By Brady United

On February 5, 2019, a group of New Mexico Sheriffs, acting under the umbrella of the New Mexico Sheriffs’ Association (NMSA), surprisingly issued a Declaration opposing common sense gun violence prevention (GVP) bills being considered by the state legislature. These sheriffs pressured local and state politicians to oppose these measures that aim to protect the public safety and lives of New Mexicans. The sheriffs’ effort resulted in 25 counties passing so-called “Second Amendment Sanctuary resolutions,” including resolutions designed to undermine the American system of checks and balances by expressing support for sheriffs who unilaterally announced that they would not enforce such public safety laws. Brady immediately suspected that the gun lobby was behind the effort to encourage these sheriffs to go rogue and not enforce the law. Accordingly, Brady filed requests for documents from each of these sheriffs’ offices under New Mexico’s public records act (IPRA). The documents that Brady has obtained thus far show how the NRA infiltrated the NMSA; the prevalence of conspiracy theories among these sheriffs; their disregard for the American system of checks and balances and the rule of law; and a worrisome dedication to not enforcing laws aimed at protecting the lives and public safety of their own constituents.  

Washington, DC: Brady United Against Gun Violence, 2019. 8p.

By Mike McLively and Brittany Nieto

Oakland, considered for many years to be among the most dangerous cities in America, has cut its annual shootings and homicides nearly in half since 2012. Now, city leaders and activists from around the country are traveling to Oakland to learn from this remarkable success. Oakland gives us reason to hope that reducing gun violence in our most impacted communities is possible, and a basic framework for how to get there. In 2012, after several failures and facing great pressure from community activists, Oakland city leaders committed to launching a citywide violence reduction strategy, known as Oakland Ceasefire, with the help of technical experts from the California Partnership for Safe Communities (CPSC). Oakland Ceasefire is an ongoing partnership between community members, social service providers, and law enforcement officials, who work together to reduce violence, build police-community trust, and improve outcomes for high-risk individuals. The strategy has five main components: Analysis of violent incidents and trends, referred to as a problem analysis, to identify individuals at the highest risk of participating in serious violence. Oakland’s problem analysis revealed several misconceptions about the city’s violence dynamics. It also showed that only 400 individuals—just 0.1% of Oakland’s total population—were at the highest risk for engaging in serious violence at any given time. Oakland Ceasefire partners intervene with this population. Respectful, in-person communications with high-risk individuals to warn about the risks of ongoing violence and provide a genuine offer of assistance. With Oakland Ceasefire, these communications primarily take the form of call-ins, interventions in which stakeholders communicate with small groups of those most at risk of serious violence, and custom notifications, a personalized method of heading off imminent violence. Relationship-based social services are provided to high-risk individuals through the Oakland Unite network of community-based organizations. Oakland Unite is a unique city agency that uses taxpayer money to fund organizations that provide services like intensive mentoring, economic and educational training, and direct assistance to victims of violence and their families. Narrowly focused law enforcement actions by the Oakland Police Department’s (OPD) Ceasefire Section, in addition to ongoing, department-wide training in the principles of procedural justice and other strategies to improve police-community relationships. Since reforming its approach to violence, OPD has seen a dramatic increase in its homicide solve rate, while use-of-force incidents and complaints against the department are on the decline. An intentional management structure built around regular communication between Oakland Ceasefire partners and city leaders to stay on top of changing violence dynamics and track progress toward yearly violence reduction goals. Regular meetings include weekly shooting reviews, bimonthly coordination meetings, and performance reviews led by Oakland’s mayor.     

Giffords Law Center, Faith in Action, and the Black and Brown Gun Violence Prevention Consortium, 2019. 107p/  

By Michael Topper and Toshio Ferrazares

ShotSpotter is an acoustic gunfire detection technology utilized by police departments in over 150 cities world-wide with the intention of rapidly dispatching police officers to violent crime scenes in an effort to reduce gun violence. In Chicago, this amounts to approximately 70 instances per-day whereby officers are immediately dispatched to potential instances of gunfire. However, this allocation diverts police resources away from confirmed reports of 911 emergencies, creating delays in rapid response—a critical component of policing with health and safety implications. In this paper, we utilize variation in timing from ShotSpotter rollouts across Chicago police districts from 2016-2022 to estimate the causal effects of ShotSpotter on 911 emergency response times that are designated as Priority 1 (immediate dispatch). Using comprehensive 911 dispatch data from the Chicago Police Department, we find that ShotSpotter implementation causes police officers to be dispatched one-minute slower (23% increase) and arrive on-scene nearly two-minutes later (13% increase). Moreover, these effects are driven by periods with fewer police on-duty and times of day with larger numbers of ShotSpotter-related dispatches. Consequently, when responding to emergency calls, police officers’ success rate in arresting perpetrators decreases by approximately 9%, with notably large decreases in arrests for domestic battery (14%).

Job Market Paper, 2023. 75p.

By The California Partnership for Safe Communities (CPSC)

In April of 2023, the CPSC was contacted by the office of Mayor Sheng Thao to discuss the effectiveness of the current Ceasefire strategy, specific to the internal workings of the city. In essence, Mayor Thao wanted to know how and whether the City of Oakland was doing its part to implement the strategy effectively. She referred to a recommendation that was provided to the City of Oakland in a 2021 Problem Analysis conducted by Dr. Anthony Braga of the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Lisa Barao of Westfield State University, where they stated: “It is recommended that the City of Oakland closely audits the resources allocated and activities of the organizations responsible for implementing Ceasefire. This audit will assess whether the challenges of the pandemic and demands for police reform have diminished focus. The audit should determine whether each key component (communications, service provision, law enforcement) has the necessary focus, quality, and scale to reduce the violence problem the city now faces.4” As a result of this recommendation and those discussions, Mayor Thao requested the CPSC to audit the current Ceasefire strategy. This audit is limited to the Ceasefire strategy and to the role of the Oakland Police Department, Department of Violence Prevention, and how they work with  their partners5, who are funded to provide services for those clients. This audit does not examine the role of community partners such as moral voices or outside agencies. Objectives of the audit: 1. To determine if the Ceasefire strategy is being implemented effectively. 2. To determine if Ceasefire is the appropriate strategy for Oakland’s current gun violence challenges. 3. To understand what is currently driving gun violence in Oakland. This includes an updated brief problem analysis that captures Oakland’s shootings and homicides from January 2023 to September 30, 2023.

The Partnership, 2023. 57p.

By Anthony A. Braga,  Lisa M. Barao. Gregory Zimmerman,  Rod K. Brunson,  Andrew V. Papachristos, George Wood,  Chelsea Farrell

The City of Oakland, California, has long suffered from very high levels of serious violence. According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, Oakland’s homicide rate (31.8 per 100,000) was almost 6.8 times higher than the national homicide rate (4.7 per 100,000) in 2012. That year, the City of Oakland engaged the California Partnership for Safe Communities (CPSC) to help design and implement a focused deterrence program to reduce serious gun violence. The CPSC collaborated with the Oakland Police Department (OPD) on ongoing problem analysis research to understand the underlying nature of gun violence in Oakland. The OPD led an interagency Ceasefire enforcement group comprised of federal, state, and county criminal justice agencies. The broader Oakland Ceasefire Partnership included the Mayor’s Office, social service agencies led by the Human Services Department, and community leaders from local organizations such as Oakland Community Organizations (OCO). The Oakland Ceasefire program closely followed the key elements of a focused deterrence Group Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS). Briefly, GVRS programs seek to change offender behavior by understanding underlying crime‐producing dynamics and conditions that sustain recurring crime problems, and implementing a blended strategy of law enforcement, community mobilization, and social service actions. The Oakland Ceasefire program was fully implemented in early 2013. Between 2010 and 2017, total Oakland shooting victimizations peaked at 710 in 2011 (93 gun homicide victims and 617 non-fatal shooting victims) and decreased by 52.1 percent to a low of 340 in 2017 (63 gun homicide victims and 277 non-fatal shooting victims). The impact evaluation was designed to determine whether the Ceasefire intervention was associated with this steep decline in serious gun violence and assess how Ceasefire partners and community leaders perceived the implementation of the strategy.

Unpublished report, 2019.   113p.

By April M. Zeoli, Jennifer Paruk, Charles C. Branas, Patrick M. Carter, Rebecca Cunningham, Justin Heinze and Daniel W. Webster

We examined petition and respondent characteristics from extreme risk protection order (ERPO) cases in Oregon for the 15 months after implementation (n = 93). Most petitions were filed by law enforcement (65%) a were more likely to be granted than petitions filed by family/household members (p < 0.001). Most ERPO respondents were reported by petitioners to have histories of suicidality (73%) or interpersonal violence (75%), with over half of death threats, suicide threats, or suicide attempts with known timing occurring within 1 week of the petition being filed. Policy Implications: ERPO petitions and orders are overwhelmingly being used as intended, that is, specifically for cases of imminent risk of harm to self or others. Greater dissemination of public information about ERPOs may increase their appropriate use and the proportion of high-risk individuals and families who may benefit. Legal aid assistance for family or household members in filling out petitions is advisable.

United States, Criminology & Public Policy. 2021, 19pg