The epidemiology of violence - PhillyBlog

Hospitalitygirl · #1 (**permalink**) 05-10-2008, 10:46 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/ma...pagewanted=all

A long but worthwhile article from the NYT Magazine last Sunday. Frankly I am surprised no one else has given this its own thread. It is a serious treatment of an alternative to lengthy prison sentences which seem to be most effective at churning out more violent criminals.

Quote:

... <snip>The traditional response has been more focused policing and longer prison sentences, but law enforcement does little to disrupt a street code that allows, if not encourages, the settling of squabbles with deadly force. Zale Hoddenbach, who works for an organization called CeaseFire, is part of an unusual effort to apply the principles of public health to the brutality of the streets. CeaseFire tries to deal with these quarrels on the front end. Hoddenbach’s job is to suss out smoldering disputes and to intervene before matters get out of hand. His job title is violence interrupter, a term that while not artful seems bluntly self-explanatory. Newspaper accounts usually refer to the organization as a gang-intervention program, and Hoddenbach and most of his colleagues are indeed former gang leaders. But CeaseFire doesn’t necessarily aim to get people out of gangs — nor interrupt the drug trade. It’s almost blindly focused on one thing: preventing shootings.
CeaseFire’s founder, Gary Slutkin, is an epidemiologist and a physician who for 10 years battled infectious diseases in Africa. He says that violence directly mimics infections like tuberculosis and AIDS, and so, he suggests, the treatment ought to mimic the regimen applied to these diseases: go after the most infected, and stop the infection at its source. “For violence, we’re trying to interrupt the next event, the next transmission, the next violent activity,” Slutkin told me recently. “And the violent activity predicts the next violent activity like H.I.V. predicts the next H.I.V. and TB predicts the next TB.” Slutkin wants to shift how we think about violence from a moral issue (good and bad people) to a public health one (healthful and unhealthful behavior). <snip> ...

Thoughts?

coldblooded36 · #2 (**permalink**) 05-11-2008, 12:11 AM

I read the article too. I agree that gun violence is at epidemic proportions and needs to be addressed as a public health issue, but am highly skeptical of this program's potential to be effective, particularly in Philadelphia, for multiple reasons...

what do you think??

Hospitalitygirl · #3 (**permalink**) 05-11-2008, 12:14 AM

It seems to be showing some promise in the areas of Chicago that most resemble the same parts of Philadelphia with the same problems. Why wouldn't it work here?

cerberus413 · #4 (**permalink**) 05-11-2008, 12:44 AM

Quote:

go after the most infected, and stop the infection at its source.

Sounds like a good idea.

coldblooded36 · #5 (**permalink**) 05-11-2008, 12:48 AM

Lower % of our shootings are gang-related/retaliatory, our shootings would be harder to predict

random · #6 (**permalink**) 05-11-2008, 12:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hospitalitygirl

Quote:

But CeaseFire doesn’t necessarily aim to get people out of gangs — nor interrupt the drug trade. It’s almost blindly focused on one thing: preventing shootings.

Thoughts?

Thoughts. I think that unless these guys expect gang members to arm wrestle over drug corners or go to small claims court over drug debts, they need to widen the scope of their efforts to include not only reducing violence but also gangs and drug dealing.

Mr. Brightside · #7 (**permalink**) 05-11-2008, 03:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hospitalitygirl

I am surprised no one else has given this its own thread. It is a serious treatment of an alternative to lengthy prison sentences which seem to be most effective at churning out more violent criminals.
Thoughts?

Long prison terms aren't mutually exclusive with this approach. You try to intervene to prevent the retaliation killings and to reach the people who are at risk on the front end but you come down like a ****ing hammer on those who can't be dissuaded from engaging in violent behavior, no?

Mr. Brightside · #8 (**permalink**) 05-11-2008, 04:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by coldblooded36

Lower % of our shootings are gang-related/retaliatory, our shootings would be harder to predict

You completely ignore the work done on the front end. Moreover, a large number of our shootings are retaliatory. Captain Bethel (who recently left the 17th District to join the Deputy Commissioner ranks) worked very closely with juvenile probation in Point Breeze to reach out to victims (and their associates) to quell the rataliatory BS. The results have been good. They've reduced shootings by an order of magnitude. The progaram would work well here.

random · #9 (**permalink**) 05-11-2008, 11:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Brightside

You completely ignore the work done on the front end. Moreover, a large number of our shootings are retaliatory. Captain Bethel (who recently left the 17th District to join the Deputy Commissioner ranks) worked very closely with juvenile probation in Point Breeze to reach out to victims (and their associates) to quell the rataliatory BS. The results have been good. They've reduced shootings by an order of manitude. The progaram would work well here.

That never even occurred to me but it makes perfect sense. Retaliation is another consequence of a lack of the perception of justice in philly. If somebody shoots John Doe and can plead it down to 11 to 23 months in county and serve 11, maybe John Doe and/or his family and friends are going to consider taking things into their own hands.

Willingness to be a complaining witness against the shooter also declines sharply if you know even if convicted he's going to be back on the streets gunning for you again in about a year. It would not come as a shock that the level of danger there would motivate preemptive measures in response to being shot; it would actually make a lot of sense.

Is the level of violence really senseless or does it actually make perfect sense? Looking at it from that point of view, a couple/few really bad apples would be expected to turn an entire neighborhood into a war zone.

Illiniwek · #10 (**permalink**) 05-11-2008, 02:06 PM

The New York Times has an unofficial editorial position that imprisonment has no relationship to the crime rate. There have been several, "Why put people in prison when crime is going down" editorials, never acknowledging that crime dropped in part because of longer stretches of imprisonment. (One almost imagines a Times editorial along the lines of, "Buildings are cool and comfortable so why do people keep buying air conditioners?") Their befuddlement is probably due to a stubborn determination to suggest that where crime is concerned, results lead to causes, rather than the other way around.

In the 1950's and 1960's, the nation conducted an experiment in reducing prison sentences. The result was an explosion of crime, including violent crime. In evaluating a variety of anti-crime measures, the authors of Freakonomics cite research suggesting increased sentences were the cause of about one-third of the drop in crime during the 1990s.

To suggest that a mediation program can be the primary measure for dealing with violent crime isn't well supported, even by the evidence presented in the story. Mediation takes tiny nibbles out of the problem of violent crime; longer prison sentences takes large bites out.

Still, it's a worthwhile effort, as long as no one confuses it with a replacement for other, more effective measures.