Reducing Racial Inequality in Crime and Justice Science, Practice, and Policy (2023) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 210-244
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From page 210... ...
Addressing the persistent problem and concentration of gun violence in historically marginalized communities in the United States requires evidence-informed approaches grounded in an informed understanding of both the historical harm done by the criminal justice system over time as well as the documented impacts of criminal justice interventions on interpersonal and in particular lethal violence (see Chapter 8 for a more detailed discussion of criminal deterrence
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From page 211... ...
While the committee notes that only preliminary evidence of the programs' effectiveness is available, this section highlights some key components across programs that emphasize the building of community capacity to advance safety and reduce harm and inequality associated with criminal justice involvement. Operation Ceasefire Operation Ceasefire, first fielded in Boston in the 1990s, provides a model of police-community initiatives that rely on the "focused deterrence"
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. Cure Violence initially began as a branch of Operation Ceasefire in Chicago; it later became Cure Violence as the organization changed the program to not involve the use of law enforcement.
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Annual Review of Public Health, 36, 39–53.
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Advance Peace Advance Peace is a community outreach model that was created to interrupt gun violence and has been implemented in a number of cities, in cluding Richmond and Stockton in California. While it was partly inspired by the Cure Violence model in Chicago, Advance Peace (also known as the Richmond model)
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. Outcomes Programs organized around these sets of practices show some promise in preventing the involvement of participants in future gun violence and reducing harm done by the criminal justice system, though these results remain mixed and vary based on the program, location, and time frame of the evaluation.
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. This is also true regarding effectiveness for reducing future criminal justice contact (Shibru et al., 2007; see Chapter 7, Box 7-3)
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exacerbate racial inequalities in the criminal justice system and more broadly. Like community-led efforts for preventing gun violence, community driven responses to intimate partner violence seek to address the mecha nisms that drive these processes.
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As an example, SBI facilitated this type of authentic listening in a circumstance where a sexual assault survivor felt unsafe with local law enforcement. In that case, the district attorney agreed to send investigators to meet with the survivor, listen to the story, explain the process, and a nswer questions.
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M.H. First operates a weekend hotline with the aim of interrupting and minimizing the need for law enforcement in mental health crisis first response by providing mobile peer support, de-escalation assistance, and nonpunitive and life-affirming interventions.7 Additionally, one study conducted in Denver (CO)
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From page 220... ...
First, the City of Oakland is also establishing its Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland program that is informed by the CAHOOTS model, which is targeted to help the people most impacted where they are with obtaining the referrals for assistance they need.8 Taken together, these approaches seek to reduce formal interaction with the criminal justice system and address health and behavioral health needs through other systems, including community services. As discussed in Chapter 4, increased exposure to criminal justice surveillance and enforcement among poor and racial and ethnic minority groups and decision making in key phases of the system reinforces and exacerbates racial inequality within and outside of the system.
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EXPANDING THE EVIDENCE BASE Many of the community-led efforts discussed above are designed as non-punitive interventions for reducing contact with the criminal justice system, and thus reducing racial inequality, though many lack rigorous evaluation. A major barrier to the expansion of effective community solu tions and continued innovation is the mismatch between what may be the most promising solutions and the knowledge base that is available for communities to draw on.
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The services provided in a particular community are influenced by the specifics of local politics and cultural practices, civil and criminal justice systems, transportation systems, and the availability and quality of public and affordable private housing, mental health and substance abuse treatment programs, educational opportunities, and services for children and families (Goodman et al., 2018)
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As one review puts it, existing research has "data blinders" that result from the fact that too much of the knowledge base for reducing violence depends on studies that measure public safety with data generated by law enforcement and subsequent processing within the criminal justice system (John Jay
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This measurement tool needs to be representative and designed to capture the full spectrum of racial diversity of community populations and for a broad representation of the cities or other areas in question. Although limited in geographic scope, an example of an approach rooted in community ecometrics of the sort recommended is "NeighborhoodStat," developed by the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice in New York City.
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Such investments need to be paired with accountability mechanisms for spending to ensure evaluations to measure outcomes are conducted and resources are shared appropriately across and within communities. CONCLUSION 6-1: Building healthy communities and reducing crime require investments in community capacity to define and advance safety and reduce harm and inequality associated with criminal justice involvement.
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Any investments in community initiatives will need to acknowledge and address the limitations and unintended consequences of efforts to involve "the community" in this work, including how such collaborative efforts may exacerbate preexisting community fault lines. A need for accountability for community-based efforts, like criminal justice responses, exists when setting up funding sources, resource allocation, and evaluation metrics for community-based efforts to address crime outside the purview of criminal justice.
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With that in mind, in this chapter we address the noncriminal policy approaches (i.e., in systems outside of the criminal justice system) that hold promise for reducing racial inequality in the justice system.
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from communities that have experienced disproportionately high rates of crime and criminal justice contact. The impacts of these policies and practices have been well documented by the social science literature (e.g., Faber, 2020; Lipsitz, 2011; Massey, 2007; Fullilove, 2001)
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Investments that contribute to homeownership have also been explored in relation to reducing crime and racial inequalities, as large gaps in neighborhood crime rates exist between White and minority communities (see Chapter 3)
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. Nevertheless, policies that encourage private investments by banks into communities, especially policies that provide resources for home purchase or home retention, require further study as they could provide an opportunity to curb racial inequality in neighborhood crime, especially violence.
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note that the documented relationship between the Neighborhood Matching Fund program and violent crime reduction in Seattle underscores the significant role that external investments can play in facilitating neigh borhood well-being, social control, and crime. However, researchers cau tion that before forming partnerships, local organizations need to consider who they are investing in, who is being neglected, whether the investments are beneficial or harmful (e.g., subprime loans)
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finds that neighborhoods with BIDs in Los Angeles have between six percent and 10 percent less crime than otherwise similar neighborhoods. Additional research indicates that the introduction of BIDs in Los A ngeles was associated with a decrease in crime and police arrests over time, with a corresponding increase in criminal justice cost savings and minimal displacement of local crime to neighboring areas (Cook and MacDonald, 2011)
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trace reductions in crime to gentrification and subsequent changes to land use but note the need for a clearer analysis of how crime becomes spatially displaced in these processes. While these studies do not examine racial disparities in criminal victimization or offending as a pri mary outcome, there is a body of literature that suggests there are racial and socioeconomic inequalities in access to green spaces across the United States (Nesbitt et al., 2019; Wen et al., 2013)
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In seeking to improve public safety, communities need to examine not only how to "restore people, but also restore places" (MacDonald et al., 2021)
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SOURCE: J MacDonald, Changing Places: Renovating and Rebuilding Infrastructure to Reduce Racial Disparities in Victimizations and Arrests (Committee on Reducing Racial Inequalities in the Criminal Justice System Workshop #2: Addressing the Drivers of Criminal Justice Involvement to Advance Racial Equity, Washington, DC, March 15, 2021)
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With respect to the crime and delinquency outcomes, the offer to relocate to lower-poverty areas was found to reduce arrests among female youth for violent and property crimes, relative to the control group. For males, the offer to relocate reduced arrests for violent crime, at least in the short run, but increased problem behaviors and property crime arrests.
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. Nonetheless, the MTO project provides important findings for reducing racial inequalities and directions for future research that integrates other important factors such as urban dynamics, social structure, and developmental neighborhood effects.
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From page 238... ...
However, while the former aims to improve the material well-being of disadvantaged communities and their residents and thereby reduce crime rates and racial inequalities, the latter aims to improve job prospects during reentry from prison, more specifically to reduce recidivism. Employment Opportunities for Labor Market Success Chapter 4 documents the consequences of criminal justice system involvement for racial inequality.
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From page 239... ...
find that the long-term effectiveness of employment-focused approaches to improve employment outcomes or to reduce criminal justice system involvement is not consistent across studies; nonetheless, their review reinforces the value of vocational training as a prerelease intervention. Two randomized controlled trials (RCTs)
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This is an example of a well-intended policy that, research suggests, had unintended effects that can be harmful for specific racial and ethnic groups. A growing body of literature suggests that the BTB policies have led to labor market discrimination (Raphael, 2021; Schneider et al., 2021; Agan and Starr, 2018; Solinas-Saunders et al., 2015)
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From page 241... ...
, and Boston (MA) generally have led to similar findings, namely that summer youth employment programs resulted in large declines in criminal justice involvement and violence, although little improvement in future employment was found on average (Kessler et al., 2021; Davis and Heller, 2020; Modestino, 2019; Gelber et al., 2016; Heller, 2014)
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. However, cur rent research suggests that transportation costs are a barrier to mobility for households in poverty, which are disproportionately represented by African American and Hispanic people (Federal Highway Administration, 2014)
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Here, the committee relies on systematic reviews, high-quality studies, and reviews of the literature from authoritative, evidence-based sources to synthesize some of the literature on public health approaches to violence. Firearm Violence and Related Policies To address the problem of racial disparities in crime, victimization, and criminal justice involvement, one needs to consider the issue of gun violence.
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. In summary, the John Jay research group concludes that violence can be reduced through policies that limit access to firearms, increase restrictions for people with histories of violent crime, reduce access to firearms for young people, impose waiting periods, and increase required firearm training (John Jay College Research Advisory Group on Preventing and Reducing C ommunity Violence, 2020)
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