Gun Violence

The program focuses on reducing violent gun crime by disrupting the cycle of gun violence by relying on forensic science and data analysis to identify, investigate, and prosecute individuals who use guns in criminal activity, and the sources of their guns. The program is rated Promising. The program did not significantly affect homicides or aggravated assaults with a firearm but was shown to significantly reduce violent crime and robbery with a firearm.

This was a focused deterrence intervention designed to reduce the presence of gun violence and gang activity. The program is rated Promising. There was a statistically significant reduction in confirmed shots fired, residents’ reports of hearing gunshots, and residents’ reports of seeing gang activity. However, there was no statistically significant impact on calls for service for shots fired.

This is a focused deterrence police strategy that was designed to reduce gang- and group-related violence in Detroit, Mich. The program is rated Ineffective. There were no statistically significant differences found for weapons arrests or shooting victimizations for participants in two age groups (15–24 and 25–34). The program did show a statistically significant reduction in all arrests and violent arrests for individuals who attended the Detroit Ceasefire call-in meetings.

This was a focused deterrence violence-reduction strategy involving enforcement and services to targeted individuals to address gun and gang violence. The program is rated Promising. There were statistically significant reductions in community-level criminal shootings in treated areas, compared with matched comparison areas, and in shootings around treated gang territories, compared with areas around matched comparison gang territories, at 2 years’ postimplementation.

This is a parole-based, focused deterrence intervention. The goal of the program is to reduce community-level firearm violence. The program is rated Effective. The intervention was associated with statistically significant reductions in measures of total gun violence, total non-gun violence, and total violence, compared with the synthetic control group.

This initiative involves proactive policing, enhanced enforcement, sentences for individuals who repeatedly offend, and collaboration among multiple stakeholders. The program’s goal is to reduce violent crime and gun violence. The program is rated Promising. The implementation of the program led to a statistically significant reduction in violent crime in the treatment group relative to the control group. However, there was no statistically significant impact on the rate of gun crimes.

This is a collaborative law enforcement effort to collect, manage, and analyze crime gun evidence to identify serial shooters, disrupt criminal activity, and prevent future gun violence. The program is rated Promising. Posttest gun crime cases saw statistically significant increases in the likelihood of arrest, but no statistically significant difference in the likelihood of being charged or convicted, compared with cases in the pretest period.

This strategy sought to reduce crime in Philadelphia by testing three different patrol strategies. The program is rated Ineffective. Relative to control areas, there was no statistically significant difference in violent or property crimes in areas using one of two of the patrol strategies. Property crimes in an area using one of the strategies saw a statistically significant decrease, while there was a statistically significant increase in violent crime in areas using two of the strategies.

This was an intervention to reduce crime and delinquency in urban areas by remediating vacant land. The program is rated Promising. Compared with the control area, treatment areas experienced statistically significant reductions in gun assaults, burglary, nuisances, shootings (overall and per kilometer), and all crimes overall. However, the intervention showed mixed results with regard to drug offense rates and no statistically significant effect on robbery/theft rates.

This is a police-operated public surveillance program that seeks to reduce crime and increase crime clearances (i.e., arrests) by installing new closed-circuit television cameras at high-crime, high-traffic intersections in Milwaukee (Wis.). The program is rated Promising. Intersections in intervention areas where new cameras were installed had a statistically significant higher rate of crime clearances for all crime types, compared with intersections in comparison areas.

This secondary violence prevention program targets young men most likely to commit or be victim of gang or gun crime to reduce their incarceration and victimization from violent crime. The program is rated Promising. SSYI youths were statistically significantly less likely to be incarcerated compared with comparison group youths. SSYI–funded cities had statistically significant reductions in all measured city-level crime victimization rates, compared with comparison cities.

This is a focused-deterrence group violence reduction strategy (GVRS) designed to reduce or control gun violence in Oakland, Calif. The program is rated Effective. The intervention was shown to reduce total shootings, gang-involved shootings, suspected gang-involved shootings, and gang shooting victimizations in treatment block groups relative to matched comparison block groups. These differences were all statistically significant.

This program was designed to improve well-being and permanency outcomes for children with complex trauma in state care. The program is rated Ineffective. Overall, findings were mixed. There were statistically significant findings favoring the treatment group, including increased likelihood of adoption; however, there were also statistically significant findings favoring the control group. Overall, the preponderance of evidence suggests the program did not have the intended effects on children.

This police-led program was designed to reduce gun crime and serious violence in the Wells Goodfellow neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri. The program is rated Ineffective. The intervention did not have a statistically significant effect on gun violence or total violence trends in the target neighborhood compared with the average trends of seven matched comparison neighborhoods across the city.

This is a prosecutor-led diversion program for nonviolent defendants, which is designed to decrease the number of convictions and reduce recidivism while improving administrative efficiency and cost effectiveness. The program is rated Ineffective. The program had a statistically significant effect on reducing the likelihood of conviction, but there was no statistically significant effect on recidivism for program participants, compared with comparison participants.

This is a temporary outdoor street-lighting program designed to reduce nighttime crime in public housing developments experiencing elevated crime rates. The program is rated Promising. Installing additional light towers in treated developments resulted in statistically significant reductions in complaints of index crimes, felony crimes, assaults, homicides, and weapons crimes at night, compared with control developments. There were no statistically significant differences in misdemeanor crimes.

This is a focused deterrence intervention that uses a data-driven approach to reduce shootings in Chicago, IL by identifying persons who are responsible for a disproportionate share of shootings and delivering a “don’t shoot” message. The program is rated Ineffective. The preponderance of the evidence suggests that the strategy had no impact on shooting behaviors in the year after the call-ins, but did have a statistically significant impact on the time until a shooting incident occurred.

This is a focused deterrence violence-reduction strategy. The goal was to lower the city’s exposure to violent crime, including reducing the numbers of homicides and aggravated assaults committed by chronic violent individuals operating within organized groups and other social networks. The program is rated Ineffective. Two years postimplementation, there was no statistically significant impact on homicides, group-member-involved homicides, and aggravated assaults.

This program is designed to deter street-level crime in Newark using closed-circuit cameras, hard-wired to physical structures, which are monitored in real time by CCTV operators. The program is rated Ineffective. Results from one study showed no statistically significant differences in shootings, auto thefts, or thefts from autos. Results from a second study showed a statistically significant decrease in auto thefts but no statically significant difference in shootings or thefts from auto.

This was a reentry program in which individuals returning from prison were ordered by their parole or probation officers to participate in a 1-hour meeting within 90 days of their release. The meetings were meant to convey an intolerance for violence in the community and to allow the individuals to connect with service providers. The program is rated Ineffective. The program was shown to have no statistically significant effects on the likelihood of rearrest and the time to rearrest.

This focused deterrence strategy in New Orleans, Louisiana, aims to reduce gang violence and homicide. The program is rated Effective. There were statistically significant reductions found in overall homicide, firearm-related homicide, gang member-involved homicide, and firearm assault from the pretest to the posttest period. Further, New Orleans showed significantly decreased homicide rates after the program was implemented, compared with 14 cities with similar violent crime rates.

This environmental crime-prevention measure was enacted as a city ordinance and required property owners of abandoned buildings (that often serve as havens for illicit drugs and related crime) to install working doors and windows in all structural openings or be subject to significant fines. This program is rated Promising. The results show that the program was associated with statistically significant citywide reductions in overall crimes and all nuisance crimes, but not in violent gun crimes.

This experiment assessed the impact of two hot spots policing tactics on firearm violence. The program is rated Promising. Compared with comparison hot spots, hot spots that received self-initiated enforcement experienced a statistically significant reduction in firearm assault rates, but there were no statistically significant differences for hot spots that received directed patrol. There was no statistically significant effect on firearm robbery rates between treatment and comparison hot spots

This program is a multi-agency initiative to reduce gun violence in large cities through enhanced enforcement and deterrence. The program is rated Promising. Cities that received the program experienced a statistically significant reduction in violent crime, compared with control cities, between 2000 and 2006.

A crime reduction strategy in Richmond, Virginia implemented to deter former and persons with the potential to commit a crime from carrying and using firearms, with an overall goal of reducing firearm-related homicides. The project is rated Promising. Firearm-related homicides decreased significantly in the target area, compared with other U.S. cities where the program was not implemented.

A program that attempts to reduce homicides and non-fatal shootings through a multidisciplinary and multiagency homicide review process. The program is rated Effective. There was a statistically significant, 52 percent, decrease, in the monthly count of homicides in the intervention districts.

This is a school-based intervention designed to reduce violence and improve interpersonal behavior in youth. The program is rated Promising. Participants showed a statistically significant positive effect knowledge of psychosocial skills and fewer self-reported and teacher-reported behavior problems, disciplinary incidents, conflict mediation referrals, and suspensions, compared with the control group. However, there was no statistically significant effect on attitudes toward guns and violence.

This was a saturation foot-patrol initiative implemented in Newark, N.J., in 2008 that aimed to reduce violent crime. The program is rated Promising. The target area that implemented the initiative experienced statistically significant reductions in overall violence and incidences of aggravated assault and shootings, compared with the control area. However, there was no statistically significant effect on incidences of murder or robbery.

This is a place-based, problem-oriented policing strategy implemented by the Boston (Mass.) Police Department in response to a sudden increase in violent index crimes. The program is rated Promising. Treatment street units experienced statistically significant reductions in total violent index crime, robbery, and aggravated assault, compared with control street units. However, there was no statistically significant effect on incidents of homicide or rape/sexual assault.

This is a problem-oriented policing program that offered a collection of enforcement and non-enforcement strategies designed to reduce homicide in Richmond, Calif. The initiative combined traditional law enforcement practices with prevention and intervention efforts that involved partnerships with the community, other city agencies, and local schools. This program is rated Promising. There was a statistically significant reduction of homicides following the implementation of the initiative.

This is a problem-solving police strategy, which was designed to reduce gang violence, illegal gun possession, and gun violence in communities in Boston, Mass. The program is rated Effective. There were statistically significant reductions in youth homicide, citywide gun assaults, calls for service, and recovered new guns following implementation of the intervention.

A violence prevention program that uses a public health approach, using trained street violence interrupters and outreach workers, public education campaigns, and community mobilization to reduce shootings and killings. This program is rated Promising. The program was associated with significant reductions in shootings, killings, and retaliatory homicides and also appeared to make shooting hot spots cooler in some neighborhoods but not others.

This is an automated ballistics imaging and analysis system that populates a computerized database of digital ballistic images of bullets and casings from crime guns, to assist forensic experts in making identifications for police investigations and trials. The program is rated Effective. There was a statistically significant 6.23-fold increase in the monthly number of cold hits generated by the Ballistics Unit after implementation of the automated ballistics imaging and analysis program.

This mail campaign aimed to deter illegal firearm transactions in Los Angeles, Calif., using a letter outlining the regulations and laws surrounding firearm ownership. The program is rated Promising. Those who received a letter were more than twice as likely to report their firearms stolen than those who did not receive the letter. However, there was no statistically significant impact on whether the firearm was later used in a crime.

This is a problem-oriented policing program targeted at high-crime areas and drug corners in Philadelphia, Pa., to prevent violent and drug-related crime. The program is rated Promising. Localized analysis of the intervention group areas (that implemented the program) found statistically significant reductions in violent and drug crime rates. However, there were no statistically significant effects on citywide homicide, violent crime, or drug crime rates.

This is a community-based approach to reducing and preventing crime while revitalizing the community. This program is rated No Effects. There were no statistically significant differences in rates of violent crime between the treatment and comparison areas following the crackdown. However, drug offenses increased significantly in the treatment areas, compared with the comparison areas.

This is a focused-deterrence policing initiative designed to reduce gun homicide in Stockton, Calif., by providing gang-involved youth with positive alternatives to violence. The program is rated Promising. The intervention was associated with a statistically significant 42 percent decrease in the monthly number of gun homicides, compared with pre-intervention trends.

This is a policing program that targeted high-risk persons who chronically commit offenses to reduce gun violence in Indianapolis, Ind. The program is rated Promising. There was a statistically significant reduction in the number of average monthly homicides and gang-related homicides in Indianapolis, in the 2 years following the implementation of the program.

This was a policing initiative that targeted specific gangs in the Hollenbeck area of Los Angeles, California, through aggressive enforcement and problem-oriented policing. The program is rated Promising. There was a statistically significant reduction in overall violent crimes in targeted blocks, compared with matched comparison blocks. However, there was no statistically significant effect on gang crimes or gun crimes.