communities.

The lack of community stability has for many years

been associated with crime and delinquency.

In recent years, communities have increasingly

become the targets for criminal justice interven-

tions, particularly those of the police. National

programs aimed at “weeding and seeding” as well

as youth firearms prevention have included “the

community” in the conception and resolution of

neighborhood crime and disorder. In addition,

community- and problem-oriented policing have

sought, among many things, to recontextualize the

police—putting them in closer proximity to resi-

dential communities and local social and economic

institutions, building more effective alliances

between the police and the public (both residential

and business), and solving persistent and complex

community crime and disorder problems (see

Kelling and Coles, 1997; Hope, 1995). Cumula-

tively these efforts, it is hoped, will help stabilize

communities, thereby making them less crime

prone and more resistant to criminal invasion.

Destabilized communities are said to produce an

environment of criminality, and result in an accel-

eration in the exodus of local businesses and

homeowners. Moreover, destabilized communities

such as residential neighborhoods are seen as

places governed by fear and criminal victimization,

furthering the spiral of decline, particularly in urban

areas (Skogan, 1990).

While crime and disorder have always been seen to

have a community attachment, historically much

of the work of the police and the criminal justice

system has focused on individuals and cases, not

necessarily on social aggregates of people in defined

places. Moreover, while communities have long been

a focus of criminological inquiry, much of the expla-

nation of crime dynamics within community con-

texts has not been “actionable” by criminal justice

agencies. That is to say, while criminology has iden-

tified several important indicators of the likelihood

and persistence of crime in communities, criminal

justice interventions are the least likely to address

those indicators in any direct or systematic way. For

example, neighborhood studies beginning with Shaw

and McKay (1959) and continuing to the present

suggest that concentrated poverty, ethnic heterogene-

ity, and community or residential instability lead to

social disorganization within communities. Social

disorganization, in turn, has a linkage to delinquency,

crime, and disorder, generally through the inability

of the community to adequately define and supervise

public community behaviors (see Taylor et al., 1984;

Sampson and Groves, 1989).

Refinements in the social disorganization thesis have

caused many to investigate the linkage between

crime and disorder and the following factors: pov-

erty, inequality, community mobility, the ethnic and

racial composition of communities, family structure,

and the density and types of housing within commu-

nities (see Sampson, 1995, for an extensive review

of this literature). While some agreement exists that

these factors dramatically shape and account for

community crime patterns as well as the differences

in crime rates across communities, the justice system

continues to have little opportunity to directly affect

these community crime factors. Several other gov-

ernment agencies, however, particularly those associ-

ated with education, housing, job training, family

support, and health care, do impact on the factors

Communities and Crime: Reflections on Strategies for Crime Control

➤

that shape both the level of community crime and

disorder and, perhaps more importantly, the ability of

the community to fend off criminal behaviors. Link-

ing the capacities of various government and local

agencies in the strengthening of local communities

should become a central theme in community crime

prevention efforts.

Community social disorganization essentially refers

to the inability of any particular community to

effectively maintain social control or to establish

shared values (Sampson and Groves, 1989; Bursik,

1988; Bursik and Grasmick, 1993). Social disorga-

nization theory assumes that communities, when

functioning as social aggregates with shared values

and regularized patterns of interaction, exercise

considerable social control through networks of

local, informal relationships. These local networks

and affiliations provide clout for the community to

sanction inappropriate behavior, while at the same

time socializing those within the community to

accepted community norms. Although communities

have historically been defined in terms of their

geography, many define them in terms of their

ability to build and sustain networks.

The social disorganization perspective also argues

that neighborhood decay not only reduces the hori-

zontal bonds between neighbors within communi-

ties but also reduces the vertical linkages between

communities and larger political, social, and eco-

nomic institutions. These linkages are essential if

communities are to defend themselves; that is,

muster the political, economic, and social resources

to stem criminal activity.

The Use of “Community” as

an Organizing Framework

To some extent the criminal justice system has been

in a quandary over the importance of communities

in the control of crime. This quandary stems in part

from oftentimes conflicting research findings about

the effect of justice system interventions on crime

and disorder, as well as from the shifting focus of

crime prevention efforts—from offenders to victims

to communities.

Historically, the justice system has linked crime

with individuals—either those who commit crime

or those who are the victims of crime. Many police

tactics have sought to address types of offenders or

victims. So too have prosecutorial and court inter-

ventions sought to isolate repeat offenders from the

community. But until recently, the community has

had a passive role in crime prevention and order

maintenance work. Although we often do not see it

directly as such, effective crime prevention is about

building and sustaining relationships in community

settings. The presence or absence of relationships

within neighborhoods and communities has been

suggested as greatly affecting disorder and crime.

Strengthening the community’s involvement in and

capacity to sustain local crime prevention efforts

should become a central goal of any community

crime prevention initiative.

As previously indicated, much of the study of crime

has concentrated on offenders and victims; that is,

the people who are either involved in or affected

by crime (Clarke, 1980). In recent years, there has

been a shift in focus from people to places in the

explanation and prevention of crime—at least

certain types of crime. This shift is built on a recog-

nition that crime is not equally distributed within

cities and that criminals make decisions about

where their crimes will take place.

The idea of “social structure” is fundamental to

the study of people in places. Social structure es-

sentially refers to the regularized pattern of social

interaction occurring among people in any given

place and the values and/or beliefs that people at-

tach to these interactions. Social structure accounts

for both the interactional nature of human relations

and the social psychology of these interactions—

or their meaning to the people engaged in such

interactions.

The idea of “place” has a significant role in under-

standing human behavior. People are inextricably

linked to places. They have identities with their

homes and families, their neighborhoods, and their

communities. In a word, they have an environment

within which they take cues and direct their behav-

ior. At the same time, people direct their behavior

toward the environment, ultimately reshaping it

through continual person-environment-person inter-

action. How we use space, how we identify spatial

issues, and how we build primary and secondary

social networks, in part on the basis of place, are

important to understanding the design of criminal

Jack R. Greene

➤

justice and other community support interventions.

Such understanding helps to identify who belongs,

who has ownership of the neighborhood, and who

is likely to support police and other social controls.

Focusing the Federal Role in

Community Crime Prevention

The Federal Government plays a potentially signifi-

cant role in shaping State and local crime preven-

tion policies, first and foremost by setting the tone

of the discussion about community crime preven-

tion and then by setting evaluation standards and

a funding agenda for State and local programs to

participate in such efforts. These three activities—

shaping a clearer agenda, setting standards for

program assessment, and providing funding—are

consistent with the historic role the Federal Govern-

ment has played in addressing domestic issues,

although this role has been significantly diminished

by the agency-centered approach to policymaking

and funding that has long dominated the Federal

process.

Shaping the agenda in community crime prevention

is a critical role for the Federal Government, as it

sets the general tone of the process by identifying

goals, objectives, and outcomes as well as a range

of potential interventions. At times the tone set by

the Federal Government in the crime prevention

discussion has been less clear in the messages sent.

This circumstance is created largely by differences

in the ideological approach adopted by many in

the justice debate, coupled with a Federal agency

focus that has been client and not problem oriented.

While it will likely be more difficult to address con-

flicts in the ideological premises undergirding the

justice debate, the agency focus issue is much more

actionable.

Historically, there has been a significant tension in

the way the justice debate has occurred. Two major

positions appear to have been drawn from this

discussion. First, there are those who see the debate

centered around issues of the root causes of crime,

such as the macrolevel social structure, distribution

of wealth, employment opportunities, and decay in

the American family and social values. The second

position suggests that we should first control the

streets before we worry about the root causes of

crime (Wilson, 1995). In some respects, the former

argument is about long-term change (or its potential),

while the latter approach is more pragmatic and

focused on current problems. In recent years, the

more pragmatic of these approaches has captured

public attention. While many of these approaches

have included some attachment to larger social, eco-

nomic, and structural forces shaping crime in local

communities, by and large these programs have been

enforcement and not prevention focused.

In the current climate, the Federal Government can

play a significant role in furthering crime preven-

tion in communities by placing crime prevention

within a wider arena and more directly linking

government agencies that impact on community

quality-of-life issues. Those at the Federal level can

also broaden the approach to enforcement and pros-

ecution to include a greater focus on prevention.

Such an approach will require that we focus not on

offenders, victims, and crimes exclusively but also

on children, families, and communities, providing

interventions that strengthen individual and collec-

tive capacity to resist criminal behavior. One step

along this path would be creating a policy forum

within the Federal agency system that better links

justice, housing, education, and health and human

services capacities within the Federal Government

to address issues of strengthening families and

communities.

While Federal agencies currently have overlapping

responsibility for community crime prevention

either through improved education, housing, child

care, or social welfare policies (as well as through

the actions of the criminal justice system), much of

the crime debate is agency or topic centered, rely-

ing far too much on the justice system as the source

of intervention. That is to say, policies developed in

education, public housing, urban development, or

health and human services, to name a few, have

a great potential to have an impact on community

safety, although they are not necessarily designed

or articulated with such goals in mind. For

example, Federal agency policies affecting the

availability of day care, preschools, and health care

for children and their families are important influ-

ences on a family’s ability to participate in commu-

nity life because they build local support networks

and help to develop a community ethic governing

prosocial behavior. Similarly, policies shaping the

Communities and Crime: Reflections on Strategies for Crime Control

➤

concentration of poverty in neighborhoods and the

rebuilding of urban communities also significantly

affect the ability of those neighborhoods to provide

social control and link with others in local areas to

stem criminal behavior. Educational policies that

seek to create safer schools are significant in link-

ing this process to safe neighborhoods, communi-

ties, and families. Despite these linkages, at present

the forum for such a discussion and policy coordi-

nation is at best fragmentary. Since crime is a prob-

lem that destabilizes families, communities, and

larger cities, creating a forum for the coordination

of Federal programs and objectives seems an

important shift from client- to problem-specific

community-based programming.

Until such a policy forum is created, specific

Federal agencies can craft policies for multiple pur-

poses. For example, policies that promote neigh-

borhood stabilization through housing and public

assistance and efforts aimed at deconcentrating

poverty and dependence strengthen neighborhoods

and ultimately impact on criminal behavior. For

this reason, policies supporting communities, fami-

lies, and children need to integrate crime preven-

tion as one of their intended outcomes rather than

as a latent effect. Integration of crime prevention

into a wide range of Federal programs affecting

community quality of life will require that some

agreed-upon goals be established so that agencies

can design policies to achieve those goals while at

the same time monitoring their attainment.

Designing an assessment framework and providing

funding opportunities follow the creation of an

expanded definition of Federal agency involvement

in crime prevention. Currently, there is a wide array

of funding possibilities for the myriad of problems

that confront communities. Each has differing

objectives and outcomes, and in some cases they

actually compete for the same clients—defined as

individuals, families, and communities. Outcomes

sought for these programs should include concern

for how they strengthen local communities and

build social capital (Coleman, 1990). In this regard,

with discrete programs in education, health and hu-

man services, housing and urban development, and

the like, assessing community and family cohesion

and stability and then measuring change in those

conditions resulting from these programs are neces-

sary steps in building better links among these

agencies. All too often, local client-specific agen-

cies are unaware of programs offered by Federal

agencies that may have an impact on their needs

or even of those other local programs designed to

work in the same community. At present, there is

a patchwork of Federal, State, and local efforts—

often in the same community and with little cross

specification, evaluation, and communication.

Finally, Federal agencies addressing community

crime issues need to be more directly linked with

those of State and local governments, particularly

as projects unfold in local communities. Over the

past several years, oversight boards or manage-

ment processes emphasizing Federal, State, and

local involvement in program design, implementa-

tion, and monitoring have become more evident.

Their coordination is often quite complicated.

Nevertheless, requiring such interactions as part

of program delivery, monitoring, and reporting

can go a long way toward reducing some of the

operational barriers that occur between Federal,

State, and local agencies addressing aspects of

community crime prevention.

Enhancing the State Role in Coordi-

nating Community Crime Prevention

State governments also play a potentially signifi-

cant role in community crime prevention, primarily

in the ways State resources are brought to bear on

local crime problems: through the coordination

of State services with local government services

and through the integration of differing levels of

jurisdiction, often complicating the integration

of justice services. For example, typically, police

and prosecutorial services are provided locally

(in municipalities and, to some extent, counties),

probation and juvenile services are provided by the

county together with local jails, and correctional

services are generally supervised by State govern-

ments. The judiciary typically spans all levels of

government, further complicating the administra-

tion of justice in communities.

A primary role for State governments, then, might be

to focus on integrating services in areas targeted for

crime intervention while at the same time linking

State and county correctional and probation policies

and enforcement practices with local police and

community-based intervention efforts. Moreover,

Jack R. Greene

➤

State governments must hold State agencies account-

able for their impact on localities, not just on aggre-

gated statistics for the State. At the same time, State

governments should actively encourage and support

local initiatives for rebuilding communities and

supporting families and children.

Broadening the Role of Local

Governments to Rebuild

Community Order and Safety

Local governments are charged with creating a safe

and secure environment within which community

residents and local businesses work, reside, and

recreate. Such a responsibility requires that local

governments refocus the efforts of their police to

identify and address community hot spots of crime.

A better understanding of the spatial and territorial

nature of crime has led to better police interven-

tions. Over the past several years, important crimi-

nological literature has emerged that postulates that

the routine activities in any location and the rational

choices made by reasoning criminals greatly affect

the level of crime in that place. According to the

routine activities and rational choice perspectives,

crime and victimization occur through a natural

process in which individuals’ work and leisure pat-

terns create crime opportunities that are acted upon

by discerning criminals. That is to say, the pattern

and type of human activity (e.g., houses abandoned

while people are at work, women walking alone,

drunks, strangers) produce potential victims or

targets (unlocked cars, convenience stores, auto-

mated teller machines), which reasoning criminals

observe, assess, and make decisions about. These

decisions are influenced by the routine activity as

well as the physical environment in which the activ-

ity takes place (Clarke, 1980; Clarke, 1995; Clarke

and Felson, 1993; Felson, 1986; 1987).

Using these perspectives, the natural pattern of us-

age of an area can be studied and choices made as

to when places are under less surveillance and con-

trol and therefore are more susceptible to criminal

attack. These patterns and offender decisionmaking

have been well documented for burglary, drug of-

fending, retail theft, and auto theft, among several

crime types. If criminals can make such assess-

ments and act on them, so too can the police,

communities, and others attempting to increase

local safety. Increasing guardianship for communi-

ties is consistent with situational crime prevention

theories and practices. These and other studies

about community crime prevention activities stress

the importance of understanding locations and ad-

justing police and other responses to address prob-

lems that may be concentrated in those locations.

Hot spot analysis suggests that 3 percent of the

places in Minneapolis accounted for 50 percent of

the calls for police service, that no police cars were

dispatched to 40 percent of Minneapolis addresses

or intersections, and that the remaining intersec-

tions and addresses each logged about one call for

service per year (Sherman et al., 1989). In Jersey

City, a recent project to police drug hot spots

reported that 56 hot spots accounted for only

4.4 percent of the street sections and intersections

but 86 percent of narcotics sales and arrests and

84 percent of emergency calls before the project

was started (Weisburd and Green, 1995).

In addition to identifying and addressing local

crime hot spots, local governments need to focus

the efforts of all city agencies on solving commu-

nity problems and integrating local services. This

will require building local crime prevention coali-

tions that can address local problems.

Under the general rubric of “community crime pre-

vention” (Hope, 1995), a wide range of programs

aimed at strengthening social and institutional rela-

tionships within communities have emerged, often

directed by the police. Essentially, community

crime prevention efforts have focused on rebuilding

communities, particularly urban communities, that

have been greatly affected by changing social, eco-

nomic, and political conditions. They have included

programs aimed at organizing communities, im-

proving citizen-police interactions, protecting the

vulnerable, and changing the physical environment.

They have included storefront police stations,

Weed and Seed programs, police athletic leagues,

and other youth intervention programs such as

D.A.R.E.

and G.R.E.A.T., as well as community

mobilizations for drug marches and neighborhood

cleanups. More often than not, research assessing

these programs has concluded that they have failed

to produce their intended results (Rosenbaum,

1986), often because they were poorly implemented

Communities and Crime: Reflections on Strategies for Crime Control

➤

or did not involve significant agencies within cities

that might have improved their impact.

Such findings about the effects of community crime

prevention programs have shifted attention from the

broad realm of communities to smaller areas evi-

dencing high crime, particularly among youths (see

Hope, 1995, for a discussion). By focusing on more

discrete areas—those with high crime rates among

youths—program specialists and researchers hope to

simultaneously address high crime offenders while

supporting the victims and other community resi-

dents within these areas. Such coordinated, place-

bound strategies are continuing to emerge as part of

community crime prevention efforts. Recent work

completed in Boston showed a dramatic decrease in

firearms usage among crime-prone youths, primarily

due to coordinated local interventions as well as

refinements in the definition of youths and handgun

problems in that city (Kennedy et al., 1996).

Finally, local governments need to continue to

focus on infrastructure development in three impor-

tant areas—physical, social, and political. There is

a significant amount of literature in criminology

that suggests that the level of physical and social

incivility in any particular community is related to

increased fear of crime (Wilson and Kelling, 1982;

Skogan, 1990; Kelling and Coles, 1997). This

line of reasoning suggests that communities can

affect crime and disorder by reclaiming public

spaces, reducing the signs of crime (graffiti, trash,

drug paraphernalia), tightening up on the licensure

of bars and liquor stores that habitually sell to

minors or operate illegally, picketing or marching

against drug or prostitution locations, cleaning and

sealing abandoned housing, and tagging and towing

abandoned autos, among a wide array of commu-

nity-based and often community-initiated activities.

Strengthening and supporting local initiatives of

neighborhoods to reclaim their communities should

be part of any local government crime prevention

agenda. Increasing the capacity of the community

for local surveillance and prompt response to anti-

social behaviors must also be part of this agenda.

Addressing the physical and social incivilities evi-

denced in any community is perhaps an easier task

than building community political support or em-

powering local community organizations to provide

leadership for their community. Often, communities

most in need of intervention are least capable of

defining and supervising community standards.

Nonetheless, as Etzioni (1993) suggests, “commu-

nities themselves need some major fixing if they

are to provide the social foundation for a life that is

more cognizant of the values we all share.” This is

perhaps a major political dilemma requiring that we

redefine individual, community, and governmental

rights, responsibilities, and actions. It will require

that we reshape authority and accountability in

communities while at the same time reshaping how

core governmental services are provided. Some

of this work is currently under way. Police, public

health, and education systems have all built stron-

ger community alliances over the past several years.

This reinvention of government and reengineering

of services suggests that empowerment is a compli-

cated process. Nonetheless, rebuilding local com-

munity leadership is an important element of any

community crime prevention effort.

Bibliography

Bursik, R.J., Jr. “Social Disorganization and Theories of

Crime and Delinquency: Problems and Prospects.”

Criminology 26 (1988): 519–552.

Bursik, R.J., Jr., and H. Grasmick. Neighborhoods and

Crime: The Dimensions of Effective Community Control.

New York: Lexington, 1993.

Clarke, R.V. “Situational Crime Prevention: Theory and

Practice.” British Journal of Criminology 20 (1980):

136–147.

Clarke, R.V. “Situational Crime Prevention.” In Building

a Safer Society: Strategic Approaches to Crime Preven-

tion, ed. M. Tonry and D.P. Farrington. Chicago: Univer-

sity of Chicago Press, 1995: 91–150.

Clarke, R.V., and M. Felson. “Introduction: Criminol-

ogy, Routine Activity and Rational Choice.” In Routine

Activity and Rational Choice: Advances in Criminologi-

cal Theory, vol. 5, ed. R.V. Clarke and M. Felson. New

Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1993.

Coleman, J. Foundations of Social Theory. Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.

Etzioni, A. The Spirit of Community. New York: Crown

Publishers, 1993: 20.

Felson, M. “Linking Criminal Choices, Routine Activi-

ties, Informal Control and Criminal Outcomes.” In The

Jack R. Greene

➤

Reasoning Criminal: Rational Choice Perspectives on

Offending, ed. D.B. Cornish and R.V. Clarke. New York:

Springer-Verlag, 1986.

Felson, M. “Routine Activities and Crime Prevention in

the Developing Metropolis.” Criminology 25 (1987):

911–931.

Goldstein, H. Problem-Oriented Policing. New York:

McGraw-Hill, 1990.

Hope, T. “Community Crime Prevention.” In Building a

Safer Society: Strategic Approaches to Crime Preven-

tion, ed. M. Tonry and D.P. Farrington. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1995: 21–90.

Kelling, G., and C. Coles. Fixing Broken Windows.

New York: Free Press, 1997.

Kennedy, David, Anne Piehl, and Anthony Braza.

“Youth Violence in Boston: Gun Markets, Serious Youth

Offenders, and a Use-Reduction Strategy.” Law and

Contemporary Problems 59 (1) (1996): 147–196.

Rosenbaum, D.P., ed. Community Crime Prevention:

Does it Work? Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications,

Inc., 1986.

Sampson, R.J. “The Community.” In Crime, ed. J.Q.

Wilson and J. Petersilia. San Francisco: ICS Press,

1995: 193–216.

Sampson, R.J., and W.B. Groves. “Community Structure

and Crime: Testing Social-Disorganization Theory.”

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Shaw, C.R., and H.D. McKay. Juvenile Delinquency and

Urban Areas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1959.

Sherman, L.W., P.R. Gartin, and M.E. Buerger. “Hot

Spots of Predatory Crime: Routine Activities and the

Criminology of Place.” Criminology 27 (1989): 27–55.

Skogan, W.G. Disorder and Decline: Crime and the

Spiral of Decay in American Neighborhoods. New York:

Free Press, 1990.

Taylor, R.B., S. Gottfredson, and S. Brower. “Block

Crime and Fear: Defensible Space, Local Social Ties,

and Territorial Functioning.” Journal of Research in

Crime and Delinquency 21 (1984): 303–331.

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1995.

Wilson, J.Q., and G. Kelling. “Broken Windows.”

Atlantic Monthly (March 1982): 29–38.

Panel Three:

Promising Programs and

Approaches

➤

Crime Prevention as Crime

Deterrence

David Kennedy

I have been directing something called the Boston

Gun Project for the last 3 years under NIJ support,

and the able stewardship of NIJ’s Lois Mock. This

is a project, a type of open-ended problem-solving

project, directed at serious youth violence in Bos-

ton. Many of you may have heard this project de-

scribed as a juvenile violence project. It wasn’t. It

was aimed initially not at legal juveniles but at vio-

lence among young people. We started at the age of

21 and moved that up, for reasons I will explain, to

about age 24 during the project. A lot of you will

recognize this as sort of the typical crack-and-gun

curve of the last 15 years. Crack showed up in

Boston in a major way in 1988. The city had its

homicide peak in 1990. Homicide rates in Boston

do not mirror rates in Chicago or Los Angeles, but

our homicide rate jumped by nearly 50 percent in

1990, totaling 150. The rate fluctuated for a year or

two, and from 1992 to the present, remained stable

at this historically elevated level. In the middle of

1996 and into 1997, rates changed and the death

toll in this 24-and-under age group dropped by

two- thirds from the figures between 1988 and

1995. These are not controlled experiments that

I am going to be talking about; there is room for

interpretation. But I think most people looking at

this curve would say that something happened in

1996, which is what I am going to talk to you about.

Elements of the Gun Project were also put in place

in Minneapolis. So these are June through Novem-

ber homicide series for all age groups. Minneapolis

is one of a group of worrisome smaller cities that

seems to be experiencing a new round of crack and

gang problems. The homicide rate doubled between

1994 and 1995 and continued to go up. This inter-

vention I am going to be talking about began in

early June 1997, and it appears that something has

happened there across all age groups.

The Boston Gun Project

There are two elements that comprise what we in

Boston called the Ceasefire Initiative. One—this

was the inspiration for the Boston Gun Project and

why it is called the Boston Gun Project—is that this

is a gun problem, and there seemed to be an oppor-

tunity to do something directly about the illegal

acquisition of firearms. It was not gun control, tra-

ditionally construed, but attention to what seemed

like a missed opportunity, focusing on the fact that

where young people and adult felons are concerned,

gun acquisitions are already illegal. However those

guns are acquired, it is a crime, and to the extent

that new guns and used or stolen guns are being

sold within these circles and on the street, that is a

criminal enterprise. If you went to most local police

departments and asked them about their burglary

strategy, their car theft strategy, or their prostitution

strategy, they would have one. Some strategies

might be good, some might be bad, but departments

would have one. But if you asked them about guns,

the response generally would be, “Huh?” One of

the goals in the Gun Project is to try to change that.

This is a profile of a gun trafficker. Boston has been

tracing all of the firearms recovered by the police

for the last 5 or 6 years. Generally, we trace guns

only in support of particular investigations. We find

the smoking gun next to the body and no perpetra-

tor, and we trace the gun to try to find out who

might have been the shooter. Finding the same situa-

tion with somebody standing there, we don’t trace

the gun. Boston started tracing all of its guns, not to

solve particular crimes but to try to figure out how

this illicit market in firearms might be working and

whether there was something that could be done

about it. And, it turns out, there was. So these are

real guns, real gun stores, and real people. When

you look at these traces, you find patterns.

Crime Prevention as Crime Deterrence

➤

A number of guns used in crimes came from one gun

store in Georgia. They were all bought by a handful

of first purchasers. This is information that the

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)

can give you when they trace guns. Anybody famil-

iar with the street scene could see that these guns

were the kinds of guns that are popular among gang

members. And when we matched the possessor

information—that is, from whom the guns were

taken—with the Boston Police Department informa-

tion, it turned out that the majority of these individu-

als were known Boston gang members. Something

was wrong here. When this was investigated by ATF,

what was wrong turned out to be that these purchas-

ers were selling guns to two individuals who did not

show up anywhere, because they did not have their

names on any of the paperwork. These two individu-

als were taking guns up to Boston and selling them

in the neighborhoods. Both of these guys are now in

Federal prison. It turns out that this unapproachable

gun market is actually not that unapproachable after

all. These relatively new guns turn out to be more

popular among gang members and youth offenders

than among older people.

We still have many used and stolen guns floating

around out there, and you are not going to find the

providers of those through traces. But the good

news is, at some level, the people who know where

those guns are coming from get arrested all the time

because they are chronic, active, street offenders.

The way you get the older and stolen guns is by

talking with these offenders, the same way we have

always “flipped” narcotic offenders around narcot-

ics. Police are now interviewing these guys about

where their guns are coming from. They can lead

you to these providers of both the new guns and the

old and stolen guns. Subsequent police work can

put these guys out of business. So there is, in fact,

a meaningful opportunity for doing something

about guns out there.

Here is the second thing that quite unexpectedly

came out of this problem-solving process. The Gun

Project worked by convening a large group of front-

line practitioners. We had police; probation; parole;

local and Federal prosecutors; youth corrections;

school police; and street workers, who in Boston do

direct outreach to gang members and at-risk youths.

Later in the process, a number of other groups got

involved. What all of them said at the outset was

that this was a gang problem, that these are chronic

offenders hurting one another: “We know who they

are. When they get killed we know both the victim

and the shooter.” For various reasons, my Harvard

team was not enamored by this analysis. But we

pursued it, and it turned out to be largely correct.

And again, there are reams of research out of

both Boston and Minneapolis on this. There were

155 victims, 21 and under, between 1990 and 1995.

Again, this is not Chicago or Los Angeles, but it is

bad enough.

When we ran criminal histories on each of these

victims, we found that 55 percent had an arrest

record in Massachusetts, about 20 percent had been

in either an adult or juvenile lockup facility before

they were killed, more than 40 percent were on

some sort of probation at some time before they

were killed, and 15 percent were on active proba-

tion supervision at the time they were killed. In

addition, 25 percent of offenders committed murder

while on probation. The offense counts were re-

markable. Each of these groups, both offenders

and victims, had an average of 10 or less offenses.

About half of them had more than 10 offenses.

And they were being arrested for all sorts of crimes.

This is a classic concentration of offending. Crimi-

nologically, the only new thing about this was that

it applied to this new population of young offend-

ers. We always knew this about adults. Guided by

our practitioner partners, we examined the gang

problem in Boston. In Boston, these are small, fluid

street groups. But they know who they are in the

community, and the authorities know who they are.

We found 61 gangs, with about 1,300 members,

total. In the summer of 1995 when we did this

analysis, the Intervale Posse, which is a group in

Roxbury, had an active dispute with the Big Head

Boys, and a historical but at the moment quiescent

dispute with the Castlegate and Fuller Street gangs.

What our practitioners said, and our own subse-

quent research showed, was that this was what was

generating most of the killing among young people

in Boston. This was not primarily about drug

business. It was mostly about respect and personal

issues, very Hatfield and McCoy. It was vendetta-

like, extended over time, sometimes extending to

younger siblings and friends. There were 1,300 kids

in total in these groups. That is less than 1 percent

of their age group in the city, less than 3 percent in

David Kennedy

➤

gang-troubled neighborhoods. There were

61 crews, and they were responsible, conserva-

tively, for 60–70 percent of the youth homicide.

This was a very focused problem. Once again, this

is classic criminal justice stuff. Matters turned out

to be essentially the same in Minneapolis where

we did similar analyses. So now we come to what

changed in both of these cities, in Boston in the

summer of 1996 and in Minneapolis in June of

1997. We told them to stop. That is what happened.

When we think about crime control, we tend to

think about prevention and criminal justice as sepa-

rate enterprises, almost by definition. I think that

is wrong. Prevention, in criminal justice, is deter-

rence. It is the use of authority in the exercise of

changing behavior. We would prefer not to use au-

thority, but there are always individuals and groups

that need authority. We have almost given up on

the idea of actually creating deterrence in criminal

justice. The Ceasefire strategy as it emerged was

an attempt to try to create meaningful deterrence

among chronic offenders. It is an unusual strategy

that makes different use of some routine tools. The

first unusual piece is to sit down with your target

population—in our case, these gangs—and explain

to them how the world is going to work. In mid-

1996, there were formal meetings between this

working group of authorities and Boston gang

members. The authorities explained that they knew

who the gang members were and what they were

doing. While the city would continue to pay close

attention to all their offenses, the authorities

stressed that there was now going to be a new

regime where violence was concerned, and vio-

lence-related offenses, such as carrying guns and

firing shots, would subsequently draw a unique

response. The authorities told the gangs that they

were informing them of their intentions because

nobody wanted to do any unnecessary enforcement.

No one wanted to sweep the streets of these youths.

But when these rules were broken, the interagency

group would sit down, examine the groups in ques-

tion, and figure out ways to reach out and touch

them.

A handout was given to Bowdoin Street gang mem-

bers, a group called the Vamp Hill Kings, as part of

the first structured Ceasefire crackdown. It simply

states, “We said it and we meant it.” Here is what

happened to the Kings, a gang that was killing

each other from the inside out: There were three

intragang homicides within the Kings within a

very short time in early 1996. The flier said that the

authorities that usually work separately now were

working together and any information that one

group had would be shared with the others. They

indicated that these cooperative efforts were the

reason that none of the Kings had been able to work

the corners (to sell drugs) and that the authorities

had deliberately made the gang broke because of

their violent behavior. They explained that this was

why there had been such a heavy police presence

in the gang’s area doing what police know how to

do: serving warrants, making street drug arrests,

enforcing disorder laws, and talking to parents and

neighbors. This was why those on probation or

parole had been subject to stricter supervision.

This was why a gang member who pulled a gun on

a police officer in the course of the operation had

been given over to a Federal prosecutor rather than

the county prosecutor and why the local prosecutor

had been giving priority to gang-related cases and

opening old cases in which these gang members

might have been involved. The message was that

these efforts were being undertaken because of the

violence, that this was the way police and other

authorities would do business henceforth.

After the May meeting, most of the summer of

1996 was quiet. For a time, most of the Ceasefire

interventions consisted of authorities reaching out

to gangs that looked to be turning violent and

explaining, “We are the guys who brought you

Bowdoin Street. If this goes any further, then you

are next.” This is what we started to think of as

“retail deterrence.” Usually in criminal justice we

would send these terribly broad messages. These

were narrowly focused messages, and gangs

listened. One group that did not attend was the

Intervale Posse in Roxbury, and in late August

1996, the core of this gang was arrested by the

Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on Fed-

eral drug charges. Once again the authorities went

out on the streets and said, “You are reading in the

[Boston] Globe that this was a drug investigation,

but it was a means to an end. They were warned

and they didn’t listen. We did this because they

were being violent; now we are sitting back wait-

ing. Who wants to be next?”

Crime Prevention as Crime Deterrence

➤

That was the last operation of anything on this

scale as part of Ceasefire. The streets got quieter

and quieter.

These are not controlled experiments. It is going to

be impossible to parse out exactly what went into

the interventions in Boston and Minneapolis. But it

looks like something important is happening.

Crime Control Implications

I would like to talk about the crime control implica-

tions of this approach. We are concerned about

crimes committed by chronic offenders: drug

activity, domestic violence, youth and adult homi-

cide. It is well known that these serious crimes are

embedded in patterns of chronic misbehavior. One

can focus on any selected dimension of that chronic

misbehavior and influence it by imposing costs

across the other dimensions. Retail deterrence is,

in theory, a strategic communication component,

which makes it clear to the people you are dealing

with that there are going to be consequences—we

call them “pulling levers” consequences, because

you “pull levers” to create rapid costs, for example,

by serving warrants—around homicide, street drug

markets, or other illegal activities.

We had a large interagency group that was a power-

ful tool. We brokered social services. We introduced

kids to the Ten Point Coalition, a wonderful group

of activists and black clergy in Boston. The larger

message was: “We want the violence to stop. We

will give you any help you need, but we are all

standing here together saying it stops today.” That

was shoulder-to-shoulder communication. If you

make it very clear—and we usually do not—to

these chronic offending populations what is going

to draw a special kind of response and then have the

organization and surveillance to follow up on it,

you can deliver a type of sanction with a swiftness

and predictability that appears to create compli-

ance. Having done something similar to gun control

to curb violence, you can move on to a second

target. In Minneapolis, the conversation is about

a similar type of approach to control street drug

activity, which is that city’s other big community

problem. It is easy to imagine how you might do

this. Go to a bunch of crack houses and say,

“We are not going to tolerate this anymore. We have

five DEA investigations ready to roll. We will de-

ploy them to crack houses associated with violence

or generating a high level of community disorder.”

Over a period of 5 or 6 months, one could control

those problems associated with crack dealing, even

if one perhaps would not be able to shut down drug

dealing citywide.

I think this is a promising approach. We will see

whether it can be applied to other types of crime

problems.

➤

Revitalizing Communities: Public

Health Strategies for Violence

Prevention

Deborah Prothrow-Stith

As a public health professional, medical doctor,

former Commissioner of Health of the Common-

wealth of Massachusetts, and activist in the field of

adolescent violence, I am constantly aware of the

heavy toll violence takes on our Nation’s spirit,

health, and economy. Violent injury, disability, and

death consumes enormous health care resources

and diminishes the quality of life of individuals,

families, and communities.

The United States has a problem with violence that

is unlike any other country in the world. Our homi-

cide rate for young men is eight times that of the

developed country with the next highest rate, and

100 times that of the developed country with the

lowest rate.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation

estimates that 1.8 million people in the United

States are victims of violence each year. Partner

and child abuse plague many of our homes.

Schools, the place where young people spend a sig-

nificant amount of time, are increasingly unable to

provide secure settings where learning can take

place. Meanwhile, our media glorify violence. We

are tired of reading about it in the newspaper. Too

many people have suffered the tragic and senseless

loss of a family member or friend to violence.

If violence were inevitable—just a part of the

human condition—then one would expect the

homicide rate to be relatively similar from country

to country. When I learned that our homicide rate

was so much higher than that of other countries,

I was horrified and daunted. Later, I realized that

these statistics also revealed an important truth:

Violence is preventable. We do not need to have

this problem.

Our public policy teaches us to view violence

mainly as a criminal justice issue. People believe

that building more prisons, lengthening prison

sentences, trying children in adult courts, and

preventing early parole are solutions. The criminal

justice system intervenes only after someone has

committed an act of violence. We need solutions

that prevent violence from happening in the first

place.

Public Health Strategies

In 1985, then Surgeon General C. Everett Koop

held a landmark conference to address violence in

the United States as a public health problem. The

conference ignited professional interest and sparked

an array of activities throughout the last decade that

continues to grow and expand. Public health profes-

sionals not only began using quantitative methods

to better understand violence and its risk factors,

they also started developing a variety of prevention

strategies. They have convened conferences; pro-

duced reports; designed, implemented, and evalu-

ated programs; and contributed to a growing public

awareness of violence prevention.

Public health approaches to violence prevention are

analogous to the prevention methods used to reduce

lung cancer: primary prevention for the general

population, secondary prevention for those at

higher risk, and tertiary prevention or treatment

for those with the disease. Though not perfect, the

analogy illustrates the three levels of prevention and

demonstrates the need for comprehensive efforts at

all levels of risk.

Revitalizing Communities: Public Health Strategies for Violence Prevention

➤

Primary lung cancer prevention programs create

negative and offensive images of smoking using

health education and mass media campaigns.

Primary violence prevention uses mass media mes-

sages, classroom education, peer leadership and

mediation, and community-based training programs

to change social norms and attitudes. The goals are

to redefine the “hero”; create alternative, problem-

solving strategies; and reward and celebrate

nonviolent problem solving.

Secondary prevention strategies are designed to

help people at greater risk—those who smoke—

using behavior modification programs, counseling,

or group therapy. Children at risk for violence

require secondary prevention, including mentoring/

nurturing programs, individual and group counsel-

ing, “in school” suspension, and first-offender

programs for court-involved youths. Children who

witness violence or are victims of violence, two of

the most defining risk factors, need specialized

attention from professionals.

With lung cancer, tertiary prevention is treatment—

surgery or chemotherapy. With violence, it is medi-

cal treatment and the criminal justice response—

arrest, prosecution, defense, incarceration, and

rehabilitation. A campaign to reduce lung cancer

that focused only on improving treatment would

not be successful; more surgery will not reduce

lung cancer rates. A successful campaign would

have to help those who smoke to stop and prevent

people from beginning to smoke by making it un-

popular. The same is true with violence prevention;

more severe punishment will not prevent violence.

The magnitude and characteristics of violence-

related problems cry out for new and creative

approaches. The most effective programs must be

comprehensive, family- and community-oriented,

Exhibit 1. The Number of Children Under 17 Murdered With Guns, 1986–1996, and Violence

Prevention Program Examples by Start Date in Boston

Source: Boston Police Department

Violence Prevention Programs

Number of Homicides

1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996

Year

Ceasefire (1995)

Community Policing in Boston (1994)

Louis D. Brown Peace Curriculum (1994)

Ten Point Coalition (1992)

WBZ–TV Stop the Violence Campaign (1992)

Citizens for Safety (1990)

Teens Against Gang Violence (1990)

Mayor’s Safe Neighborhood Initiative (1990)

Gang Peace (1989)

Violence Prevention Curriculum for Adolescents Published for Distribution (1987)

South Boston Boys and Girls Club—Friends for Life Clubs and Violence Prevention Programs (1986)

WEATOC Teen Theatre Group Adds Violence Prevention to Its Repertoire (1985)

Friends for Life—PSA Campaign Ad Council of Boston (1985)

Boston City Hospital Violence Prevention Program (1982) Adolescent Wellness Program (1994)

Strike Force

(1996)

Deborah Prothrow-Stith

➤

and collaborative in nature. Some schools, commu-

nities, social service agencies, and politicians

around the country have incorporated this formula

for success and developed strategies to help

children and their families prevent or cope with

violence. These programs offer the opportunity

to learn from their successes and failures.

The Boston Violence Preven-

tion Movement: Promising

Programs

In many ways, Boston is the birthplace of the use of

public health prevention strategies to address youth

violence. One of the major contributions of public

health professionals is their focus on prevention,

not intervention. In 1978, a precursor of the Vio-

lence Prevention Curriculum for Adolescents

was

taught in all 10th grade health classes at the Boston

Technical High School. In 1982, the Boston Pro-

gram for High Risk Youth was started at Boston

City Hospital, 1 of 20 across the Nation funded by

the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation specifically

to address adolescent health issues. Based on the

curriculum, the Boston program focused on adoles-

cent violence as a public health problem at the

outset. In 1986, the Boston Program for High Risk

Youth became the Boston Violence Prevention Pro-

gram and focused solely on applying public health

techniques to violence prevention.

Over the years,

a diverse and comprehensive set of strategies were

employed. The basic strategy of the Boston Vio-

lence Prevention Program is to train youth-serving

professionals from many disciplines in the key

ingredients needed to prevent youth violence and to

provide technical assistance as they develop strate-

gies to use in their respective agencies and work.

The trainings focus on:

● A “can do” or “can prevent” attitude that empha-

sizes the instigation and escalation phases of

fights rather than aggressive responses to fights.

● The application of the same strategies used for

smoking, drunk driving, or teen pregnancy

reduction to violence prevention. This analogy

is helpful because many of those trained are

already working with teens on one of the three

issues.

● A holistic approach to violence prevention that

not only acknowledges the need for a transfor-

mation of cultural attitudes and social norms but

also draws upon, is predicated upon, and encour-

ages individuals to take responsibility for their

actions and the things they do to promote fight-

ing and violence.

The trainings use the Violence Prevention Curricu-

lum for Adolescents, and the participants are

encouraged to adapt the classroom activities and

discussions to their specific programs (afterschool,

peer leadership, theater groups, etc.). Spinoff

activities, programs, and trainings are directly en-

couraged and technical assistance is provided. A

trainee’s clearly stated responsibility is to return to

his/her agency and design and implement violence

prevention strategies that could be integrated into

his/her agency program. The program was incorpo-

rated into the city’s Adolescent Wellness Program

in 1994.

After its use at the Boston Technical High School,

The Violence Prevention Curriculum for Adoles-

cents was developed in a Boston public high

school, officially published in 1987 by the

Education Development Center, and has sold

more than 20,000 copies. It continues to be used

in several Boston schools and other youth-serving

programs. Two separate and recently published

evaluations associate the use of the curriculum with

declines in student suspension rates in two Boston

public high schools as well as with behavior

changes among students in Augusta, Georgia.

4,5

It is fair to estimate that over the years the Boston

Violence Prevention Program trained several thou-

sand professionals from Boston’s schools, youth

programs, human service agencies, police and

criminal justice organizations, religious institutions,

business groups, recreation programs, and health

centers and hospitals, as well as public housing

residents and teenagers. Boston is now the site of

numerous violence prevention and peace promotion

programs, many of which emerged as direct

spinoffs from the Boston Violence Prevention

Program. Exhibit 1 illustrates the year of startup

and the cumulative accomplishments of several of

these programs. Some examples of these spinoffs

are described below.

Revitalizing Communities: Public Health Strategies for Violence Prevention

➤

● In 1990, Boston City Hospital began a project of

visiting and providing special violence preven-

tion counseling to adolescents admitted to the

hospital for gunshot and stab wounds. The pro-

gram eventually grew to involve patients’ friends

and family. A safety plan is developed for each

patient and followup includes more than atten-

tion to the physical wound.

● Citizens for Safety was founded in 1990. It has

held several gun buyback programs in conjunc-

tion with the police and sponsored several neigh-

borhood-based public policy initiatives. Its most

recent campaign, “Hands Without Guns,” is

headed by Michael MacDonald, a survivor of

violence. This campaign is a middle-school-

based initiative that promotes nonviolent options

for students, coordinates and promotes youth

activities, and develops mass media messages

highlighting youth accomplishments.

● In 1990, Ulrich Johnson started a volunteer,

anti-gang-violence teen peer leadership program

called Teens Against Gang Violence that has

consistently provided workshops for parents,

schools, and community groups.

● Joseph and Clementina Chery started the Louis

D. Brown Peace Curriculum after their son was

killed in 1993. It is now used throughout the

Boston public schools.

● Ann Bishop, director of the school-based clinic

at Brighton High School, has been teaching

violence prevention to Boston teenagers for

12 years and runs a special initiative for students

who have experienced or witnessed violence.

Her students developed and produced a rap song

on violence prevention.

● Peter Stringham, a physician at East Boston

Health Center, has been teaching his patients

violence prevention strategies for several years.

He has been providing parents with guidance on

discipline practices and their arguing patterns as

early as the first well-baby visit. He also edu-

cates other physicians on how to do the same.

● In 1992, Boston City Hospital initiated a special

program for children who witness violence, and

the Harvard Community Health Plan Foundation

has sponsored parent information brochures on

television watching and disciplinary techniques

in addition to their “Think—Violence is for

Those Who Don’t” campaign. WBZ–TV’s

(Boston’s CBS affiliate) Stop the Violence Cam-

paign is 4 years old and represents a concerted

media blitz with measurable impact on public

policy and funding for domestic violence

initiatives.

Numerous other programs have been established

over the past decade, including Gang Peace, the

Living After Murder Program of the Roxbury

Comprehensive Health Center, the peer leadership

programs at local health centers, and the teen peer

theater and education group We Educate!—A

Touch of Class (W.E.A.T.O.C.). The list also in-

cludes several new initiatives such as the national

“Squash It” campaign, which focuses on using the

media to make it acceptable to walk away from

fights. Other national initiatives that have comple-

mented efforts in Boston include the Children’s

Defense Fund’s Safe Start Initiative; efforts by the

Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, the American

Medical Association, and the American Academy

of Pediatrics; and several publicly funded programs

from the Centers for Disease Control and Preven-

tion, the National Institute of Justice, and the U.S.

Department of Education.

Other programs such as those addressing economic

development and homeownership in Boston’s poor

neighborhoods must also be considered. As a result

of consistent activism and advocacy, in Massachu-

setts home mortgage lending to all minority bor-

rowers increased to 33 percent between 1993 and

1995, outpacing the national average. And within

Boston, multifamily mortgage originations

increased nearly 40 percent during those years.

Conclusion

The Boston violence prevention movement has

involved a determined, coordinated, multidimen-

sional, and lasting campaign across agencies, disci-

plines, and institutions. There are many promising

programs that are having an impact in the Boston

community and are being celebrated nationally.

Such programs require ongoing support and

commitment.

Deborah Prothrow-Stith

➤

The contributions made by public health profes-

sionals toward efforts to prevent violence have been

tremendous. The continued application of public

health strategies to the understanding and preven-

tion of violence assures success. The public health

campaign to reduce smoking took 30 years after the

first Surgeon General’s report to reduce smoking.

Violence reduction can be expected to take at least

as long and will require as many, if not more,

diverse strategies.

Notes

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Rates of

Homicide, Suicide, and Firearms-Related Death Among

Children—26 Industrialized Countries,” Morbidity and

Mortality Weekly Report 46 (5) (February 7, 1997).

2. Prothrow-Stith, D., Violence Prevention Curriculum

for Adolescents, Newton, MA: Education Development

Center, 1987.

3. Prothrow-Stith, D., H. Spivak, and A.J. Hausman,

“The Violence Prevention Project: A Public Health

Approach,” Science, Technology and Human Values

12 (1987): 67–69.

4. Hausman, A., G. Pierce, and L. Briggs, “Evaluation of

Comprehensive Violence Prevention Education: Effects

on Student Behavior,” Journal of Adolescent Health 19

(1996): 104–110.

5. DuRant, R., F. Treiber, A. Getts, K. McCloud, C.W.

Linder, and E.R. Woods, “A Comparison of Two

Violence Prevention Curricula for Middle School

Adolescents,” Journal of Adolescent Health 19 (1996):

111–117.

6. Speech given by Eugene Ludwig, Comptroller of

the Currency, to Massachusetts Housing Investment

Corporation members, January 17, 1997.

➤

Lawyers Meet Community. Neighbors

Go to School. Tough Meets Love:

Promising Approaches to

Neighborhood Safety, Community

Revitalization, and Crime Control

Roger L. Conner

The purpose of this session is to identify promising

programs and approaches that can enhance the Fed-

eral Government’s efforts to decrease crime and

revitalize communities.

For the past 8 years, I have served as Executive

Director of the Center for the Community Interest

(CCI) in Washington, D.C. CCI does research, public

education, and advocacy for civic associations and

neighborhood groups on crime and quality-of-life

issues. One of our primary objectives is to keep the

innovative grassroots activists and local government

officials out of trouble with the courts. We also main-

tain a clearinghouse on legal challenges to strategies

that improve the quality of life in urban neighbor-

hoods and business districts, and we go to court

whenever balanced, effective strategies come under

legal attack.

As you might expect, local leaders on crime and

quality-of-life issues are in touch with us a great

deal. I could fill the entire conference agenda with

a list of the promising programs that have come

across my desk in the past couple of years, because

there is an enormous effort under way in neighbor-

hoods and communities across this country.

I would like to highlight four clusters of promising

approaches that should draw more attention and

support at the Federal level.

A New Role for Lawyers

Almost 2 years ago, Jeremy Travis gave a talk in

New York entitled “Lessons for the Criminal Justice

System From 20 Years of Policing Reform.” In that

talk, he offered a prediction (or, perhaps, what he

hoped would be a self-fulfilling prophecy): That

other elements of the criminal justice system will

start looking over the fence at the progress being

made by their policing brethren and import the

lessons into their own territory. He postulated

“three essential lessons from the development of

community policing that can be applied to the rest

of the criminal justice system”:

● View the community as a full partner.

● Focus on solving the problems that matter to the

community.

● Pay attention to little things.

As a lawyer, I feared that my colleagues would be

the last to look to the blue-collar workers of the

justice system for guidance. The inner momentum

of the law is enormous, as is its resistance to change.

However, I am glad to report that a growing number

of attorneys working in and in association with

the criminal justice system are developing a new

approach to their work that draws on the lessons of

community policing. There are enough of them, and

their work is so distinctive, we can now say that a

new kind of practice, a new legal specialty, is emerg-

ing. Jeremy Travis has suggested a name for the

specialty: Community Safety Law. I hope that

community safety law (CSL) will eventually take

its place alongside environmental law, securities law,

and communications law as a recognized specialty.

Promising Approaches to Neighborhood Safety

➤

Briefly, CSL practitioners are attorneys who take

a direct, working interest in the public safety

problems of particular places. Right now, they’re

a diverse and scattered body—some employed as

“community prosecutors,” some as city attorneys

or solicitors, some engaged in delivery of legal

services to the poor through nonprofit organiza-

tions, some working for nonprofit “public interest

law firms,” and some in private practice. At this

time they have few opportunities to network, share

information, recognize one another’s achieve-

ments, or gain a clear sense of themselves as a

distinct group. But insofar as there is a community

justice movement—one that is gradually opening

up the criminal justice system to popular collabo-

ration and reorienting it in the direction of practi-

cal problem solving—these are the men and

women who are defining what it means to be a

lawyer in this new paradigm.

The common public perception of the lawyer’s role

in the criminal justice system is straightforward: to

process cases efficiently and uniformly and maxi-

mize convictions (or defend against prosecution).

CSL lawyers do not fit comfortably into this mold.

They take a direct, active role in the provision of

public safety in the communities where they work,

and not primarily by processing criminal cases.

Some have nothing whatever to do with case

processing; others are not even prosecutors. A few

illustrations will serve to suggest how far from the

conventional CSL model practitioners are straying:

● The Community Law Center, a nonprofit commu-

nity legal services agency in Baltimore, has

become so deeply involved in drug nuisance

abatement; vacant housing receivership actions;

direct enforcement of housing, building, health,

and zoning codes; and other “purely civil” efforts

to fight crime and disorder on behalf of the neigh-

borhood groups it serves that it now operates its

own anonymous tipline for crime reporting.

● A “Neighborhood District Attorney” in Portland,

Oregon, brokered a “partnership agreement”

between local police and operators of motels

suspected of conniving at prostitution and drug

dealing on their premises, granting the operators

special services (extra patrols, prompt trespass

enforcement) in exchange for their taking

measures to safeguard against criminal use of

their rooms (screening guests, accepting only

certain types of identification, requiring visitor

registration, granting police access to registration

records).

● A former homicide trial lawyer in the U.S.

Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia,

now stationed in a police district as part of a

community prosecution pilot project, quickly

discovered that: (1) local residents wanted some-

thing done about nuisance properties in the area,

especially abandoned buildings being used by

local drug dealers and users, and (2) local agen-

cies were not inclined to help. So she made a

video. That is, she went out with a police officer,

a housing inspector, and a camera to put together

a video tour of the area’s 30 worst abandoned

properties. The footage she came up with was

dramatic and eye-opening—at one point, on

camera, a quantity of heroin was actually discov-

ered in a chimney—and resulted in public and

media pressure that eventually prodded the

responsible agencies to act.

Abstracting from these and many other examples

of CSL work undertaken to date, it is possible to

isolate six basic features that both distinguish CSL

from traditional criminal practice and serve to

define it as a distinct legal specialty.

1. The unit of work is different. In the traditional

model, the basic unit of work is the criminal

case, which is “delivered” to the prosecutor by

way of a police investigation/arrest and thereafter

“handled” in various ways until eventually

“disposed of.” The individual case may or may

not be related to a broader public safety problem

in the community from which it arose, and the

handling of the case may or may not have some

impact on the broader problem. But either way,

the attorneys (both prosecutor and defense)

literally take things “one case at a time.”

Portland’s Neighborhood District Attorneys

rarely even handle cases. However, most com-

munity prosecutors have conventional case-

processing responsibilities and work at seeing

past individual cases. Ronnie Earle, long-time

head of the Travis County District Attorney’s

Office in Austin, Texas, “look[s] at crime as an

Roger L. Conner

➤

opportunity to intervene, to solve the problem

that led to the crime in the first place.”

2. The source of the work is different. It follows

from the distinction described above, between

cases and problems as units of work, that

traditional and CSL attorneys get their work in

different ways. For traditional case-processing

prosecutors or defense attorneys, “intake” is

fairly simple. They need not be entirely passive in

accepting casework—they may lead or influence

investigations, confer closely with police before

arrests are made or warrants issued, screen out

some cases altogether and assign varying priori-

ties to others—but their casework will arrive

regularly whatever they do. Most lawyers serving

the poor in legal services or nonprofit organiza-

tions also have their priorities driven by the

walk-in cases, and collective action tends to be

for the purpose of addressing a collection of

individual rights against landlords, businesses,

or governmental agencies.

A CSL practitioner, on the other hand, must go

out and look for problems. Several of the practi-

tioners I have met spend a significant amount of

their worktime doing what can only be described

as mixing: attending neighborhood association

meetings, participating in marches, dropping in

on community-based social service providers,

even lending a hand to church groups that need

help with flier distribution and other routine

tasks. One practitioner laughingly calls it

“unskilled labor”—and yet cultivating and

maintaining these contacts with the community

could not be more essential to her work. Without

them, she would have no way of knowing what

work there was to do.

3. The connection with the “client” is different.

Traditional case processors naturally focus

on what matters to their work—the individual

defendants, witnesses, and victims whose actions

alone have significance as part of the drama of

the criminal case; the “law-abiding community”

is at most a vague backdrop, a rhetorical device

for summations, an abstraction well to the rear.

In contrast, the CSL practitioner has something

more like a lawyer-client relationship with the

community: direct, intimate, face-to-face. The

difference, particularly for prosecutors, may

have something to do with physical location:

respondents in community-prosecutor positions

repeatedly (and apparently unconsciously) use

physical-spatial terminology in contrasting their

jobs “out here” with those of conventional pros-

ecutors “downtown.” CSL prosecutors are not

merely physically removed from the center—

and incidentally isolated from the conventional

prosecutorial subculture, with its peculiar preoc-

cupations, status rivalries, and assumptions about

the world. Their responsibilities now cover a

much smaller part of the whole.

Even the part of a CSL practitioner’s work that

concerns individual case handling is affected

by this more intimate lawyer-client relationship.

Because of their many contacts with local

people—at block meetings, ward meetings,

patrol service area meetings, church meetings,

even informal “walk-along” meetings with

volunteers in citizen patrols—they are much

more knowledgeable about the human context in

which crimes occur than a traditional prosecutor

could be. A case screener with a CSL orientation

will tend to “know the problems,” Stephanie

Miller says, and “who the players are.” She is

much more likely to “call around” to dig up

background before making a screening decision,

and much less likely to “work in the dark.” So,

for example, trespass, unlawful entry, and other

“insignificant” offenses will get her attention in

certain cases, where they would not have before,

because she understands their importance to real,

flesh-and-blood people.

For some CSL attorneys, the community—at

least in the form of a community group and its

elected leaders—is literally the client. When the

firm of Davis, Polk, and Wardwell in New York

intervened for a local public housing tenants’

group in a court case challenging a new speedy

drug-eviction policy, they did it for the same

straightforward reason that most lawyers do

most legal work: because that’s what their

clients wanted them to do.

The same was true of attorneys with the

Community Organizations Legal Assistance

Project (COLAP) in Indianapolis, who, on be-

half of neighborhood associations, community

Promising Approaches to Neighborhood Safety

➤

development corporations, and other representa-

tive groups, hammered out a comprehensive

memorandum of understanding with various

city and county agencies outlining a step-by-

step plan for eradicating drug markets in seven

city neighborhoods.

Anne Blumenberg, Executive Director of the Com-

munity Law Center (CLC) in Baltimore, estimates

that about 15 percent of the work CLC staff attor-

neys do for the community organizations that make

up their clientele concerns straight corporate, tax,

and transactional matters, but, since these organiza-

tions are based in “some of the worst crime and

drug areas in the city,” the remaining 85 percent of

the work they need done is pure CSL.

4. The priorities are different. Traditional case

processors, typically remote from neighborhood-

level concerns and accustomed to dealing with

each criminal case in isolation from its neighbor-

hood context, naturally tend to prioritize cases

according to their abstract “seriousness,” with

major felonies at the top and many common,

street-level offenses beneath notice. One CSL

practitioner calls this the “reactive, episodic”

approach to strategic and resource-allocation

decisions in which individual crimes are consid-

ered “without examining the landscape of the

criminal cases or the impact of cases tried on the

community.” She is now studying her office with

an eye toward moving Federal prosecutors away

from this traditional, “case-by-case” view to get

them to take into account the connections among

cases and between cases and problems. But she

admits it will be a “daunting task.” For the tradi-

tional prosecutor, the equation is automatic: a

community’s “serious” problems are by defini-

tion its “serious” crimes and vice versa; to find

out what these are, you simply “run the stats.”

CSL lawyers experience a total shift in their

thinking. From assuming that only “big felonies”

matter and that a neighborhood with, for

example, a lot of armed robberies could not

possibly be concerned about vandalism or pan-

handling, they typically discover that it is the

misdemeanors and noncriminal infractions that

cause the most concern. These are the very

matters that are allocated few resources in the

criminal justice system. The “offenders” are not

the kind of people you can “put away,” even

hypothetically. And yet, at a neighborhood meet-

ing, they are all residents want to talk about.

5. The tools are different. A traditional prosecutor

has, in essence, two tools to work with: criminal

prosecution and the threat of criminal prosecu-

tion. The traditional legal services lawyer

functions as an adversary of landlords, housing

agencies, cities, and even the police to protect

the individual rights of low-income people by

defending them in litigation. This is so even

where the individual who obtains legal assistance

is actually part of the problem for the surround-

ing neighborhood. CSL attorneys have many

additional, unconventional tools to choose from,

including the following:

● Community consultation and mobilization.

CSL practitioners invariably address localized

public safety problems by enlisting the creativ-

ity, support, and energy of local residents

themselves. All of the CSL practitioners I have

met and talked with report that frequent consul-

tation with residents is central to their jobs—

for purposes of both problem definition and

problem solving. So, for example, Neighbor-

hood District Attorney Wayne Pearson learned

early on from residents of Portland’s Lloyd

District that many of their low-level disorder

problems—public intoxication, littering,

vandalism, petty theft, etc.—emanated from

a growing population of transients illegally

camping in a nearby gulch. The solution:

Once it was cleaned, cleared, and posted with

“no camping” signs, voluntary resident-patrols

monitored the gulch for signs of new

encampments.

The Community Law Center in Baltimore has

been intimately involved with community

groups in developing training for community

mobilization against drug markets and writing

legislation that simplifies civil actions against

landowners. Legal Services in Kansas City,

Missouri, has written new laws to clear titles to

abandoned properties to speed them into the

hands of community development corporations.

● Focused education. A large part of CSL work

involves formal and informal teaching. One

Roger L. Conner

➤

community prosecutor conducts special

presentations to educate prosecutors working

in the local municipal courts, public housing

managers, and special deputies handling

security in large housing complexes on how

to make trespass laws stick. Baltimore’s Com-

munity Law Center has produced a book on

how to use civil remedies to deal with prob-

lem properties. The law firm of Cadwalader,

Wickersham & Taft wrote a 350-page book

on civil remedies and how they could be

improved in New York State.

● Interagency collaboration. Ronnie Earle,

Travis County, Texas, District Attorney and

outspoken proponent of what he calls “commu-

nity justice,” reports that his office is engaged

in 25 different collaborations, task forces, and

working groups with local nonprosecutorial

agencies, ranging from those in which the

office takes a leading role to those in which

staff members sit on boards. The “convening

power” of the DA’s office—basically, the

power to cut across traditional bureaucratic

barriers to focus the whole community’s ener-

gies on a public safety problem—is perhaps

best exemplified by Travis County’s “Neigh-

borhood Conference Committees,” in which

local school, police, juvenile court, and health

and human services officials as well as private

citizens came together under the sponsorship of

the DA’s office to form an elaborate alternative

sanctions system for juvenile first offenders.

● Partnerships with police. Attorneys under

Robert Messner, who heads the Civil Enforce-

ment Unit of the Legal Bureau of the New

York City Police Department, work with

police to target stolen-auto “chop shops,”

unlicensed social clubs, prostitution and drug-

dealing fronts, and other illegal businesses,

using civil nuisance abatement and forfeiture

procedures rather than traditional criminal

prosecutions to shut them down. According to

Messner, because of the sophisticated organi-

zation of these businesses as well as the intri-

cacy of the law in this area—the body of laws

and regulations pertaining to auto-dismantling

chop shops is “more complex than the tax

code”—police continuously need to consult

with lawyers to have any impact.

● Civil and administrative remedies. The Com-

munity Law Center in Baltimore has no power

to prosecute criminals, and yet it has made

itself into a formidable force against “crime

and grime” in the neighborhoods in which it

operates—primarily through an aggressive

program of “private” code enforcement and

nuisance abatement litigation. As legal coun-

sel for community organizations with broad,

welfare-promoting purposes, the Center files

hundreds of actions each year to enjoin drug

trafficking in neighborhood properties, force

landlords to take security measures against

criminals, and compel property owners to

rehabilitate buildings or turn them over to

nonprofit receivers for renovation and resale.

In fact, the Center has gone so far in this

direction that it now sees itself at the forefront

of a movement toward what is called “the

coproduction model” for the delivery of gov-

ernment services—in which private citizens

and their voluntary organizations “coproduce”

as well as “consume” traditional government

services.

The Los Angeles County Prosecutors Office,

in cooperation with the local law firm of

Latham & Watkins, was the first to file civil

suits to have specific gangs declared a “public

nuisance.” The resulting injunctions have dra-

matically altered the quality of life in South-

ern California neighborhoods that had been

terrorized by gangs for many years. Other

California jurisdictions have implemented the

same approach, which was recently approved

by the California Supreme Court.

● CSL innovations. There is “no form book” for

CSL attorneys. As one neighborhood DA put

it: “The community wants a solution. You’re

a lawyer. Go find it.” There is a sense of free-

dom from traditional assumptions and arbi-

trary limits in the work that all CSL lawyers

have in common.

6. The definition of success is different. A tradi-

tional case processor’s definition of success is

more or less dictated by the nature of the work:

Success is winning cases. There is, of course, at

least a theoretical relationship between winning

cases and larger goals of public safety and justice

Promising Approaches to Neighborhood Safety

➤

for the individual. It is not just a matter of winning

for the sake of winning, but the fact remains that a

conventional lawyer in the justice system has only

one way of furthering those larger goals and can-

not afford to concentrate on anything else.

A CSL attorney—anchored to a particular place,

answerable to its residents, focused directly on its

safety—must have a definition of success that is

at once more concrete and more complicated than

this. Most actual public safety problems never

“go away” in the way that even the most drawn-out

criminal cases eventually do: Success is a matter

of maintaining a critical balance, first holding and

then gaining ground, gradually increasing residents’

confidence, but never actually winning the day.

In a broad sense, CSL successes are always related

to actual problem-solving improvements in public

safety—to better coordination, more community

commitment and vigilance, and less fear. But the

ideal CSL attorney would be a kind of all-purpose

fixer, like a beat cop who understands that the most

important part of the job is staying on the job.

Many district attorneys, prosecuting attorneys, and

U.S. Attorneys have always seen themselves as

policymakers and problem solvers in addition to

prosecutors of individual cases. Indeed, it was U.S.

Attorney Michael Baylson of the Eastern District of

Pennsylvania who invented the model that became

the Weed and Seed program. If you think about the

parallel to community policing, the chief and his or

her top staff focused on problem solving even dur-

ing the heyday of 911-driven policing. Community

policing pushed discretion and a problem-solving

orientation much deeper into the ranks. Similarly,

the innovation we are seeing among lawyers is

pushing the collaborative, problem-solving orienta-

tion deeper into the ranks.

Preparing the Community for

Community Justice

There is much talk around the U.S. Department of

Justice these days about community justice. The

discussion represents recognition, at the Federal

level, of a range of experiments introduced by

innovative, pragmatic leaders at the State and local

levels. “While the concept of community justice is

still developing,” Assistant Attorney General Laurie

Robinson wrote in a February 1997 invitation letter

to the community justice conference, “two key

principles stand out . . . making the community a

full partner with agencies of the justice system to

promote public safety and addressing the needs of

the community and the victim through a problem-

solving approach.”

The trouble is, it’s hard to tango with someone

who doesn’t know how to dance. When I was in

college, there weren’t any courses on organizing

your community to get rid of drugs or crime. My

high school civics course didn’t cover how to keep

block clubs going from one year to the next or the

difference between community policing and 911-

driven random patrol. Like me, most citizens have

no training, experience, or knowledge of how to

be more than passive cheerleaders for police and

prosecutors.

In a handful of jurisdictions, organizations have

emerged to recruit, organize, and train citizens and

serve as the local “institutional memory” on how to

make the justice system work for the community.

The structure of such organizations is quite diverse.

For example:

New York. The Citizens Committee for New York

City (CCNYC) provides training, technical assis-

tance, small grants, and self-help literature for

more than 11,000 block clubs in New York City. It

also operates formal training programs for neigh-

borhood safety advocates, block club leaders, and

youths. Although it deliberately avoids taking

advocacy positions, CCNYC is the institutional

memory for many past public safety volunteer

efforts and a place for new activists to come and

learn what works.

Chicago. Chicago has a number of organizations

with public safety as their mission and full-time

organizers and trainers on staff. The most promi-

nent, the Chicago Alliance for Neighborhood Safety

(CANS), at one time had a contract with the city to

organize and train citizens in every precinct in the

city on how to be “coproducers of safety.” The

evaluation reports on their work are in: CANS orga-

nized and trained citizens to understand problem

solving and work effectively with police as part-

ners. The Northwest Austin Council is another

Chicago group that has had full-time organizers on

Roger L. Conner

➤

staff for over a decade, and the difference between

their neighborhood and others similarly situated is

remarkable. Chicago now has a number of organiz-

ers on staff, but whether they can match the inde-

pendent citizens’ groups in effectiveness has yet to

be determined.

Baltimore. In Baltimore, the Community Planning

and Housing Association (CPHA) has been an advo-

cate for low-income neighborhoods for many years.

It believes neighborhood safety is necessary for

neighborhood development and stability. More

important, they have created a “train the trainers”

curriculum by which the original handful of inspira-

tional leaders have passed on their knowledge to new

staff and new neighborhood activists. I understand

that the evaluation report from Baltimore’s Compre-

hensive Communities Program is giving significant

credit for the progress in the target neighborhoods to

the trainers and organizers of CPHA.

Fort Worth. The Citizens’ Crime Commission of

Tarrant County has created a “Community Leader-

ship Development” (CLD) program. CLD volunteers

receive a year of leadership training seminars similar

to those offered to corporate or government middle

managers. In exchange, they pledge to participate as

members of their police precinct’s Citizens Advisory

Committee, to team with city officials to address

problems in their own neighborhoods, and to recruit

their own replacements after 1 year. Along with

this effort, the police department has recruited and

trained 145 block and neighborhood groups (with

2,800 members) to patrol streets for code violations.

The most visible crime problems (open-air drug

markets and prostitution) were driven out by their

organized presence.

Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Crime Commis-

sion is providing a year or more of intensive

leadership training to citizens from specific neigh-

borhoods (called State “Weed and Seed” sites).

The idea is to strengthen the capacity of the com-

munities by training leaders. Interestingly, the

Pennsylvania program selects a mixture of people

who reside in the target area and who work there,

because both residents and institutions need to get

involved in meaningful solutions.

Everyone seems to agree that having the commu-

nity as a partner in safety and justice issues is a

good idea. It is remarkable to me that formal, orga-

nized training and technical assistance are recog-

nized as a necessity for the justice professionals but

as a luxury or an afterthought for the citizens who

are being asked to be partners in implementing the

new paradigm of community justice.

Consider the success of community policing in

Portland, Oregon. Much has been made of the

police chief’s leadership, and I do not discount it.

However, Portland’s 94 identifiable neighborhoods

are supported by the full-time staff of the Office of

Neighborhood Associations, and I suspect they

have played a bigger role than we can see.

Granted, we need to know a lot more about the

creation and nurturing of such groups. Can the city

government or the police provide the training and

organizers? Will the money be wasted if it goes to

nonprofits? Is the “support group” model (CCNYC)

better than the advocacy model (CANS)?

However, I make this assertion on the basis of my

own experience: Citizens will never be effective

partners with the criminal justice system without

institutionalized recruitment, training, and educa-

tion. President Clinton once observed that 10,000

effective community organizations could do more

than 100,000 police officers. If he is right, it is a

pity that there are untold resources for training

police for community policing but none for training

citizens.

Addressing Disorder in

Urban Centers and

Commercial Districts

Another cluster of promising programs that has

emerged recently has to do with restoring security

and civility in the central business districts and

older commercial strips of our Nation’s cities.

If a trip to the downtown area or the neighborhood

stores requires citizens to run a gauntlet of unpleas-

ant encounters, people with options are going to

leave. At CCI, we have received hundreds of

requests for assistance over the past 2 years for

Promising Approaches to Neighborhood Safety

➤

help dealing with aggressive panhandlers, homeless

people who have set up encampments in public

parks, frightening and dangerous persons

apparently afflicted with mental illness, and

“Deadheads” sprawled across sidewalks near

university districts.

The problems to be overcome are both political and

legal. No one wants to be, or to be seen as, hostile to

destitute and homeless people who cannot care for

themselves, and the courts are not willing to give

police broad discretion to force people to “move on.”

The compromise that seems to be emerging in the

interplay between courts and communities is that or-

dinances that target specific antisocial conduct rather

than broad categories of people will be accepted.

Cities are saying that a tolerance for diversity is not

inconsistent with reasonable standards of conduct

that apply to everyone, and the courts, with some

notable exceptions, are agreeing.

Some of the newly adopted ordinances include:

Panhandling controls. Total bans on panhandling

have been rejected. When New York City attempted

to enforce an old law that banned loitering and

panhandling, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals

rejected the ordinance as an infringement on the

First Amendment. The same result occurred in

Massachusetts. In contrast, the same courts have

consistently held that “reasonable time, place, and

manner” regulation of panhandling is permissible.

For example, bans on “aggressive” panhandling

have been adopted in several cities and approved

by Federal courts in Seattle, Atlanta, Santa Monica,

and Dallas. But one Federal District Court in Los

Angeles has recently ruled to the contrary, and an

appeal is expected.

Restrictions on locations where panhandling pre-

sents special problems have also been approved,

ranging from subways, airports, State fairgrounds,

and post offices. To the extent that future judges

follow their peers, panhandling bans in locations

that are inherently provocative (near automatic

teller machines) or crowded (beachfront board-

walks) appear to be on firm constitutional footing.

Again, however, a Southern California District

Court judge recently went against this trend and

threw out a ban on panhandling at the Los Angeles

International Airport.

Some innovative area bans include:

● Las Vegas put a huge, expensive glass canopy

over the main central business district thorough-

fare on which a light show is displayed hourly

each night, then banned panhandling within

“The Freemont Street Experience.”

● A new Santa Monica law says panhandlers may

not be intoxicated and must not approach closer

than 3 feet from their targets.

● The City Council of Berkeley banned all panhan-

dling at night as inherently threatening.

Urban camping, public sleeping, and sidewalk

obstruction. Ordinances that restrict public sleep-

ing in specific places, such as the immediate sur-

roundings of public buildings and monuments or

heavily used urban parks, and that prohibit camping

(the colonization of public spaces) thus far have

been approved in every instance. The use of tres-

pass laws to break up concentrations of people who

set up encampments on public land has also been

approved. However, where cities have attempted to

defend depression-era laws banning public sleeping

in all public places in a city, the record is mixed.

Some courts agree with the theory that sleep is

essential to life and thus have ruled that it violates

due process if, in fact, there are persons with no

place to sleep on private or public property in an

entire community.

Seattle and other jurisdictions have also banned

people from sitting or lying on sidewalks in busi-

ness districts during business hours. These efforts

have been upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of

Appeals and the State courts as well. Many other

laws can be used as a part of quality-of-life

enforcement efforts, including ordinances on

excessive noise, dumping the contents of public

trash cans, automobile cruising, and the like. While

constitutional arguments have been made against

all of these, courts have been uniformly hostile.

The most persistent quality-of-life problems will

not yield to enforcement efforts alone, for they are

rooted in untreated addiction, mental illness, or a

combination of both.

One of the worst social experiments this country

ever imposed on its weakest citizens was the

Roger L. Conner

➤

deinstitutionalization of people affected by such

neurological disorders as schizophrenia and

bipolar disorder. In 1955, there were more than

559,000 patients in State psychiatric hospitals in

this country. The population of the United States

has almost doubled since then, and the number of

people with severe mental illness has increased

accordingly. There are fewer than 90,000 persons

in State mental hospitals, and even taking into

account the psychiatric wards of general hospitals

and aftercare facilities, there are approximately

750,000 people living in the community who would

likely have been inpatients in State psychiatric

hospitals in an earlier day. What looks like a qual-

ity-of-life problem to be addressed by law enforce-

ment is actually an untreated medical problem.

Although it may not appear to be related to quality

of life on the surface, laws that require insurance

companies to provide “parity” for mental illness—

so that the need for medication for schizophrenia is

treated the same as the need for medication for HIV

or Parkinson’s—will have a direct effect on quality

of life by preventing some, perhaps many, from

falling into the clutches of the “street shrinks”

(i.e., drug dealers). The Mental Health Parity Act

of 1996, which took effect January 1, 1998, will

require large companies to make annual and life-

time benefits for mental illnesses equal to those

offered for other physical disorders. Several States

have adopted or are considering similar laws.

As much as we would wish it, however, more serv-

ices alone will not do the job. Mental illness often

blinds the individual to the nature of his or her own

condition. Ed Ehrenright, the son of the founder of

the California Alliance for the Mentally Ill, recently

stabbed his beloved brother, Mark, to death. The

same disorder that made Ed believe he must kill his

brother also convinced him that he was not ill and

did not need to take his medication.

States are slowly beginning to address the problems

of persons like Ehrenright who “lack insight” into

their condition and become “treatment resistant” or

“noncompliant.” North Carolina has been a leader

in the use of outpatient commitment, which com-

bines release into the community with a meaningful

threat of institutionalization should the person fail

to follow through on needed medication. California

has used “conservatorships” and “guardianships” so

that a loved one or friend can step in after the

patient loses contact with reality but before he or

she lands on the streets. Other States are using con-

ditional releases from mental hospitals, although

this affects only a small minority who are admitted

to a mental institution in the first place. In a handful

of jurisdictions, most notably Massachusetts, local

judges are using quality-of-life infractions as an

opportunity to plead with, cajole, threaten, and

pressure mentally ill persons to return to their treat-

ment and medication regimens; this experience sug-

gests that we need the mental illness equivalent of

drug courts. Finally, New York is in the midst of a

3-year experiment with “mental health warrants,”

which give judges greater leeway to return patients

to State and city institutions.

All of these experiments are edging toward greater

community capacity to protect persons with neuro-

biological disorders in the same manner that it

would protect minor children or persons with

Alzheimer’s. This discussion may seem far re-

moved from the topic of this conference, but it is

intimately connected. In the end, you will not be

able to provide quality of life in urban centers with-

out getting mentally ill persons, particularly those

who have severe mental illness, off the streets.

Unless we find a legal way to address the needs of

persons whose mental illness prevents them from

accepting needed help, quality-of-life enforcement

will fill the jails with broken people; indeed, it

already has. The sheriff of Los Angeles County

says he is running the largest mental institution in

the world. We should not, as a matter of morality,

allow this to continue, or else the courts will even-

tually step in.

Tough Meets Love

Consensus is hard to come by on crime in America.

However, there is broad agreement across the politi-

cal spectrum that there is a small and “distinct

group of [juvenile] offenders who tend to start early

and continue late in their offending” who constitute

a disproportionate share of the “violent and serious

personal property offenders” among juveniles. A

recent Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency

Prevention (OJJDP) study report calls this group

“serious and violent juvenile (SVJ) offenders.” The

Reagan and Bush administrations reached the same

Promising Approaches to Neighborhood Safety

➤

conclusion but used a different term: “SHOs”

(“serious habitual offenders”).

The recent OJJDP report drives home the point that

many—perhaps most—of the serious criminals in

the United States make themselves known to

neighbors, teachers, principals, juvenile probation

officers, police, judges, and jailers early in their

“careers” with “behavior problems, including ag-

gression, dishonesty, property offenses, and conflict

with authority figures.” When I walk with people

at the neighborhood level, they say it is these same

young people who provoke the most fear and anger

with their swagger, their guns, and their drug-based

money.

We cannot talk about revitalizing communities

without dealing with this group of young people.

They drive law-abiding residents into their homes,

draw other youths into the streets, and create an

insurmountable barrier to the private investment

that our distressed neighborhoods need desperately.

What are we to do? I think the experience of Patrick

Hadley of Ocala, Florida, is instructive. Hadley, a

recovering addict and ex-convict who had put his

own life back together, was living in West Ocala, a

neighborhood suffused with crack-driven violence,

when a drive-by shooting in front of his home im-

pelled him to act. After watching the evening news,

this anguished father stood on the steps of city hall

with a simple sign: “I care about West Ocala.” Soon

he was joined by other men, and they formed the

“Mad Dads” of Ocala.

The Mad Dads marched the streets of West Ocala,

driving out the drug dealers with civil rights-style

chants (“Drug dealer, drug dealer, you can’t hide,

we charge you with genocide”). At some point,

Hadley did the unthinkable. He offered a hug and

a chance to one of the young people who served as

a “tout” (one who introduces buyers to sellers) for

dealers. Others followed. The Mad Dads now oper-

ate a mentoring program for hundreds of young

men and women, a diversion program for the juve-

nile courts, and a scholarship program that places

their mentoring graduates in junior college.

I use the phrase “tough meets love” to describe the

Mad Dads because the antidrug marches are con-

tinuing. Hadley still works with police to identify

people who are beyond the reach of the love and

support he offers. The Mad Dads in Ocala, Chloe

Cooney’s Corporation to Develop Communities

of Tampa, and the Alliance of Concerned Men at

Benning Terrace in Washington, D.C., are only a

few examples of hundreds you can find across the

country. The Corporation to Develop Communities

of Tampa has organized civil rights-style marches

against drug dealers, replete with chants of “Drug

dealer, drug dealer, you can’t hide; we charge you

with genocide.” The group also offers mentoring,

training, and job referrals to win young people

away from the dealers. Benning Terrace was one of

the most violent places in Washington, D.C., until a

handful of “OGs” (old guys)—former prisoners and

drug addicts—went into the streets and embraced

warring gangs, bringing them to the table for a

peace summit. A truce was arranged; the city hous-

ing authority offered gang members jobs rehabili-

tating the development. The alliance members

mentored and counseled the young people daily.

As a result, the entire neighborhood is safer. In

1997, there were 45 murders in Benning Terrace.

There have been none since the peace accord was

struck.

The promising approaches to dealing with this

problem group appear to have at least three things

in common:

1. The leaders of the programs exude love and sup-

port for young people who everyone else has

given up on. The love is real because it is rooted

in a deep religious faith.

2. The leaders are confident that the targets of their

work are making wrong choices, that they need

to “change the way they do business.” There are

no relativists in this group, and no one is intimi-

dated by taunts or criticism of paternalism.

3. Neighborhood safety is as important to them as

saving individual lives. While they believe in

every young person they take in, there is a tough

side to their love for those who spurn the out-

reached hand, who try to drag the fellows back

to the streets. “I offer these young men uncondi-

tional love,” Hadley says, “but if you are going

to keep poisoning my children, you ain’t my

brother.”

There is a fourth feature that most of these pro-

grams lack: A means to keep going once scarce

Roger L. Conner

➤

Federal demonstrations dollars move on to the

political leaders’ new hot spot. I applaud the Office

of Weed and Seed’s decision to include training for

local program managers on fund raising so they can

dig in for the long haul. Almost every community

in this country has a Lung Association (the old TB

Society), a Red Cross chapter, Boy Scouts, and

more, none of which are receiving Federal grants

to keep their programs alive. I believe there is a key

Federal role, one that has not been recognized, in

leading foundations, local governments, and philan-

thropists to recognize tough love organizations as a

necessary component of a city’s health. There are

a number of organizations, such as the Council on

Foundations and the Philanthropic Round Table,

that provide guidance to philanthropists and

foundations. I urge those of you in the Federal

Government to make them a target of your educa-

tional outreach, to prepare the way for the Patrick

Hadley’s of the world to make their pitch for funds.

It is also important for our groups to find self-

renewing funding sources. For example, as local

legislators look for alternatives to incarceration, our

neighborhood safety groups should be developing

proposals for court-funded diversion programs that

would be much more cost effective than jail. Even

more important, however, is the private market-

place. There are many streams of money flowing

through our communities that could be captured to

finance community-based organizations.

For example, a new shopping center was recently

developed in Anacostia, bringing a new Safeway

store, among others, to the poorest part of Washing-

ton, D.C. We can all point to individual examples

of success in low-income neighborhoods. But the

Anacostia Economic Development Corporation

(AEDC) has gone one step further. It operated as an

investor/developer for this project rather than as an

observer or even catalyst. As a result, AEDC has the

contract to manage the Good Hope Market Shopping

Center, a responsibility that will bring money to their

organization in perpetuity. It also leveraged govern-

ment grants into an equity position in the develop-

ment. Linda Goldstein, a lawyer with Goodwin,

Proctor & Hoar in Washington, D.C., was the

architect of AEDC’s new role, and she observes

that Safeway, Inc., and other similar businesses will

not take the initiative to make community groups

economic partners, but they are not opposed to the

idea if the community group is represented by

lawyers with the skill to assemble the deals.

Some organizations that provide treatment and

training for addicts are marketing their clients as a

work force to finance their drug and alcohol treat-

ment. Robin Roberts Harven of Austin has made

“work therapy” a central component of her drug

treatment program. She argues that the addicts are

getting the benefits of the program and should pay

for it with their labor, and the program has been

able to generate enough money from contract work

to get off the treadmill of government funding.

Not every community has a Robin Roberts Harven,

a Chloe Cooney, or a Patrick Hadley. Is government

powerless in such places to focus on young people

who seem destined for lives of crime? Several com-

munities are creating ersatz substitute parents in the

form of intensive supervision delivered by govern-

ment employees. The Community Intensive Super-

vision Project (CISP) in Pittsburgh involves small

sites that allow 20–40 offenders to attend a program

based in their own neighborhoods. Young people

are picked up at school and transported directly to

the CISP sites, where they spend the evening work-

ing on catching up to their peers in school, physical

fitness, Narcotics Anonymous sessions, and job

readiness. Community service is a required part

of the program. Young offenders go home at night

with electronic ankle bracelets. Early evaluations

look promising, and CISP is significantly less

expensive than jail.

There is a mighty struggle going on in low-income

communities between the teachers, ministers, and

parents and the drug dealers, or what social scientist

Elijah Anderson terms the “decent” versus “street”

culture. It is extremely hard for government and

nongovernment leaders outside the afflicted neigh-

borhoods to know how to strengthen the forces of

community rather than try to impose an authoritarian

solution. Some of the questions yet to be addressed

include:

● How do foundations and local government distin-

guish between a Patrick Hadley and a ripoff artist?

● Can Hadley train other leaders in other

communities?

Promising Approaches to Neighborhood Safety

➤

● Once some of the volunteers are given staff posi-

tions, will the other volunteers stop working and

leave it to the paid staff? Or if there are no staff

positions for full-time volunteers, will the volun-

teers burn out and eventually quit or move on?

● Can government programs that supply paid

mentor/counselors, backed by sanctions, substi-

tute for the families these young people need?

The Weed and Seed program in particular has

created a wealth of experimentation on these ques-

tions, and I hope that some of the evaluations to

come will provide answers.

A somewhat different approach to intervening in

the lives of the most crime-prone offenders is inten-

sive drug testing for persons on probation, parole,

or otherwise under the control of the criminal

justice system (i.e., after arrest and before trial).

I mention this only briefly, since it is one of those

rare programs blessed by both academic evaluation

research and politicians (President Clinton made it

the topic of a radio address and pushed legislation

through Congress). What is striking to me is how

little headway this common sense idea has made,

despite its pedigree. Do local officials believe the

research? Have we failed to get the information out

to them? Have treatment professionals convinced

them that drug testing without an expansion of

inpatient treatment is cruel (although the research

indicates that many offenders can get off drugs

on their own with sufficient incentives)? Is money

really so tight at the local level that successful pro-

grams cannot be replicated without Federal grants?

Is the problem that intensive drug testing is neither

punitive enough to generate support from the right

nor gentle enough to generate enthusiasm from the

left? Or did the idea succeed too quickly? (As of

this writing, there is no citizens’ coalition for drug

testing; there are, however, several for extending

prison sentences and building more jails.)

In any event, I suggest drug testing as an idea that

should command much more forceful leadership

from Federal officials whose job it is to speed the

adoption of innovative ideas across the country.

And I suggest it as a good case study for those of

you of a more academic bent to identify the impedi-

ments to the spread of innovative ideas within the

justice system.

A final example of focusing on individuals that I

want to mention in passing is the quiet revolution

going on with probation and parole. I hope every-

one here is familiar with “Managing Adult Sex

Offenders in the Community: A Containment

Approach.” As reported in that NIJ study report,

something very important is happening in Maricopa

County, better known as Phoenix, Arizona. They

have achieved a recidivism rate among sexual

offenders of less than 2 percent. The Maricopa

County Probation Department now considers the

prevention of crime as its first priority, and it has

proven that investments in probation can produce

tangible benefits for the community.

Maricopa County has two innovations that merit

your attention. The first is the way the conditions of

probation, which have been tailored for this specific

group of offenders, are enforced: Offenders must

submit to weekly Alcoholics Anonymous-type

group therapy sessions, monthly lie detector tests,

and frequent interaction with specially trained

probation officers with small caseloads. The second

is that the duration of community supervision has

been disconnected from the duration of the maxi-

mum sentence. That is, in Arizona, sexual offenders

often receive lifetime probation; there are 500 per-

sons on lifetime probation in Phoenix alone.

I could say more about the reinvigoration of proba-

tion and parole, but since I share this session with

one of the Nation’s leading experts on that subject,

David Kennedy, I will leave further discussion of

this important topic to him.

One way of thinking about crime prevention is to

focus on the offenders who have committed most

of the crimes—the approach of the programs I have

just discussed. Maryland and Pennsylvania are tak-

ing another approach entirely; they are focusing on

the places where most of the crimes take place.

Under the leadership of Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy

Townsend and Michael Sarbanes, Executive Direc-

tor of the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and

Prevention, Maryland has applied crime-mapping

techniques to every county in the State. What they

found was that every city and town, even quite

small ones, had specific locations that accounted

for much of their local reported crime. From this

insight and Sarbanes’ experience at the Community

Law Center in Baltimore has come the “Maryland

Roger L. Conner

➤

Hot Spots Communities Program,” which encour-

ages local officials to use community mobilization

and collaborative problem solving to address the

environment in each of these locations.

Although Pennsylvania is a much bigger State,

it is taking a similar approach. David Castro, who

formerly ran the Drug Nuisance Task Force for

Philadelphia District Attorney Lynn Abraham, is

now Director of the State Weed and Seed program,

operated out of the Pennsylvania Crime Commis-

sion. Castro’s staff tries to identify “hot spots”; cre-

ate collaborative teams of State, Federal, and local

officials; generate highly concentrated enforcement

activities; and promote leadership development.

Conclusion

It seems to me that the promising approaches I have

outlined above have some features in common.

They involve a renewed focus on specific people

and specific places in order to solve specific prob-

lems that are of concern to the community. Most

of them involve the community outside the justice

system in a newly robust partnership with the

traditional agencies responsible for crime and pun-

ishment. In other words, there are signs that Jeremy

Travis’ prediction, which I cited at the beginning of

this talk—that the ideas at the heart of community

policing might spill over into other parts of the

justice system and the community itself—might be

more than wishful thinking after all. I certainly

hope so.

Notes

1. Travis, Jeremy, “Lessons for the Criminal Justice

System From 20 Years of Policing Reform,” keynote

address, “New Beginnings”—the First Annual Confer-

ence of the New York Campaign for Effective Crime

Policy, March 10, 1996.

2. I would like to give special credit to Catherine Coles

and Barbara Boland for their groundbreaking work on

community prosecution, which first introduced the

lawyer-innovators among prosecutors to the rest of us.

3. Foote, Joseph, Expert Panel Issues Report on Serious

and Violent Juvenile Offenders, Fact Sheet, Washington,

DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile

Justice and Delinquency Prevention, October 1997,

FS–9768.

4. In a recent interview in the Chicago Sun-Times,

researcher Robert J. Sampson summarized a decade of

research on crime and delinquency this way:

[T]he little things matter . . . we ask about things

like kids skipping school, spray painting graffiti,

showing disrespect to an adult . . . these are

simple, everyday activities of children, not serious

crimes . . . what we find is that the collective

willingness of adults to intervene and show

responsibility for children with regard to these

activities varies considerably across neighbor-

hoods. Where it is high, crime seems to be low.

Groups such as the Mad Dads are, perhaps, a way to

return this kind of consistent adult feedback to youths

who have a foot on the slippery slope.

5. Anderson, Elijah, “The Code of the Streets,” Hope

(March/April 1996): 26–43.

6. English, K., S. Pullen, and L. Jones, “Managing Sex

Offenders in the Community: A Containment Ap-

proach,” Research in Brief, Washington, DC: U.S.

Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice,

January 1997, NCJ 163387.

7. See Kennedy, David M., “Pulling Levers: Chronic

Offenders, High-Crime Settings, and a Theory of

Prevention,” Valparaiso University Law Review 31 (2)

(Spring 1997): 449–484.

Panel Four:

What Do We Do Next?

Research Questions and

Implications for

Evaluation Design

➤

Dynamic Strategic Assessment and

Feedback: An Integrated Approach to

Promoting Community Revitalization

Terence Dunworth

In addition, I see them reiterated when you look at

the relevant literature. When James Gibson gave his

talk at the beginning of this conference, he summa-

rized the actual responses and the interventions that

have been made, particularly at the Federal level,

focusing on this idea that communities are declin-

ing and that many are in a state of distress. He

made the point that what he has seen in the 30 years

that he has been involved in this field is a reinven-

tion, a redeclaration, a rediscovery—he used many

words beginning with “re.” I am using the same

“re” with respect to the ideas that we have. We are

repeatedly expressing ideas that others developed

previously.

If we buy into this notion that most of the ideas and

most of the interventions have been tried before,

and yet we still have distressed communities, we

have to ask ourselves what we are doing. We have

a national Weed and Seed effort trying to address

these problems. How are we going to go about do-

ing it? If we acknowledge that most of the interven-

tions that we can think of have been tried before,

then what is it that we can do that we think is differ-

ent and that will accomplish things in the future

that we haven’t been able to accomplish in the past?

It is easy to become disheartened by this thought.

But I am not, because I believe there are ways we

can do things differently. Change is possible not so

much in the area of the specific interventions but in

the way we go about things. This is what I want to

talk about today. Before I go on, I want to stress

that my comments should not be construed as a

criticism of the work that has been done, the ideas

that have been expressed, or the interventions that

have been undertaken in the past—some of which

have been successful, some of which have not.

About 70 years ago, John Dewey wrote a book

called The Public and Its Problems.

Dewey was

one of the foremost educational and social thinkers

of this century, and the observations he made in his

writings are perceptive and provocative. I first read

this book about 25 years ago, and its timeless

themes have stayed with me over the years. This

book has been constantly on my mind during the

2 years that I have been involved in the national

evaluation of Weed and Seed, because it directly

focuses on the kinds of things that we have been

considering in the evaluation—that is, issues that

we have been discussing at this conference.

One of the main arguments in The Public and Its

Problems is that the sense of community that ex-

isted at an earlier time eroded as the Western indus-

trialized world developed. Dewey wrote that this

erosion in the sense of community that people once

felt has led to many of the problems that the public

now faces. These problems are, of course: crime;

social disorder; a loss of the sense of community

and well-being; a decline in the sense of interde-

pendence among people; and the idea that the

future and the present are intermingled and that

when things go well for a neighborhood they go

well for you, and when they go badly for a neigh-

borhood they go badly for you. The erosion of

these concepts led to a sense of isolation for many

people.

For me, Dewey’s book illustrates something that I

have come to believe since I have been involved in

Weed and Seed. There is hardly anything, certainly

no idea that I have had, that hasn’t been said or

written previously. Many of the ideas that we think

are fundamental now in the discussions that we are

having about Weed and Seed are in this book.

Dynamic Strategic Assessment and Feedback

➤

I want to suggest that we need to reorient the way

we think about community revitalization and how

we go about trying to achieve it.

There are two primary areas where I think it is

possible to accomplish something. One of them is

the structure and the organization of the effort that

we want to make; the other area is how we assess

whether or not that effort is having the effect we

want it to have. The latter, of course, is what we

have always referred to as research and evaluation.

Over time, I have become somewhat disenchanted

with these two terms because they imply an orienta-

tion toward finding out what works and what does

not work that, in my opinion, has become out-

moded and lost its utility. I will elaborate on that

idea as I go along.

Structure and Organization

With respect to structure and organization, there

are a few basic premises that must be emphasized.

I don’t mean that these premises have never been

discussed before. I expect that most of you have

thought about them yourselves. But I would suggest

that we—and I include the Federal agencies as well

as the research community—have not implemented

these ideas effectively.

The first premise is that community revitalization

must be approached strategically at the governmen-

tal level. A government program that focuses on a

relatively narrow definition of the problem—with

the definition of that problem being made at the

Federal level—will not be effective. A community

revitalization effort has to be strategic and has to

embrace all of the issues that influence community

revitalization. This means that at the Federal level,

interagency cooperation and collaboration must

occur in an overt and direct way. Communities will

not be helped if the Department of Justice does its

own thing, the Department of Education does its

own thing, the Department of Labor does its own

thing, and so on. Traditionally, however, our

political system leads to that kind of orientation.

It establishes turf boundaries between these differ-

ent agencies, and these boundaries are difficult to

break down. This is one of the reasons why our

current ideas about intervention have probably been

defined and attempted in some setting other than

the one we are presently considering. What we have

not done is develop the interventions in a strategic

fashion, especially at governmental levels. I think

that needs to change if we are going to make much

progress.

The second premise with respect to structure and

organization is that as we define community revital-

ization and think about the things we want to do,

we must do so from the community up, not from

the government down. The definition of the prob-

lem has to be at the community level, not at the

Federal level. There has been a tendency in the past

where the Federal agency involved essentially says:

Uh huh, there is a problem out there.

Here is the definition of that problem,

and this is the solution we want to ap-

ply to it. We will do a couple of things

to get local communities to embrace

our solution. One is that we will throw

money at them to get them to accept

our approach. The other is that if they

do not do it our way, then we will take

the money back.

There has been an imposition from the Federal level

to the community level not only with respect to the

definition of the problem but also with respect to

the approach to dealing with it. I think that has to

change. I don’t mean to imply that there are zero

instances in which this already takes place. I know

there are some. But there are not enough, and they

are not systematic. The Federal Government and

the Federal agencies involved need to embrace

this notion overtly, start from the bottom up, bring

community agencies and organizations into the

planning process at the outset, and concentrate

on strategic designs for community revitalization

efforts.

This leads to another consideration: Community

revitalization and the strategic design that should

be undertaken with respect to it need to be multifac-

eted. This underlines the point I have been trying

to make—that interagency coordination is a pre-

requisite because you cannot have a multifaceted

approach unless you have different agencies partici-

pating collaboratively. This has to take place at both

the Federal and local levels.

Terence Dunworth

➤

Another problem experienced in urban areas is

that local politics with respect to these kinds of turf

issues and interagency conflict can be destructive.

The best intentions can be thwarted by the local

political considerations that come into play. We

have to find some way to deal with these issues

and develop an integrated approach on the local

level as well as the Federal level.

There is an implication behind these ideas that we

often do not address well or think about much: If

these considerations are true, then what is needed

is diversity of approach. By that I mean that the

approach to be undertaken in “jurisdiction A” may

not be suited to the approach needed by “jurisdic-

tion B.” This confounds in some ways a fundamen-

tal principle of the Federal approach to these kinds

of problems. For instance, those of you who have

been around for some time will be familiar with

phrases such as “programs of proven effectiveness”

and “technology transfer.” The idea embodied in

these terms is that if you go out to a particular

community, try a particular approach, and it works,

then you have developed something that can be

essentially lifted, taken somewhere else, and put

down with the expectation that it will work in the

same way. The actual practice of doing this has

not produced much in the way of positive results.

It would be a terrific concept if it worked, but it

doesn’t seem to work in practice very often. One

of the reasons it does not is that the situation in the

new place where this program is put down is, in

fact, quite different than the one from which the

program came, but the key ways in which this is so

are not well understood. The point is that something

entirely different has to be developed for this sec-

ond jurisdiction. Locally focused strategic planning

offers the hope of accomplishing this.

These ideas have enormous implications for every

aspect of community revitalization and the funding

stream. It suggests that having the same level of

funding for “jurisdiction A” and “jurisdiction B”

may not make sense because the problem and the

context are different and so may require a different

level of funding. It also implies that the mix of pro-

grams in this multifaceted approach may need to be

quite different. Even if “jurisdiction B” has a prob-

lem that seems similar to the problem experienced

in “jurisdiction A,” an approach that works in the

latter does not necessarily fit the former. It is the

reason an intervention that seems to have positive

results in one jurisdiction has disappointing conse-

quences when transferred. I think this is because we

have not properly understood the variation between

local jurisdictions, and we have not defined local

needs properly. This stems from the lack of orienta-

tion that I was talking about earlier.

Research and Evaluation

There are also research and evaluation imperatives

that flow from these ideas that are quite different

from the traditional approach that researchers and

evaluators like myself have tended to take in the

past. Loosely speaking, we are trained to follow the

medical research model as closely as we can. We

would like to randomize selection of participants in

programs. We would like to have experimental and

control groups. We would like to track things over a

period of time and have a lot of information that we

can compare from one place to another and from

one time to another. In the end, with that orienta-

tion, the medical model promises a better chance

of defining the actual impact and the outcome of

a particular strategy and a particular intervention.

I have lost confidence in the idea that this will work

in the community revitalization world. I have not

lost confidence in the idea that it can work in other

kinds of contexts or that it can work with respect to

a particular, relatively narrow intervention within

a community. But I am arguing that the medical

model of inquiry will not help us decide whether

or not a particular community revitalization effort

based on a particular strategy design for that juris-

diction is doing what we want it to do. Something

different is needed. I will try to state some general

parameters defining what that orientation ought

to be.

First, one of the premises of the traditional ap-

proach that I was describing is that the evaluation

and research component is of the stand-back type.

We stand back here and look at you implementing

an intervention, and we make our notes and obser-

vations, and at the end of your intervention we will

say it did or did not work. We will do a process

kind of orientation as well and say, “Well, the rea-

son it didn’t work is that they didn’t do this or they

didn’t do that, or they didn’t cover their bases,” and

Dynamic Strategic Assessment and Feedback

➤

so on. I do not think that is good enough. What is

going to be needed is for the research and evalua-

tion component to participate intimately with the

programmatic component from the beginning. I do

not think there is any point in expecting research

and evaluation to produce useful information about

a community revitalization program unless partici-

pation of the research and evaluation people starts

at the beginning. If you admit this, the nature of

what comes next has changed because you are no

longer the detached, objective observer. You get

drawn into being a participant with the program-

matic effort. This is the price, and it is a high price,

that has to be paid for the orientation I am promot-

ing. That price is that you lose objectivity and your

independence, because you get drawn in and have

a vested interest in the outcome. For example, as

you are going along with this process, you become

involved in midcourse corrections. You can say in

conjunction with the program people—let’s say

after 10 percent of the time has gone by and 10 per-

cent of the program has been implemented—that it

looks like you are going in the wrong direction and

maybe a change is needed.

If we are shooting an astronaut to the Moon and

I am evaluating that program for its effectiveness,

and I see when she is halfway there that she is

going to hit Mars, not the Moon, what am I going

to do? Can I stand back and say, “Boy, am I going

to have a story to write when this is over,” when

that astronaut is on Mars but she ought to be on the

Moon? Of course I am not going to do that. I am

going to say that a midcourse correction must be

made because we want this ship to go to the Moon,

not to Mars. We need to do the same thing in

respect to community revitalization. Once I start

doing that, I am no longer a traditional evaluator.

I’ve lost my independence and my objectivity.

To me that no longer matters. I know it matters to

many researchers and evaluators, and I understand

that point of view. But to me it no longer matters

because I want what I do to have an effect and to

help the program. I view the role that we can play

as researchers and evaluators to be one in which we

will make a contribution to programmatic success

in the present and not one that will only turn in a

scorecard and maybe provide a guide to future

programmatic design.

Many things will be affected by this change in ori-

entation. The notions of technology transfer and

programs of proven effectiveness are two of them.

I do not look to them as being the primary out-

comes of what we can do in the research and evalu-

ation world. I also think that my orientation will

produce outcome evaluations that are probabilistic

rather than definitive. It will be “iffy.” It will be

extremely difficult to be definite about what the

outcomes actually are and what one’s own objectiv-

ity is with respect to them. Further, the timeframe

for most interventions is probably unrealistic.

To some extent, this is a Federal funding issue,

a political issue, and it is of extreme importance.

The timeframe that most Federal programs have

in mind is 1 or 2 years at the most, occasionally a

bit longer. Weed and Seed has had a 3- to 4-year

timeframe. At the end of that time, an evaluation

will be written, saying whether the program suc-

ceeded or failed. I am not sure that is even long

enough to expect a community to start to turn

around. How about a decade? How about 15 years?

The problem with that, of course, is that your

political capital may not last that long. This is a

very difficult issue to deal with.

This suggests that not every distressed community

is a candidate for community revitalization.

There are some preconditions needed to determine

whether a community can be turned around. These

should be considered in the problem definition

stage when the strategic orientation toward revital-

ization is being set up in a locally specific context.

We should expect to find that certain communities

that clearly are distressed to the point of needing

intervention are nevertheless not likely to respond

to the kind of interventions that can be mounted by

programs such as Weed and Seed.

For example, the central tenet of Weed and Seed is

that a community can be strengthened by reducing

criminal activity and increasing social programs.

This approach is likely to make a community more

resistant to the resurgence of crime. Implicit in

this view is the idea that long-term residence in the

community is likely for a significant number of its

inhabitants. It is through these residents that a com-

munity will revitalize itself. If, on the other hand, a

troubled community is characterized by high turn-

over, with residents’ objectives being to leave as

Terence Dunworth

➤

quickly as possible, then it is difficult to have confi-

dence that the Weed and Seed approach can have

much long-term effect.

I’ll conclude by restating three main points. First,

how things are organized at the Federal level is

critical. The effort must extend beyond agencies,

and it must be strategic. Second, the approach that

we want to undertake must be communitywide. It

must be a saturation model, multifaceted and com-

munity driven. We cannot impose anything from the

Federal level. It has got to come from the bottom

up. And third, we have got to have what we are

calling a dynamic strategic assessment and feed-

back approach to research and evaluation where

researchers like us participate from the very begin-

ning and continue until the very end. We must be

more than detached observers: We must be directly

involved.

Note

1. Dewey, John, The Public and Its Problems, New

York: H. Holt, 1927.

➤

Community Crime Analysis

John P. O’Connell

ments in criminal justice analysis need to take place

at the State and local levels of government, where

crime and crime policy meet in the United States.

New Tools for Mapping Crime

Probably the best example of progress in crime

analysis is the trend in police departments to move

from crime pin maps to computerized geocoding of

crime. Merging jurisdiction maps with crime and

arrest data is transforming crime analysis from

crime counts to assessments of types of crime in

time and space. This “simple” expansion of our

knowledge of crime is revolutionizing our concept

of crime. New York City, Chicago, San Diego,

Montgomery County, Maryland, and others using

off-the-shelf mapping software know more about

crime in their communities than they have ever

known before. This hands-on knowledge is funda-

mentally changing police operations. Crime statis-

tics are no longer limited to end-of-year summaries.

With the new computer software, precinct- and

street-level reporting are changing how police deal

with crime. District commanders are required to use

changing profiles of crime in their progress reports

and strategic plans. Precinct captains and shift com-

manders are required to review and comment on the

previous day’s crime maps. For the first time, offic-

ers in each new shift, as they hit the streets, know

what happened during the previous shift.

As exciting as the computer-aided crime maps are,

they are only the first step toward breaking out of

the “counting” syndrome. Adding the two “real

time” variables of time and location to crime analy-

sis demonstrates that crime is not an isolated event.

Police departments moving to real-time computer-

ized crime analysis also are moving toward more

proactive policing and depending less on reactive

methods.

Analyzing Crime in Our

Communities

Community Crime Analysis

Analysis of community issues in relation to crime

tends to examine the criminal and crime events as

separate factors. Most headlines and political re-

sponses are reactions to changes in crime. If crime

is up, we wring our hands and we speculate about

associations between crime and unemployment,

funding shortages for criminal justice system opera-

tions, illicit drugs, and the decay of social order.

If crime is down, we congratulate ourselves and

speculate about associations between crime and

employment, programs for the criminal justice

system, and the decline of the importance of

illicit drugs.

A significant reason that criminal justice analysis

is so focused on this type of “univariate” analysis

is that opportunities for resources for new criminal

justice data are scarce. We are excited if we can

find a database that is complete, accurate, and

timely. Even when we find a “good database,” it is

limited to a local or State criminal justice system

that records data for only one part of the criminal

justice system—such as reported crime, arrests, or

correctional populations. We can count crime or

criminals in prison, and we can even apply sophisti-

cated models to this one dimensional view of crime,

but we are not necessarily conversant with the

nature of crime.

As important as U.S. Department of Justice inten-

sive studies are, their impact is largely theoretical;

they seldom have a direct impact on State or local

policies, budgets, or programs. These reports are

usually not timely and are of secondary interest to

politicians and practitioners because they do not

pertain to their particular community. Improve-

Community Crime Analysis

➤

Analyzing Crime as a Non-

Isolated Event, or Four Ways

to Better Understand Crime

in Our Communities

Crime is Not an Isolated Event:

Crime Has Victims

Our understanding of crime and how to deal with it

in our communities will improve as we conceptual-

ize crime not only as something limited to criminals

but also as a troublesome and tragic event for crime

victims and communities. Expanding crime analy-

sis to include victim-offender relationships is

important for understanding crime in our communi-

ties. Two useful examples of victim-offender rela-

tionships are shown below.

Juvenile Crime Victims and Their Perpetrators:

Felony Sexual Assault (see exhibit 1) shows the

relationship between the ages of juvenile victims of

felony sexual assault and the ages of the perpetra-

tors. This analysis provides important information

for both police investigators and social workers.

Although there are proportionally fewer infant vic-

tims of felony sexual assault (compared with other

age groups), the perpetrators in these cases are usu-

ally middle-aged males. Juveniles (under 18) raping

juveniles becomes a significant problem when the

victim is between 3 and 5 years old. Peer rape

(i.e., juveniles raping juveniles of the same age) is

not a major phenomena but is most likely to happen

when both the victim and perpetrator are between

15 and 17 years old.

Criminal History Patterns for Victims and Perpetra-

tors of Wilmington Shooting Incidents (see exhibit

2) shows a different aspect of victim-offender rela-

tionship studies. Shootings in Wilmington, Dela-

ware, have increased significantly over the past

2 years, causing not only fear in the at-risk commu-

nities but also in the surrounding neighborhoods.

An indepth study of the sudden change in firearm

violence showed not only that shootings were asso-

ciated with open-air drug markets but that the vic-

tims where almost as likely to be involved in prior

drug sales, felony crime, and firearm activity as the

perpetrators. While not diminishing the importance

of the increase in shooting, the victim-offender

Exhibit 1. Juvenile Crime Victims and Their Perpetrators: Felony Sexual Assault

Percentage of Offenders

Source: Delaware Statistical Analysis Center, January 1998

Age of Victim

100

15-1712-149-116-83-50-2

Peers

Other Juveniles

Adults

John P. O’Connell

➤

relationship study helped pinpoint the fact that the

increase was not random but was tied to a signifi-

cant degree to the illicit drug trade.

Crime is Not an Isolated Event:

Offenders Who Go to Prison

Return to the Community and

Often Recidivate

One of the solutions to crime has been to target

those perceived to be the most dangerous and

remove them from the streets for longer periods of

time. Mandatory sentences and truth-in-sentencing

laws, which require offenders to serve a minimum

of 85 percent of their sentences, are two examples

of this policy. These incarceration policies provide

increased “specific deterrence” in that selected

offenders are kept out of a community for a greater

period of time. However, even these offenders even-

tually return to the community. A community may

have “bought time” by keeping some of the worst

offenders locked up longer, but when they return,

the issues of rehabilitation and recidivism become

the community reality. Can these offenders be

successfully integrated into their communities?

Currently, we know that 60 percent or more will be

back in prison again within 5 years—after commit-

ting other serious crimes in the community.

New Castle County, Delaware: Locations of

Department of Correction Inmates Released in

Fourth Quarter, 1996, and Wilmington: Locations

of Department of Correction Inmates Released in

Fourth Quarter, 1996 (see exhibits 3 and 4), show

the relationship between the geographic dispersion

of offenders returning to their communities and the

location of important community rehabilitative ser-

vices that can be key to their becoming constructive

members of the community.

In the southern part of New Castle County, there

are significant clusters of former Department of

Correction inmates with few drug rehabilitation or

social services located nearby. This represents

reduced opportunities for rehabilitation.

In Wilmington, there appears to be a better associa-

tion between the location of social services facilities

and former inmates. The irony is, however, that the

services may not be well used by former inmates

despite the fact that they are located closer to them.

In part, this may reflect how difficult it is to place

offenders in services well matched to their needs.

Exhibit 2. Criminal History Patterns for Victims and Perpetrators of Wilmington Shooting Incidents

Percentage of Victims/Perpetrators

(with criminal histories)

Source: Delaware Statistical Analysis Center, January 1998

Type of Arrest

100

WeaponsViolent FeloniesDrugs

Perpetrators

Victims

Community Crime Analysis

➤

Exhibit 3. New Castle County, Delaware:

Locations of Department of Correction Inmates Released in Fourth Quarter, 1996

Inmate Address

Substance Abuse Treatment Center

Mental Health Services Center

Social Services Center

Department of Correction

Facility

John P. O’Connell

➤

Inmate Address

Substance Abuse Treatment Center

Mental Health Services Center

Social Services Center

Department of Correction Facility

Exhibit 4. Wilmington:

Locations of Department of Correction Inmates Released in Fourth Quarter, 1996

Community Crime Analysis

➤

Crime is Not an Isolated Event: Resi-

dents of High-Crime Communities

Do Not Always Victimize Themselves

Delaware has been fortunate in that the U.S. De-

partment of Justice (DOJ) Weed and Seed program

has provided it with long-term program evaluation

funds. In part, these funds have allowed Delaware

and the city of Wilmington to build a crime data-

base focusing on a “community at risk.” From this

database, new analyses are emerging that demon-

strate different dimensions of crime in our

communities.

An important finding from Delaware’s Weed and

Seed database is that at-risk communities are not

having difficulty just because of internal problems.

A significant portion of crime in Weed and Seed

neighborhoods is committed by perpetrators who

live outside the areas.

Journey to Crime: Weed and Seed Area Drug Ar-

rests (see exhibit 5) shows that 45 percent of the

persons arrested in Delaware’s Weed and Seed

neighborhoods for illicit drug sales and possession

reside outside of the neighborhoods. Twenty per-

cent of the arrestees live elsewhere in Wilmington,

16 percent live in suburban New Castle County

or other counties in Delaware, and 6.5 percent are

from other States (2.4 percent do not have a known

address).

Taking into account the amount of crime committed

by outsiders in at-risk neighborhoods creates a new

policy issue. How would quality of life in a neigh-

borhood improve if people from outside the area

were somehow dissuaded from coming into these

neighborhoods?

Crime is Not an Isolated Event:

The Association Between Crime

and Other Social Problems Needs

Greater Exploration

Wilmington Shooting Incidents and Poverty-Level,

Female-Headed Households With Children Under

18 (see exhibit 6) shows the association between

shooting incidents and households headed by poor

women in at-risk neighborhoods. The association

between crime and such social indicators takes on

stark reality when we see that many of our most

vulnerable families live close to where shootings

occur. Although there is an association between

social indicators and crime, the meaning of this

relationship is not well understood.

It is not uncommon to believe that low income,

unemployment, lack of education, and families

headed by single parents somehow result in crime.

Arrest and sentencing patterns would indicate that

this is true to some degree. However, will reducing

the prevalence of such social indicators alone be a

cure for crime? The fact that crime is more preva-

lent in our at-risk communities raises the possibility

of a feedback or “interaction” effect; that is, the

level of crime in at-risk neighborhoods is just as

likely to be related to the mere presence of crimi-

nals, because they provide social interaction and

examples that can influence those not involved in

criminal behavior.

Two Federal programs may provide an opportunity

to analyze community crime in a way that goes be-

yond merely counting, reporting, and emotionally

reacting to crime. The first, the Weed and Seed

strategy, addresses some of the issues raised in this

paper. First you control crime, then you build pro-

grams that strengthen the community and enable it

to resist crime—an approach that does more than

just arrest and incarcerate criminals.

The second program, which is smaller in scale than

the Weed and Seed program, is DOJ’s Safe Streets

initiative. This program also takes a comprehensive

social approach to crime in at-risk neighborhoods.

Not only is this initiative concerned with crime and

social programs, it includes education, employ-

ment, child abuse, and child development as vari-

ables to be addressed and studied in an interactive

manner.

Hindrances to Improving

Crime Analysis In Our

Communities

Bringing the Analysis to the

Local Level

For crime analysis to be effective in communities,

a significant change needs to take place. Today,

except for a few efforts around the country, most

John P. O’Connell

➤

Exhibit 5. Journey to Crime: Weed and Seed Area Drug Arrests

Community Crime Analysis

➤

Location of Shooting

Exhibit 6. Wilmington Shooting Incidents and Poverty-Level, Female-Headed

Households With Children Under 18

John P. O’Connell

➤

community crime analysis is limited to counting

crimes and reporting change. This level of knowl-

edge does not allow us to understand the cycle of

crime and the best ways to break it. Policymakers’

thinking is limited to believing that if crime is

going up, you put more police resources on the job;

if crime is going down, you declare success because

the upward trend has changed.

Local analysis that goes beyond crime counting

is recognized and embraced wherever it happens.

Each step in expanding our knowledge of commu-

nity crime sources and patterns will change our

policy and programmatic points of view on better

ways to address crime. The most striking example

of this is computer-aided mapping of crime in com-

munities. This single advancement of knowledge

about crime in a community is causing a paradigm

shift in how police recognize, deal with, and plan

for crime. New methods of policing will no doubt

change the way police and citizens interact.

In Wilmington, the methods described in this

paper have affected policy regarding crime in

communities. Community policing has a chance

of being institutionalized because a decade of com-

munity crime analysis has shown neighborhoods

with active community policing not only routinely

reduce crime, but the citizens report a better sense

of ownership and quality of life. Less crime in a

neighborhood also seems to be a precursor of

economic development.

Getting States and local communities to do this

level of crime analysis requires a change in how

criminal justice analysis and planning are viewed

at the State and local levels. First, a research unit

needs to have the authority to work with single or

multiple jurisdictions across the State. The products

of this State and local research unit need to be

described to tactical and strategic decisionmakers.

New knowledge is one of the ingredients of innova-

tion. Without verifiable knowledge about the nature

of crime, we will find ourselves falling back on the

convenient emotional responses of fear, denial, and

congratulations.

Lack of money and leadership to encourage the

development of State and local community crime

and policy analysis are the greatest limitations to

better understanding crime in our communities.

Joining Criminal Justice Databases

With Social Services Databases

DOJ’s Safe Streets initiative is one of the first

criminal justice initiatives that explicitly seeks to

examine crime in our communities from more than

just a criminal justice point of view. In this initia-

tive, DOJ is expanding community crime analysis

to include employment status, child abuse, and

educational success as crucial variables to better

understand crime in our communities.

Expanding criminal justice analysis beyond crimi-

nal justice statistics will help community criminal

justice analysts move in the same direction as other

Federal agencies that are studying harmful indica-

tors in our communities. For instance, the Centers

for Disease Control and Prevention has expanded

public health research into the areas of victims of

shootings and domestic violence, although tradi-

tionally these were solely in the criminal justice

bailiwick. An advantage of cross-fertilization of

criminal justice and noncriminal justice research

methods is that the study of harm in our communi-

ties would be expanded. We would be able not

only to understand crime from the criminal justice

point of view but also to expand our perceptions to

include the relationship of crime to family develop-

ment, education, addiction, and economics.

Combining the traditional criminal justice study

topics with the points of view of other disciplines,

while potentially fruitful, will mean at least two

technical changes. First, as we find the need to inte-

grate criminal justice and social services databases,

we will need to work through confidentiality re-

quirements. Second, optimal analysis would allow

us to commingle an individual’s data from various

disciplines. This will be problematic because all

data systems have difficulty in positively identify-

ing and tracking individuals. The problems of

individual identification will increase significantly

as we try to join databases.

➤

What Do We Do Next? Research

Questions and Implications for

Evaluation Design

Jan Roehl

Overview

Because the roots of crime, fear, and disorder in

communities are complex and intertwined, current

and future programs to address these problems tend

to encompass a variety of prevention and interven-

tion strategies under the auspices of many actors

and agencies. This paper advocates an emphasis on

rigorous process evaluations of these “kitchen sink”

programs, aimed at describing what has happened,

where it has happened, what the immediate results

are, and how others might best package these multi-

faceted approaches to effect positive community

change.

Community Crime Prevention

and Revitalization Efforts of

the Future

Today, programs to decrease crime and revitalize

communities tend to involve comprehensive and

coordinated efforts to control crime and drugs

and improve the quality of life. They combine the

“best” prevention and intervention approaches of

the past two decades with the recognition that the

causes and solutions of crime and community

problems are interconnected and are best addressed

on multiple fronts with extensive involvement

from many community institutions. Examples of

these “kitchen sink” programs—which at times

seem to include every strategy known—are the

U.S. Department of Justice’s Weed and Seed and

Comprehensive Communities programs, the Center

for Substance Abuse Prevention’s Community

Partnership Program, the Robert Wood Johnson

Foundation’s Fighting Back program, and many

comprehensive efforts launched locally (see, for

example, Clarke, 1992; Davis and Lurigio, 1996;

Green, 1996; National Crime Prevention Council,

1992; Roehl et al., 1995a; Weingart et al., 1993).

The main characteristics of these programs are part-

nerships among the community, police, city agen-

cies, the private sector, and others; problem solving

to address specific problems and problem places; an

emphasis on prevention; and efforts to increase com-

munity capacity building and citizen empowerment

for problem solving. The specific strategies applied

are many and varied, ranging from primary preven-

tion efforts targeted to young children to intense drug

enforcement efforts by the police. Some of these

programs, notably Weed and Seed, also encompass

macrostrategies such as economic development and

community health care. The “leader”—the sponsor,

catalyst, grant recipient, etc.—varies from city to city

and may be the police department, a community

organization, a nonprofit group, or a city agency.

These “kitchen sink” programs may include other

strategies popular today, such as place-based

research (Eck and Weisburd, 1995), community

policing efforts (Rosenbaum and Lurigio, 1994;

Goldstein, 1993), and school- and family-based

prevention programs (Sherman et al., 1997). Many

problem-solving and civil remedy strategies focus

on specific locations—in Weisburd’s (1997) view,

crime reduction might be more effective if it

focused on the criminal history of a place rather

than an individual.

Recent reports suggest that these types of

partnership-based, multifaceted programs will

continue to flourish. A recent monograph on inno-

vative State and local programs to revitalize com-

munities, for example, presents case studies of

24 current programs (Bureau of Justice Assistance,

1997). Of the 24 programs, about half are com-

What Do We Do Next? Research Questions and Implications for Evaluation Design

➤

munitywide partnerships with multiple strategies

underway; one-third are prevention/intervention

programs for youths (alternative schools, role

modeling, etc.); two programs are civil abatement

oriented; and three programs offer, respectively,

an offender work program, a domestic violence

program, and antigang efforts through a task force.

The common themes of these programs are part-

nerships, multiple intervention strategies at the

neighborhood level, prevention, problem solving

through nuisance abatement, interventions with

delinquents and offenders, and targeted law

enforcement.

In Sherman et al.’s (1997) report on “What Works,

What Doesn’t, and What’s Promising” in crime

prevention, the authors conclude that seven institu-

tions—communities, families, schools, labor

markets, places, police, and criminal justice—are

interdependent in affecting crime at the local level.

They promote the study of programs that invest

simultaneously in these multiple institutions, such as

the Weed and Seed program. While Sherman et al.

advocate more rigorous study of innovative programs

with adequate scientific controls for the careful study

of program effectiveness, they also suggest that more

support is needed to “learn why some innovations

work, exactly what was done, and how they can be

successfully adapted in other cities” (p. xii).

The key variable in designing evaluations for

“kitchen sink” programs is that the unit of analysis

is the community or neighborhood. For any form

of evaluation research, we need to usefully define

community; such a definition would go beyond out-

lining its physical characteristics and boundaries to

encompass the cultural, social, and political factors

that define community. The community as the unit

of analysis has far-reaching implications for evalua-

tion design.

Research Questions

The global research question for programs that aim

to decrease crime and revitalize communities is

whether they result in a safer, better community.

Measuring “safer” and “better,” of course, is the

challenging task. I suggest that the key questions

should be whether the communitywide programs

make a positive difference, at the neighborhood

level and over time, in:

● The quality of community life, measured by resi-

dents’ and businessowners’ satisfaction with their

neighborhood, fear of crime, level of problems

(e.g., drugs, incivilities, trash), and physical

character (e.g., vacant buildings).

● Crime and delinquency.

● The social character of the neighborhood (e.g.,

informal social control, empowerment of resi-

dents, and the organizational capacity of commu-

nity organizations).

● Economic vitality (e.g., unemployment, Aid to

Families With Dependent Children levels, need

for subsidized housing, property values).

● The stability of the neighborhood.

● Citizen satisfaction with the police, based on

principles of procedural justice (e.g., fairness,

trust, respect).

One of the problems faced by evaluators is the lack

of data easily available at the neighborhood level.

Existing indicators of change—for example, tru-

ancy or unemployment figures—are rarely available

for defined areas such as neighborhoods. Even with

the growing adoption of sophisticated mapping

capabilities, data on reported crime, calls for ser-

vice, etc., remain costly and difficult to get at the

neighborhood level.

Implications for Evaluation

Design

In a recent solicitation for evaluations of programs

funded under the 1994 Federal crime bill released

by the California State Office of Criminal Justice

Planning (OCJP), the proposal requirements in-

clude the following: “Proposals must demonstrate

a balance between rigorous research and evaluation

methodology and usefulness to customers, stake-

holders, and policymakers” (OCJP Request for

Proposals, December 5, 1997, p. 5).

This requirement implies that one cannot have

it both ways and extends the commonly held

belief that “rigorous” pertains only to impact

evaluations, not to process evaluations. I contend

that one can have it both ways, with rigorous

process evaluations producing a wealth of infor-

Jan Roehl

➤

mation useful to customers, stakeholders, and

policymakers. A rigorous process evaluation will

describe in detail, using multiple qualitative and

quantitative measures, program implementation,

daily operations, management, strategies and

services, actors and agencies involved, and

immediate outcomes.

To answer the multiple research questions sketched

out above is to ask the single, classic evaluation

question: What works where? My focus is first on

what and second on where, partly because others

will argue strongly for a focus on works and pro-

pose an emphasis on impact evaluations with ex-

perimental designs. But mostly my focus on what

and where stems from strong beliefs that process

evaluations are most needed to meet the goals of

usefulness and that the most rigorous impact evalu-

ations we can hope to implement with available

funds will always leave open questions of attribu-

tion, displacement, and measurement bias.

Recent crime reduction efforts serve as illustrations

of the need for process evaluation. In New York

City, dramatic decreases in reported crime have

been attributed by former Commissioner William

Bratton to police actions. These police actions, pri-

marily reported in the media, apparently included

“results-oriented management” and a focus on petty

crime and youth offenders. For the most part, how-

ever, we don’t know exactly what was done there,

and many are skeptical of reported crime outcomes

and/or that police action caused them. Until recent

journalistic accounts by Bratton (1998) and Kelling

and Coles (1996), no written documentation on the

strategies or their outcomes was available. Without

a process evaluation, details on what took place—

positive and negative—are scarce. Jurisdictions de-

siring to emulate the New York City model must

contract with Bratton’s new consulting firm to get

this assistance.

Community policing has been in full flower for

nearly a decade. There has been much debate about

what it entails, whether it is effective, how the com-

munity and others are involved, and how it is best

managed and operationalized. While there is gen-

eral acceptance that two dominant characteristics

of community policing are partnerships and prob-

lem solving (Bureau of Justice Assistance, 1994;

Roberg, 1994), we are still arguing about what it is

and what it is not. Only a handful of studies address

what community police officers “do” while they

are doing community policing (e.g., Wycoff and

Oettmeier, 1994; Capowich and Roehl, 1994;

Mastrofski et al., 1998).

A final, positive example of the need for process

evaluation is the Weed and Seed program. The

Weed and Seed program was launched in 1992

with funding to 19 cities to implement the multi-

faceted programs focused on weeding (intensive

arrest and prosecution), community policing, and

seeding (prevention, intervention, and treatment

and neighborhood revitalization). Today, as many

as 120 cities have been funded or officially recog-

nized as Weed and Seed sites. Yet the national im-

pact evaluation is just reaching completion today,

as scheduled, nearly 6 years after the start of the

program. The belief in the value of the Weed and

Seed approach may be partially attributed to the

findings of the national process evaluation, which

produced both an interim report (Institute for

Social Analysis, 1993) and summary, cross-site,

and case study final reports (Roehl et al., 1995b,

1996).

What We Do Next:

Rigorous Process Evaluation

Process evaluation (also known as implementation

evaluation and program monitoring) has always

been considered an integral part of comprehensive

program evaluation. It is clear that such studies “are

essential to understanding and interpreting impact

findings. Knowing what took place is required in

order to explain or hypothesize why a program

did or did not work” (Rossi and Freeman, 1993).

In short, it is useless to know whether something

works or not if you do not know what that

something is. Process evaluations also serve to

strengthen impact results concerning theory versus

program failure: If no or negative impact was

observed, was it due to a wrongheaded program

theory or to weak implementation?

Process evaluation can also serve independently as

program assessment, providing information regard-

ing its form, scope, and value to practitioners and to

policymakers considering adoption and/or expansion

of the program. A broad view of process evaluation

is needed in which comprehensive process evalua-

What Do We Do Next? Research Questions and Implications for Evaluation Design

100

➤

tions include rigorous, unbiased measurement and

the assessment of immediate and short-term out-

comes. Process evaluations need to include baseline

measures, prepare for future impact assessments, and

fully understand the program or policy being imple-

mented. The line between process and impact evalu-

ation should be blurred. Comprehensive evaluations

should include multiple measurements over time—

before, during, and after the major program interven-

tions are in place—to tap community perceptions

and neighborhood changes. In essence, comprehen-

sive process evaluations should be pre/during/post

studies with rigorous, multiple assessments in one

site, with no control or comparison group. They

should begin when the program is merely a gleam

in an agency’s eye.

It would be foolhardy to suggest that rigorous im-

pact evaluations are not needed, but given “kitchen

sink” programs with the community as the unit of

analysis, impact results will always be disputed.

No matter how rigorous the design—with matched

comparison neighborhoods, surveys in all experi-

mental and comparison neighborhoods with

randomly selected respondents, crime mapping,

etc.—there will always be questions of attribution.

Even if random assignment of programs to commu-

nities could be achieved (a tall order), matches

between communities will never be perfect, and

impact methods provide few ways to determine

which facets of these multifaceted interventions

can be linked to specific outcomes.

With crime mapping, researchers are beginning

to hone in on displacement, even in place-based

research. Yet I argue that displacement is more a

mark of success than failure, and spending pre-

cious research dollars on its measurement may be

unwarranted in some situations. In the simplest

example, in recent years many problem-solving

efforts within urban communities have focused on

eliminating crack houses. Process evaluation will

indicate how the crack house problem was tackled,

whether the crack house remains active or not, and

whether the community partnership and capacity-

building efforts are enough to keep the problem

at bay. If the crack house is gone, the problem-

solving activities can move on to the next crack

house or neighborhood.

Process evaluations, however, do need to be more

useful and rigorous than many currently are. Rigor-

ous process evaluation methods should include:

1. New, improved, and cost-effective methods to

tap community perceptions. Community surveys,

whether by phone or in person, are increasingly

difficult to implement, particularly in high-crime,

distrustful communities. Yet the community’s

perceptions are critical, and the following should

be considered:

a. The use of computerized telephone systems

for quick, frequent surveying. Oakland,

California, for example, has installed a new

system to automatically send messages to

households; other cities have similar systems

for the relaying of neighborhood watch mes-

sages. Oakland’s system can be used for com-

puterized surveying, with residents responding

to multiple choice items with touchtone

phones.

b. The use of small group methods, such as key

informant surveys, community leader inter-

views, and focus and discussion groups. Addi-

tional research is needed on the relative cost,

value, and results of such techniques compared

with traditional community survey methods.

2. Unobtrusive measures. Most of our traditional

measures—surveys, focus groups, calls for ser-

vice, reported crime, etc.—are subject to errors

of measurement, reactivity, and bias. We need

to develop and test innovative measures for

assessing changes in crime, drug problems,

and neighborhoods.

One form of unobtrusive measures currently in

use in community-based and place-based re-

search (Mazerolle et al., in press; Taylor, 1997)

is the objective observation and measurement

of social and physical changes in the neighbor-

hood, including the licit or illicit use of public

places, graffiti, trash, and level of parapherna-

lia. These measures are worthy of further use

and study. Additional unobtrusive measures to

consider include hair analysis through anony-

mous collection by barber shops and beauty

salons to assess community drug use over time

and the use of traditional attitude measurement

devices such as the lost letter technique.

Jan Roehl

101

➤

3. The routine collection of process data in a stan-

dard manner in cross-site process evaluations.

Within a strong case study design with multiple

measures over time, numerous methods of data

collection should be used, including stakeholder

interviews, collection of program documents, in-

terviews with residents and businessowners, ob-

servation of program events, collection of routine

process data (level of services, numbers of target

groups reached, etc.), and collection of routine

impact data on immediate outcomes (see below).

4. Immediate and short-term outcome assessments.

These outcomes—for example, the closing of

a crack house—may be considered process or

impact measures, but I argue firmly that they

belong in rigorous process evaluations. They

serve to assess program coverage and the poten-

tial for longer term impact. In the Weed and Seed

program, for example, the process evaluation

reported the number of arrests in the program’s

first year and the status of their prosecution—

necessary immediate outcomes before the suc-

cessful impact of weeding can reasonably be

expected—and the funding, types, and levels of

seeding activities—necessary to know before the

impact of seeding can be judged.

5. Timely reporting of process results. Swift report-

ing of process information, preferably on an in-

terim basis accompanied by review and comment

by program staff and policymakers, is needed.

The Federal Role

Federal agencies, particularly those within the

Office of Justice Programs, have been very support-

ive of evaluation research in the past decade. As

any researcher is likely to do, I advocate increased

funding for evaluation, particularly increased

support for process evaluations. The tendency over

the past decade has been toward rigorous impact-

oriented experimental designs—applying the

designs of the laboratory to field research—which,

as I have argued in this paper, are not easily applied

to community research, nor do they guard against

ongoing questions about “kitchen sink” programs

and their effects.

In addition to funds, the Federal Government has

much to offer in developing evaluation methods

and measures and providing technical assistance to

communities in evaluation research. For national,

multisite programs such as Weed and Seed and

Comprehensive Communities, I suggest that a

national evaluation model be implemented. Under

this model, coordinated Federal support would be

provided to national and local evaluators. The local

evaluations would be given substantial onsite re-

search support for data collection, and they would

be conducted under the guidance of a national evalu-

ator and advisory board. The national evaluator

would develop common instruments and procedures;

validate local data collection; provide assistance in

evaluation methods and local customization; and

complete cross-site data collection, analysis, and

reporting. Such a national evaluation model leads

to routine, standard data collection and improved

cross-site comparisons for both process and impact

evaluations as well as enabling local sites to get the

information they need.

Finally, useful evaluation research must be pro-

duced and disseminated in a timely manner. Process

results can guide local programs in fine-tuning and

redirecting their efforts and provide information to

policymakers concerning expansion, replication,

and support. The Federal Government can assist

this process by supporting rapid dissemination

through electronic and print media.

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Appendix A

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Appendix A

Author Biographies

Alfred Blumstein, Ph.D., is J. Erik Jonsson Uni-

versity Professor of Urban Systems and Operations

Research with the H. John Heinz III School of

Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon

University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Roger L. Conner is Executive Director of the

Center for the Community Interest, which has

offices in Washington, D.C., and New York,

New York.

Terence Dunworth, Ph.D., is Managing Vice

President of Abt Associates Inc. in Cambridge,

Massachusetts.

Amitai Etzioni is the first University Professor of

The George Washington University and is the editor

of The Responsive Community: Rights and Respon-

sibilities, a communitarian quarterly.

Jack R. Greene is Director of the Center for

Public Policy at Temple University in Philadelphia,

Pennsylvania.

David Kennedy is Professor at the John F.

Kennedy School of Government at Harvard

University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

John P. O’Connell is the Director of the Delaware

Statistical Analysis Center in Dover.

Deborah Prothrow-Stith, M.D., is Associate Dean

of Faculty Development and Professor of Public

Health Practice, Harvard School of Public Health,

Harvard University, in Boston, Massachusetts.

Jan Roehl, Ph.D., is President of the Justice

Research Center in Pacific Grove, California.

Lawrence W. Sherman, Ph.D., is Professor and

Chair of the Department of Criminology and

Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland in

College Park.

Bailus Walker, Jr., Ph.D., M.Ph., FACE, is

Director of the Health Policy Program with the

Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and

is Professor of Environmental and Occupational

Medicine at Howard University Medical Center,

both in Washington, D.C.

Cicero Wilson is a former Senior Research

Associate with the Institute for Families in Society

at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.

He now resides in Atlanta, Georgia.

Robert L. Woodson, Sr., is President of the

National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise in

Washington, D.C.

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

810 Seventh Street N.W.

Washington, DC 20531

Janet Reno

Attorney General

Raymond C. Fisher

Associate Attorney General

Laurie Robinson

Assistant Attorney General

Noël Brennan

Deputy Assistant Attorney General

Jeremy Travis

Director, National Institute of Justice

Stephen Rickman

Director, Executive Office for Weed and Seed

Office of Justice Programs National Institute of Justice

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