How one of America's most dangerous cities reduced gun violence

Misinformation and misunderstanding about the law can lead youth to have accelerating confrontations with the police. Cleveland’s Patrick Henry School offers Juvenile Justice Jeopardy, a game that orients middle school kids to the facts about criminal justice. The game enables youth to internalize the information through an enjoyable format.

To decrease the amount of gun-related fatalities, cities are focusing on joint efforts with their communities and police departments to target those most at risk for shooting or being shot on the streets. Known nationally as Ceasefire, this initiative aims to identify the individuals from this selected target group - and open a dialogue about their options and the consequences of gun-related retaliation. Nationally, the program has had some trouble sustaining when the cities rely too much on the police department, but when it works, shooting have decreased dramatically.

A law-enforcement strategy known as the "focused deterrence" approach involves identifying people most at risk to commit or to be victimized by crime — often the same individuals — and hosts meetings where they are offered resources to break the cycle, or, face serious legal consequences. The approach has worked so well in places like Kansas City, Boston, and High Point, that Milwaukee is looking at how to replicate the results.

New York Police Department has Operation Ceasefire, in which a mother whose child was a victim of gun violence calls gang members at risk of perpetuating similar crimes. The effort aims to bridge the divide between ethnic minority communities and the police with community pressure on behalf of the police.

In poor, crime-infected neighborhood with limited opportunities, where interactions with law enforcement are often toxic and punitive, and distrust on both sides is rampant. An integrated strategy is at the core of the model that can change this:"Operation Ceasefire," a form of targeted deterrence. The carrot-stick approach is carefully designed to reach men believed to be on the cusp of committing gun violence, let them know the consequences and help them fulfill their needs, thus finding a way to maybe change their trajectory into something more positive.

In Canton's most dangerous neighbourhoods, Bruce Lawver (Chief of Police) has reduced crime and violence through community policing. Communication within the department and with neighbourhood residents, greater police presence, and new technology methods have made policing in these areas more helpful than punitive and helped make these areas safer.

What if a computer program could tell you who was at risk for shooting someone or being shot themselves? This is now a reality for Chicago Police Department. By piloting the use of this technology, and assembly a cohort of cops, social workers, ministers and moms to visit the names of those the computer names, the city has seen a decrease in violence over the last year.

The increase of violence between the police and Black communities across the country requires a reconstruction of the relationship that addresses empathy, trust, and crime reduction. The Department of Justice has developed test programs in different cities that train police officers in procedural justice. The early results of this program in Stockton, CA show that communities and police have built trust and law legitimacy, while the crime rate has not increased.

Chicago suffers from violence and tension between police officers and low-income predominantly Black communities. In 2011, the chief of police consulted with a network of university academics and began implementing “procedural justice,” which was an approach that trained police departments to surmount the lack of confidence that residents felt towards officers. The academics and police chief found that by directing social workers to the homes of at-risk community members, and regarding them with respect, there was a reduction in violence—but now the program has stalled.

More-rigorous police training, changing the way officers interact with residents, and requiring more education for cops has helped limit police shootings in Germany, Britain, Canada, and other nations. Their approaches may serve as a model the United States, which grapples with a number of police shootings that vastly and exponentially outnumber that of other industrialized countries.