Fall 2000

Against a backdrop of promising news about falling crime and violence rates nationwide, the third Urban Seminar Series brought together experts to discuss "Youth Violence in Urban Communities" at Harvard University in May 2000. The Urban Seminar Series, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and led by Dr. William Julius Wilson of Harvard, brings together some of the best researchers and practitioners working in child health and development to discuss papers on issues related to the Urban Health Initiative.

The following are summaries of some of the papers presented:

The Boston Gun Project: Impact Evaluation Findings and Problem-Oriented Policing, Deterrence, and Youth Violence: An Evaluation of Boston's Operation Ceasefire

Anthony Braga discussed the Boston Gun Project, which began in 1995, as a problem-oriented policing strategy aimed at taking on a serious, large-scale crime problem: homicide victimization among young people in Boston. The intervention chosen to combat the crime problem was known as "Operation Ceasefire". Operation Ceasefire had two components deemed critical to it's reported success: 1) "a direct law-enforcement attack on illicit firearms" trafficked illegally to supply youth with guns; and 2) the "pulling levers" strategy, which attempted to "generate a strong deterrent to gang violence…by reaching out directly to gangs, saying explicitly that violence would no longer be tolerated, and backing that message by 'pulling every lever' legally available when violence occurred."

Ceasefire was at its height in 1996 and 1997 when Boston witnessed a dramatic drop in youth homicide. What seems a plausible correlation - that the implementation of Ceasefire was responsible for the drop in youth homicides - was tempered by the fact that cities around the country were also witnessing remarkable reductions in youth homicide. Taking this into account, the study analyzed whether Ceasefire's relative success "was part of secular national youth homicide trends" and whether "any program impact in Boston was larger than, or distinct from, any other deliberate interventions implemented during the same time period."

An initial simple analysis suggested "that Operation Ceasefire was associated with a large reduction in youth homicides in Boston." Additional, more rigorous analysis determined that Ceasefire was indeed "associated with a statistically significant decrease in the monthly number of youth homicides."

Subsequent research showed that Boston was alone in experiencing a significant reduction in the monthly count of youth homicides in that given time period. Social science modeling found this to be highly unlikely however, and while the authors still contend that there was "something distinct" happening in Boston during the period coinciding with the duration of Operation Ceasefire, they hesitate to fully attribute the violence reduction in Boston "to any particular operational intervention."

Thus, while something did indeed happen in Boston, the authors could not determine what exactly happened. Various explanations were given (and refuted) to counter the theory that Operation Ceasefire was related to the decrease in youth violence: a change in demographics resulting in a shift in the youth population (Boston did not lose their youth population); a decline in drug activity (overall drug arrests were stabilized between 1992-97); an end to gangs (gangs are still a part of Boston street life); implementation of federal interventions (federal intervention was not a new occurrence); local public health initiatives (subsequent evaluations have not found these to have a strong impact on violence); and other local initiatives (activities from such date back to 1992 and no correlating violence reduction was directly attributable).

What the authors do state with confidence, is that the Boston Gun Project's "pulling levers" strategy was a remarkable deterrent. By controlling violence, "by focusing on particular groups that were behaving violently, subjecting them to a range of discretionary criminal justice system action, and directly communicating cause-and-effect to a very specific target audience" it appears that the "pulling levers" strategy was related to the reduction in youth homicides in Boston. Unfortunately, appropriate pre- and post-test data was not collected, thereby preventing the study authors from evaluating whether or not the "pulling levers" strategy was responsible for the dynamic change in violence statistics recorded in the city. The authors caution that Operation Ceasefire was customized to the uniqueness of Boston's youth violence problem, and as such, "is unlikely to be a highly specifiable, transportable 'technology.'"

Factors Contributing to the Ups and Downs of Youth Violence

Alfred Blumstein shows that the rise in murders by young people during the mid 1980s to early 1990s was largely attributable to guns in the hands of kids. Blumstein explains that the illegal drug market had changed. Relatively low-cost crack replaced more expensive cocaine as the street drug of choice in the mid-1980s. Lower prices meant more demand. To meet the demand drug sellers recruited more young people into the business - they are cheaper, more daring and less vulnerable to punishment by the criminal justice system.

The more recent decline in youth violence is more complex and involves a number of things. By 1992, crack sales began to fall off, meaning fewer kids with guns in the drug market. Other important factors, says Blumstein, are efforts by both police and community groups to separate kids from guns. Stop-and-frisk efforts, background checks for gun purchases, and crime-gun tracing have contributed to restrictions in illicit gun trafficking. To a lesser extent, increased incarceration is an explanation for the decrease in homicide rate by older youth and, to an even smaller degree, teenagers. And, the strong economy provided an alternative to the drug industry.

"These observations emphasize the importance of efforts to prevent violence by finding ways to socialize the young and train them with the skills necessary to function in a rapidly evolving economy," Blumstein writes. "We cannot be certain when the next increase in violence will occur, but the current decline cannot continue indefinitely, and we should take advantage of the current opportunity to fashion criminal justice and community-based policies to forestall the next increase as long as possible."

Social Contagion of Youth Homicide in New York

Jeffrey Fagan and coauthors interpret the gun violence trends in New York City as an epidemic and argues that the factors leading to its spread are not exogenous factors such as would be the case in an outbreak of food poisoning due to contaminated food - the illness is not contagious. Rather, gun violence may be effectively passed from one person to another through some process of contact or interaction. In short, "Gun homicides are contagious, non-gun homicides are not," Fagan writes.

Fagan uses a social contagion model, which "involves the mutual influence of individuals within social networks who turn to each other for cues and behavioral tools that reflect the contingencies of specific situations."

The social isolation found in neighborhoods with a disproportionate concentration of the most disadvantaged segments of the urban population increases susceptibility to the gun violence epidemic. "Violence and homicide are more likely to occur in an ecological context of weak social control, poorly supervised adolescent networks, widespread perceptions of danger and the demand for lethal weapons, and the attenuation of outlets to resolve disputes without violence," he writes.

This "ecology of danger" lowers resistance, increases susceptibility and makes the transmission of the contagion of violence possible, but then how does it spread from person to person?

First there is fear - youth assume their peers are, or could easily be, armed and willing to use guns at the least provocation. Second, guns are symbols of power and status and means of gaining status, domination or material goods.

Third is the contagion of violent and "tough" identities. "Those unwilling to adopt at least some dimensions of this identity are vulnerable to physical attack," says Fagan. "Accordingly, violent identities are not simply affective styles and social choices, but strategic necessities to navigate through everyday dangers."

Fagan emphasizes the role of guns as agents in the transmission of violence norms in the epidemic. "Because the recent epidemic cycle of violence was in reality a gun homicide epidemic, the case for gun-oriented policing strategies is much stronger than practices based on the more diffuse and unsupported theory of disorder control and order-maintenance strategies," he says.

The California Wellness Foundation's Violence Prevention Initiative: Findings from the Evaluation of the First Five Years

Peter W. Greenwood and coauthors present findings from the evaluation of the first five years of the California Wellness Foundation's Violence Prevention Initiative (VPI). The VPI is an ambitious ($35 million for the first five years) attempt to apply a public health model to youth violence prevention by combining policy and media advocacy, community action, individual leadership and evaluation.

The report concludes that it is difficult to definitively say that VPI has reduced youth violence in California. Although violence has gone down in target areas, it also has gone down elsewhere. In some instances, it's still too early to gauge the impact of the effort.

There are links, however, between the various activities of the VPI and changes in legislation, in the information available about violence and in personal behavior and attitudes that are consistent with violence reduction. For example, one of the public-education campaigns, Campaign to Prevent Handgun Violence Against Kids, appears to have been pivotal in the movement to pass local gun control ordinances within California.