The surge in violent crime is overblown — but here’s how to combat it
The FBI’s Unified Crime Reporting Program is widely considered to be the final word on national crime trends. In its annual report released this week, the agency reported 15,696 homicides for 2015, an 11 percent rise from the previous year. Murder spiked most in large cities, with the majority of those jurisdictions experiencing increases.
After years of declining rates, homicide have now increased in both 2014 and 2015, erasing six years of progress and taking the nation back to 2009 levels.
Given that these numbers arrive at a moment of extraordinary tension, confusion, and division in the nation’s ongoing criminal justice debate, it’s essential to place this new data in context. Despite the increase, there simply is no national crime wave, as certain candidates and commentators might have you believe. Property offenses and overall crime declined last year, and 2009 was still 37 percent less deadly than 1991, when the nation’s homicide rate was at its peak. This year’s escalation in violence is cause for real concern, but not panic.
We know a lot more about violence now than we did in 1991, when fear of "superpredators" — the misguided notion that a generation of hyperviolent youth might sweep the nation — drove support for tough-on-crime policies. Twenty-five years later, a key criminological insight is that crime tends to concentrate more tightly than previously understood — concentrate, that is, among a relatively small number of places, people, and behaviors.
In most cities across the nation, 3 to 5 percent of city blocks account for 50 to 75 percent of all shootings and killings, with 1 percent of a city’s population responsible for 50 to 60 percent of all homicides. Carrying guns, associating with gangs, and abusing alcohol are all closely linked to violence.
The key to reducing violent crime is targeted enforcement
It follows that policies targeting these clusters tend to outperform those that don’t. (Gun buyback programs, for instance, where the government purchases firearms from the public, have proven ineffective because the guns recovered are unlikely to be the ones actually used to commit crimes.)
In policing, strategies that focus on the riskiest places and people get results; in prevention, giving high-risk youth more time and attention pays off. In rehabilitation, investing in those most likely to reoffend (as opposed to the least) when they leave jail or prison works best. Across the board, it seems the more selective we are in how we fight crime and violence, the better we do.
Here are some examples: In Philadelphia, officers were sent to crime "hot spots," provided with timely intelligence on repeat violent offenders in the area. The strategy worked, reducing violent crime by 42 percent. Hot spot policing has been subject to rigorous testing, demonstrating that concentrating police efforts can reduce violence by as much as half.
In Oakland, California, an alliance of civic, community, and criminal justice leaders reduced shootings by 40 percent using a model known as "Ceasefire," based on the principle of focused deterrence. Prioritizing those with a history of violence, the group engaged them with a simple message that balanced compassion with compulsion: "The killing must end now. If you let us, we will help you. If you make us, we will stop you." Those willing to change were provided services and support. Those who were not were monitored and, if necessary, confronted via coordinated law enforcement action.
In a review of 10 studies, focused deterrence reduced crime and violence nine times, with homicide reductions ranging from 34 percent to 63 percent.
Mentoring and cognitive therapy for at-risk populations
In Chicago, Becoming a Man uses mentoring, role-playing, and group exercises to help at-risk teenage boys manage difficult thoughts and emotions and think ahead to their future. By pairing at-risk youth with mentors to help them navigate challenges at work, the One Summer Plus jobs program does much the same thing. By teaching kids how to avoid or mitigate everyday conflicts, both programs reduced violent crime arrests among participants by 50 percent and 43 percent, respectively.
Strategies using cognitive behavioral therapy, which build mental skills to handle everyday challenges, typically lower reoffending by 25 to 50 percent. Family-based therapy and counseling can also help parents keep at-risk children safe, healthy, and on the right path.
In addition to selectivity, another key to reducing violence is legitimacy. While some blame rising violence on the so-called Ferguson effect and cops "going fetal," a stronger explanation lies in the links between violence, policing, and communities. When people see the police as unwilling or unable to help them, they are more likely to take the law into their own hands and less likely to provide information to law enforcement, testify in court, or serve as jurors.
This phenomenon, which some scholars call "legal cynicism," creates a vicious cycle where aggressive police conduct creates distrust, and distrust leads to violence and noncooperation, which contributes to more aggressive police behavior. In a recently released study, researchers found that in Milwaukee, community residents called 911 much less frequently after the highly publicized police beating of an unarmed black man.
In city after city where unrest follows a controversial and often unlawful use of police force, crime but particularly violence has shot up, and legal cynicism helps explain why.
The public will cooperate with police when they see fairness
How do we break the cycle? In Los Angeles, the Community Safety Partnership (CSP) has begun to heal old wounds in Watts, site of the infamous 1965 riots. CSP has two goals: avoiding unnecessary arrests and building public trust in order to promote public safety. CSP officers spend the majority of their time serving the community – participating in community meetings, sponsoring after-school events, even coaching youth football. This may not seem like typical police work, but it pays dividends when it becomes necessary to deescalate gang conflicts.
Community members, gang intervention workers, and the police work together to control rumors, separate parties, and resolve the underlying dispute. Housing projects in Watts that used to suffer several homicides a year are now nearly murder-free.
Another promising approach is working to improve procedural justice, a strategy that featured prominently in the Task Force on 21st Century Policing’s Final Report to President Obama. By creating fair and transparent processes, where individuals are treated with respect and given an opportunity to be heard, legitimacy can be rebuilt, step by step. Research demonstrates that when police officers are trained to treat people with dignity, listen to them, and offer explanations when needed, confidence in the process increases, as does compliance with the law. The Justice Department is working with a number of cities to institutionalize procedural fairness, reduce bias, and promote racial reconciliation, but it is still too soon to see concrete results.
Specificity and legitimacy reinforce one another, in that highly selective strategies recognize that even in the most dangerous neighborhoods, the vast majority of places and people are not violent. The community and its members are to be protected, not persecuted. When police and communities come together, they are many and the violent are few, creating an atmosphere where peace feels achievable.
What about the guns? There is consensus among scientists that reasonable restrictions on firearms would lead to less violence, but given the political impasse in Congress and the massive number of firearms already available, it might take years before such laws are in place and making an impact. Some believe addressing root causes like poverty, inequality, and racism can reduce violence. Maybe so, but as with gun control, meaningful progress might take generations to achieve.
Interestingly, a few years ago, a series of landmark studies found that high rates of violent crime impeded upward mobility. People who grew up in violent neighborhoods were less upwardly mobile than people who lived in equally poor but less violent neighborhoods. Exposure to violence perpetuates poverty by limiting the life chances of poor children. This body of work suggests that reducing violence may actually be key to progress on a range of socioeconomic outcomes.
This makes it even more heartbreaking that policies proven to save lives remain overlooked and undersupported. In addition to those who perish, surviving victims lose thousands on medical expenses, counseling, and lost income. Communities pay millions in higher taxes, higher health care and insurance premiums, lower property values, and diminished commercial investment.
Why aren’t these policies better known and more widely funded? One reason may be that we, the general public, simply do not care enough to make it happen. Young men of color are the nation’s No. 1 crime victims. Latino youth are killed at more than twice the rate of whites, and for African-American young men and boys, homicide is the leading cause of death, accounting for more deaths than the nine other top causes combined. If white youth suffered as brown and black youth do, it’s reasonable to assume that more pressure would be brought to bear and more progress made.
Another challenge: While we now know a good deal about how to control crime and violence, that knowledge is not easily accessed or managed. As Atul Gawande observed in The Checklist Manifesto, many failures in the modern world come not from ignorance but from our inability to apply what we know consistently and correctly.
If I were to create a checklist for promoting peace and reducing violence, it would read as follows: 1) identify the violence clusters in every city suffering from high rates of homicide; 2) in each city, share this information with civic, community, and criminal justice stakeholders, using procedural justice to build a common understanding of the challenge; 3) select a balanced set of strategies to prevent and control violence where it concentrates most; and 4) implement those strategies carefully and thoroughly, frequently monitoring progress.
Putting this checklist into practice in the most dangerous cities could cost less than you think. Recently, mayors from major cities urged Congress to provide $103 million in grants to address the opioid crisis. A similarly sized outlay, minuscule by federal standards, could be enough to end the current homicide spike. Recall that not every city suffers from high rates of violence, and within those cities violence is concentrated. We may lack the resources to fight violence everywhere, but if we choose selectively and act legitimately, we can win where it matters most.
But money only goes so far. If we’re going to make a real difference, we’ll need to challenge the orthodoxy on all sides and embrace our collective responsibility to address this ongoing tragedy. Fear and anger must give way to hope and empathy. High rates of violence among of the disadvantaged and vulnerable are an insult to the patriotism of all Americans. Let’s act now.
Thomas Abt served as deputy secretary for public safety for the state of New York and chief of staff to the Office of Justice Programs at the US Department of Justice, and is currently a senior research fellow with the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
The Big Idea is Vox’s home for smart, scholarly excursions into the most important issues and ideas in politics, science, and culture — often written by outside contributors. If you have an idea for a piece, pitch us at thebigidea@vox.com.
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