Firearms and Violence A Critical Review (2005) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
9 Criminal Justice Interventions to Reduce Firearm-Related Violence
9 Criminal Justice Interventions to Reduce Firearm-Related Violence
Pages 221-241
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 221... ...
Gun courts operate differently across jurisdictions but typically feature small caseloads, frequent hearings, immediate sanctions, family involvement, and treatment services. Little research has been conducted on the operations and crime prevention effectiveness of gun courts.
|
From page 222... ...
Probation officers and transition aides provide intensive follow-up supervision, and parental involvement is required throughout the adjudication process. An evaluation of the Birmingham juvenile gun court compared the case processing records and recidivism rates for three groups of juvenile gun offenders: a group of Birmingham juveniles with limited prior offenses who participated in the gun court's core components, a group of Birmingham juveniles with prior offenses who received short juvenile correction commitments and did not receive after-care monitoring, and a comparison group of juveniles from a nearby city who did not participate in a gun court program (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2002)
|
From page 223... ...
used interrupted-time-series analyses to evaluate the effects of Arizona's 1974 firearms sentencing enhancement law. They found highly significant reductions in firearm-related robberies in Pima and Maricopa counties and no significant firearm-related robbery reductions in five southwestern cities outside Arizona that did not pass similar laws during the study time period used as controls.
|
From page 224... ...
Loftin and McDowall (1981) evaluated the crime control effects of the Michigan firearms law, again using time-series analysis, and found no significant reductions in armed robbery or firearm-related assaults in Detroit.
|
From page 225... ...
At the heart of Project Exile, all Richmond felon-in-possession cases are prosecuted in federal courts, with the defendants facing a mandatory five-year prison sentence if convicted. Project Exile also includes training for local law enforcement on federal statutes and search and seizure procedures, a public relations campaign to increase community involvement in fighting firearm-related crime, and a massive advertising campaign intended to send the message of zero tolerance for gun crime and to inform potential offenders of the swift and certain federal sentence (Raphael and Ludwig, 2003)
|
From page 226... ...
also speculates that Project Exile did not focus sufficiently on the most dangerous offenders associated with the bulk of firearm-related crime in Richmond. Mandatory Penalties for Unlawful Carrying of Guns Mandatory sentencing laws, which require a mandatory penalty for unlicensed or otherwise unlawful carrying of a firearm, seek to reduce gun use in unpremeditated crimes by deterring the casual carrying of firearms in public places.
|
From page 227... ...
In an analysis of yearly issuances of firearms identification cards and licenses to carry firearms between 1970 and 1975, Beha reported that the high degree of publicity attendant on the amendment's passage, some of which was inaccurate, increased citizen compliance with existing legal stipulations surrounding firearm acquisition and possession, some of which were not in fact addressed by the amendment. Using simple before-after analyses of percentage changes in reported crime rates between 1970 and early 1977, Beha notes that the law did not seem to affect armed robbery but produced definite reductions in firearm-related assaults and firearm-related assault-homicides.
|
From page 228... ...
also found that, while a smaller fraction of gun-carrying defendants were convicted of felony gun-carrying, the fraction that received prison sentences did increase. These shifts in case processing and the discretionary actions of criminal justice practitioners in Massachusetts are common responses to the adoption of mandatory sentences (see, e.g., Alschuler, 1978)
|
From page 229... ...
. However, the available research evidence on the deterrent effects of firearms sentencing enhancements on firearm-related crime is mixed, with city-level studies suggesting reductions in firearm-related homicides and possibly other types of firearm-related crime in urban settings (McDowall et al., 1992)
|
From page 230... ...
While this section categorizes these types of police interventions by whether they are primarily focused on places or offenders, in practice these firearm-related crime prevention strategies overlap. For example, when the police are deployed to prevent gun violence in particular places, they often focus their attention on controlling the illegal gun behaviors of particular individuals in that location.
|
From page 231... ...
Kansas City Gun Project The Kansas City Gun Project examined the gun violence prevention effects of proactive patrol and intensive enforcement of firearms laws via safety frisks during traffic stops, plain view searches and seizures, and searches incident to arrests on other charges (Sherman and Rogan, 1995)
|
From page 232... ...
The evaluation revealed that there were statistically significant decreases in firearm-related crime, homicide, aggravated assault with a firearm, and armed robbery in the north district. No statistically significant changes in firearm-related crime were noted in the east district.
|
From page 233... ...
maintained a special Street Crime Unit that targeted firearm-related violence hot spots and aggressively sought out sources of illegal firearms (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1999)
|
From page 234... ...
Will hot-spot policing have long-term deterrent effects on gun violence? To what extent will there be geographic substitution of violence?
|
From page 235... ...
Many serious urban crime problems, for example gang violence, are driven by groups of these criminally active individuals. Focusing criminal justice attention on a small number of high-risk offenders may be a promising way to control gun violence.
|
From page 236... ...
Boston Gun Project and Operation Ceasefire The Boston Gun Project was a problem-oriented policing enterprise expressly aimed at taking on a serious, large-scale crime problem -- homicide victimization among young people in Boston. Like many large cities in the United States, Boston experienced a large, sudden increase in youth homicide between the late 1980s and early 1990s.
|
From page 237... ...
Because much of the youth violence epidemic in the 1990s involved firearms and because the Boston Gun Project is cited as a highly effective way to reduce youth firearmrelated violence, we devote attention to it in this report. The project has been extensively described and documented (Kennedy et al., 1996; Kennedy et al., 1997; Kennedy, 1997)
|
From page 238... ...
(2001a, 2001b) found that the Operation Ceasefire intervention was associated with a 63 percent decrease in monthly number of Boston youth homicides, a 32 percent decrease in monthly number of shots-fired calls, a 25 percent decrease in the monthly number of firearm-related assaults, and, in one high-risk police district given special attention in the evaluation, a 44 percent decrease in monthly number of youth firearm-related assault incidents.
|
From page 239... ...
Still, the primary evaluation does allow one to make direct links between key components of the intervention and the subsequent behavior of individuals subjected to the intervention. Many complex factors affect the trajectory of youth violence problems, and, while the there is a strong association between the youth homicide drop and the implementation of Operation Ceasefire, it is very difficult to specify the exact role it played in the reduction of youth homicide in Boston.
|
From page 240... ...
in tailoring the approach to fit their violence problems and operating environments. Although specific tactics sometimes varied across the cities, these programs implemented the basic elements of the original Boston strategy, including the pulling-levers focused deterrence strategy, designed to prevent violence by and among chronic offenders and groups of chronic offenders; the convening of an interagency working group representing a wide range of criminal justice and social service capabilities; and jurisdiction-specific assessments of violence dynamics, perpetrator and victim characteristics, and related issues such as drug market characteristics and patterns of firearms use and acquisition.
|
From page 241... ...
While broad support for the pulling-levers approach may be justified for many reasons, the committee found modest scientific evidence that demonstrates whether these types of targeted policing programs can effectively lower crime and violence. Clearly, there was pronounced and important change in the youth homicide rate in Boston over the period of the intervention, some of which was arguably due to Operation Ceasefire, some due to secular changes in youth homicide, and some due to other (and perhaps unknown)
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.