Invest in Governance and Management to Make Violence Reduction Efforts Successful

By University of Pennsylvania Crime and Justice Policy Lab and California Partnership for Safe Communities

Violence reduction in the U.S. is benefitting from excellent research (and ongoing research agendas) into specific interventions that can be evaluated and replicated. However, more is needed. The fact that so many cities continue to struggle with serious violence despite record investments in new programs indicates that the field needs a broader approach. WHAT’S MISSING? There is a crucial gap holding back the field of violence reduction: an understanding of not just what programs or strategies to adopt, but how to manage and govern on the city level to reduce serious violence. This was the primary conclusion of a 2022 expert convening. Running a rigorous violence intervention program in a particular community is very challenging. Assembling, implementing, and sustaining an effective city-level strategy is an even more complex and difficult task. The challenge of developing successful citywide strategies is enormously important, often ignored, and a large part of why cities are failing to sustainably reduce violence. The convened group comprised several important perspectives: people who have led city violence reduction offices (Jeremy Biddle, Sasha Cotton, Reygan Cunningham), people who help cities and city partners develop their violence prevention capacity (Vaughn Crandall, Fatimah Loren Drier, David Muhammed) and academic experts (Anthony Braga, Shani Buggs, Rodrigo Canales, Daniel Webster). The group was led by the University of Pennsylvania Crime and Justice Policy Lab (CJP) and the California Partnership for Safe Communities (CPSC), working with key leads from the White House Community Violence Intervention Collaborative and the Ballmer Community Violence Reduction Initiative (CAPS). (See Appendix A for more on the convening. This document describes the group’s conclusions and exploration of the current gap in research, implementation, governance, and ongoing management that challenges the violence reduction field, including suggestions of three areas where investment and effort could make a near-term impact: RESEARCH: Ongoing study of how cities structure, manage, and govern violence reduction efforts to establish baselines against which to assess near-term efforts and make long-term progress. Key action research questions, which could be applied to particular cities or systematically across cohorts, include: How are cities currently structuring their violence intervention efforts? Where does management and government authority for producing reductions in community violence reside? To what extent are citywide violence intervention efforts informed by basic analyses of community violence? What are the shortfalls for the ways in which cities use current analyses of their problems? How can cities build internal capacity for problem analysis and governance structures to ensure these analyses are used? What role does city government-based infrastructure play in administering and managing violence intervention strategies? What role does community-based infrastructure play in administering and managing violence intervention strategies? How are these government and community efforts resourced—monetarily, administratively, in terms of personnel, and over time? What key management capacities can be identified that correlate with success, or lack thereof, in producing and sustaining city level reductions in community violence? TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE: Using action research and existing evidence to help cities develop effective strategies and strengthen political governance, management, and key capacities. At present, technical assistance providers are filling capacity gaps at the local level—while technical assistance will likely always be needed to help cities get started or course-correct as they go, the field needs useful frameworks for improving city-level systems aimed at reducing community violence. POLICY: Engaging the field on how to sustain and enhance violence reduction efforts through policy development, governance, and management. Mayoral offices or statewide offices of violence prevention, strong community-based intermediaries, and other governing entities may be better able to provide structural support to violence reduction strategies when those offices and entities are supported by strong standards of practice  

Oakland, CA: California Partnership for Safe Communities, 2023. 13p.