By: Kyle Hucke

The street-level violence prevention field includes a range of professionals fulfilling specific roles in various programs. This literature review focuses on violence interrupters as a specific type of outreach worker and the programs that utilize them. Violence interrupters embed themselves within specific areas of communities experiencing elevated levels of violence and mediate emerging conflicts between groups and/or individuals to interrupt the cycle of violence. This review describes the theoretical frameworks guiding the design of these programs, the role of violence interrupters, and program implementations. It also summarizes results from the research literature that evaluates these programs. The literature suggests that violence interrupters are successful at reaching the target population. The research on the effects of these programs on community violence shows that most experience initial success followed by challenges maintaining that success. Program instability from funding and employee turnover likely reduce the effectiveness of VI programs. The dangerous and stressful nature of the work and the relatively poor level of monetary compensation drives the high turnover of VIs. The high social and economic cost of violence suggests that VI programs “pay for themselves” by preventing violence. Overall, evidence suggests violence interrupters are a valuable part of the violence prevention field, but researchers, practitioners, and policymakers need to be aware of violence interrupters’ strengths, limitations, and the supports needed for them to work effectively.

Chicago: Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority 2024. 42p.

By Caitlin McCulloch, Brian A. Jackson, Sameer M. Siddiqi, Jordan R. Reimer, Emily Allendorf

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has changed and expanded its efforts in violence prevention in the past five years. DHS asked the Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center (HSOAC) to examine the change in efforts by the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3) and its predecessor organizations in preventing terrorism and other violence and explore options for CP3 moving forward.

In the United States, the full potential value of countering violent extremism (CVE) has never been realized because of key disconnects between the intent of CVE programs and the realities of their implementation. Although it might not have been the intent, efforts singled out and stigmatized American Muslim communities. The disconnect between stated intention and reality stimulated potent opposition to CVE as a concept. In response, the federal government decided to make significant changes in its approaches in this policy area. In late 2021, DHS asked HSOAC to examine and characterize the changes that had been made, providing an outside viewpoint on the extent of change and how those changes had responded to the concerns about CVE efforts. This report documents the researchers' approach, findings, and recommendations.

Key Findings

• There has been enormous growth in CP3, and it is currently working on developing and standardizing the institutions and processes that are required to support a larger organization. These efforts include extensive standardization efforts in training and evaluation of CP3's work. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) posed some problems, including making it difficult to create a cohesive whole with new personnel, but also presented some new opportunities, such as an increased ability to reach a diversity of stakeholders digitally.

• CP3 and the government more broadly have made major shifts in the rhetorical framing of their work, toward a public health–informed approach, a framing that aligns more closely with the intent of their programs. Although there is still discussion of the implications of a public health–informed approach, this shift was reflected in both interviews and official documentation.

• In line with this rhetorical shift is the expansion in the diversity of stakeholders, both in engagement and in grantees, including evidence of a shift away from criminal justice and security partners, although they remain important collaborators.

• External stakeholders remain skeptical, but there are some signs of increasing trust in relevant actors outside government.

Recommendations

• Continue efforts to build and sustain consistency in messages and activities. Many external stakeholders noted the importance of rebuilding trust and that sustainable and continuous actions and relationships were essential for fostering that trust.

• Continue to codify and standardize internal office procedures—with rapid growth comes a renewed need for new internal institutions to keep all personnel on the same page.

• More clearly define the elements of a public health–informed approach and how they will be applied to violence prevention for CP3 programs and outreach. There are many definitions present in practitioner circles and the academic literature; choosing one and fully exploring the implications of the definition will be key for aligning stated CP3 goals with programmatic action.

• Invest further in program evaluation. The research team recognizes that it is difficult to evaluate effectiveness in this area, but, without standardized evaluation, supporting the impact of CP3 programs will be difficult.

• Commit to transparency and external communication. Transparency in actions taken and evidence collected, as well as communication with skeptical audiences, will be key in showing change and growth in CP3 and its activities to external actors and in further building trust with external audiences.

By Jason Tan de Bibiana, Kerry Mulligan, Aaron Stagoff-Belfort, Daniela Gilbert

Communities across the country have been harmed by violence for decades, and government leaders have struggled to deliver impactful solutions. In particular, an overreliance on policing has not produced the safety that communities need and deserve. Community organizers working to address violence have long recognized that a different approach is needed—one that comes from a deep understanding of a community’s needs, uses data to guide strategies, and prioritizes prevention and intervention rather than punishment. One innovative way for governments to incorporate these tenets into policy and practice—and to provide better, more sustainable support to community-based efforts—is by building centralized local offices of violence prevention or neighborhood safety (OVP/ONS). These offices have the potential to radically transform governmental approaches to public safety. This report summarizes the current state of OVP/ONS nationally and identifies promising practices and recommendations to create and support these offices.

New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2023. 73p.

MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

EDITORS Clifford D. Shearing AND Philip C. Stenning

The increased use of private policing has led to a growing awareness that policing can no longer be thought of as just being about crime, but as the enforcement of order and the way it can be both established and maintained. Private Policing charts the development of social control mechanisms -- both public and private -- from historical, legal, ethical and managerial perspectives.

SAGE PUBLICATIONS.. Newbury Park Beverly Hill. 1987. 329p.

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By Dionne Barnes-Proby ,Samuel Peterson, Alex Andra Mendoza-Graf, Pierrce Holmes, Danielle Sobol, Nipher Malik A. Malika And Meagan Cahill

Despite widespread recognition that community engagement is important for improving community-police relations, there is little guidance for how to systematically promote and sustain long-term relationship building. This guide was developed to share best practices from the RAND Corporation's work in implementing six community-police dialogues across four sites. This guide provides background on the purpose for the development of the community-police dialogue, guidance for planning and implementing the dialogue, and materials to help carry out the dialogue effectively.

By Matt Freear and Andrew Glazzard

Communications and the tools of the media age have been at the centre of preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) for many years. Often emerging in reaction to terrorist narratives, the emphasis has been on how to most impactfully distribute narratives that counter or present an alternative vision. The debate amongst practitioners has often treated young people as ‘target audiences’, identifying and using ‘credible messengers’, and designing creative digital communication tools to engage them most effectively. Despite the emergence of numerous ‘how-to’ guides and policy briefs, substantial criticisms around the theory, impact and ethics of such approaches remain largely unaddressed.

This Whitehall Report compares two P/CVE programmes in Kenya and Lebanon that independently came to the same conclusion: to counter the multiplicity of factors drawing young people into violent extremism, communications and media tools should be recast to serve the needs of young people, rather than treat them as an audience. This means understanding the perspectives and lived experiences of those young people involved in the programmes. The report describes the programmes’ communications outputs: digital media platforms, news reporting and campaigns led by young people and journalists in areas of Kenya and Lebanon particularly affected by violent extremism.

To provide practicable insights to those designing and implementing P/CVE programmes, the report uses a realist methodology that pays attention to the particulars of what works, for whom and where, by studying the context, mechanisms of change and outcomes of the two programmes. The report finds that mapping the media ecology of the two target locations informed programme activities: examining how young people are represented and the dominant narratives in the media helped to shape, target and prioritise participation. It also finds that media content was secondary to the process which led to the active, voluntary participation of young people. …

  Whitehall Report 4-21. London: Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies  (RUSI), 2021. 40p.

By Katya Migacheva and Jordan Reimer

  The following resource aims to serve as a guide for U.S. state governments as they seek to implement comprehensive targeted violence prevention (TVP) programming. It is not aimed to be prescriptive, but rather provide menus of options for what comprehensive TVP programming might look like at a state level. This resource lays out three specific categories of activities for state-level TVP implementation. The first (Preparation) and last (Monitoring) are "back-end" activities to help state governments lay the groundwork for effective programming and sustain those efforts in perpetuity. The middle category (Prevention) follows the public health model of violence prevention and incorporates four levels of prevention – Primordial, Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary – that address community and individual susceptibility to targeted violence. Guided by the broad mission statement (see below), each activity category (e.g., Preparation, Prevention, Monitoring) has been organized as a logic model, delineating individual goals to accomplish the mission, and corresponding objectives, tasks, outputs, and desired outcomes for each goal. For each output and outcome, or key performance indicators (KPIs) we propose measures of success and corresponding methods/scales to calculate those measures. We also suggest impact indicators to gauge the extent of achieving the overall mission. Finally, appendices lay out definitions of key terms, potential TVP stakeholders, references for targeted violence risk factors, scales for use in conducting measurements, and a references to materials used to develop this resource.    

Washington, DC: National Governors Association, 2022. 140p.

by Trevor Johnston, Erik E. Mueller, Irina A. Chindea, Hannah Jane Byrne, Nathan Vest, Colin P. Clarke, Anusree Garg, Howard J. Shatz

Violent nonstate actors (VNSAs) obtain money from multiple sources, both licit (e.g., donations and legitimate businesses) and illicit (e.g., extortion, smuggling, theft). They use that money to pay, equip, and sustain their fighters and to provide services to local populations, which can help build support for the groups, allowing them to extract resources, gain safe havens, and challenge state authority and territorial control. In this way, financial resources can prolong conflicts and undermine stabilization efforts after the fighting ends. Countering VNSA financing plays a critical role in degrading such organizations. Various means are available to disrupt financing. These include kinetic means, such as destroying resources or neutralizing leadership, and nonkinetic means, such as targeted financial sanctions and legal remedies. The counter–threat financing (CTF) tools that work best for transnational groups may not work as well for national ones, and some tools may prove counterproductive in certain situations. Which tools to use in a given case is not always obvious. The authors draw lessons from efforts against five VNSA groups to discover, in each case, how they financed their activities and for what purposes, as well as which methods to counter this financing worked best and which were counterproductive. The authors then consider what the U.S. Army can do to support counter–terrorism financing efforts.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2023. 386p.

by James V. Marrone, Todd C. Helmus, Elizabeth Bodine-Baron, Christopher Santucci

The number of programs dedicated to countering violent extremism (CVE) has grown in recent years, but a fundamental gap remains in the understanding of the effectiveness of such programs. A 2017 RAND Corporation report documented that only a handful of such programs have been subject to rigorous evaluations of effect. Such evaluations are critical because they help ensure that programming funds are dedicated to the most-effective efforts. Evaluations also play a critical role in helping individual programs improve the quality of service provision.

This report presents the results of an evaluation designed to assess the impact of a CVE-themed radio talk show, Ina Mafita, broadcast in northern Nigeria in 2018–2019. RAND researchers studied this program by recruiting more than 2,000 northern Nigerians via text message from a research panel administered by a mobile phone–based market research company. The participants were randomly assigned to listen to either the treatment program of interest, which is intended to address underlying factors promoting instability and support for Boko Haram in northern Nigeria, or to a nontreatment control program. Specifically, RAND researchers examined the effects of the program on listeners' beliefs about the importance of being a role model and the value of local committees in reintegrating at-risk youth, as well as their views of kidnap victims. The report details the research design and findings and offers recommendations for improving such evaluations in the future.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2022. 32p.

by Elizabeth Bodine-Baron, James V. Marrone, Todd C. Helmus, Danielle Schlang

This report presents the results of an evaluation designed to assess the effects of countering violent extremism (CVE)–themed social media content used in a campaign to promote tolerance, freedom of speech, and rejection of violence in Indonesia. RAND Corporation researchers studied the effects of the campaign by recruiting a sample of Indonesian youth on Facebook and randomly assigning them to a treatment condition that exposed participants to CVE social media posts or a control condition. This report details the research design and findings and offers recommendations for improving such evaluations in the future.

The group Search for Common Ground (SFCG) worked with a market research firm to design content for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter using two different hashtags developed specifically for the CVE campaign: #AkuTemanmu ("I am your friend") and #CapekGakSih ("Aren't you tired?"). RAND researchers recruited 1,570 participants from Indonesia via a series of Facebook advertisements. They assigned participants either to a treatment group that viewed SFCG's CVE content or to a control group that viewed non-CVE placebo content that consisted of advertisements from Indonesian entertainment media and retail companies, as well as public service announcement campaigns.

The results indicate that audiences recognized and liked the CVE-themed content at levels comparable to control content, and there were positive effects regarding attitudes toward promoting inclusivity online, although the effect was the result of an unusual, sudden drop in attitudes of control group participants. There also were strong, significant negative treatment effects regarding respondents' attitudes toward living in separated communities.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2020. 82p.

By The Joint Federal/Provincial Commission into the April 2020 Nova Scotia Mass Casualty, 

  As Commissioners, we grounded our work every day in the memory of those whose lives were taken. Interacting with and learning from the individuals, families, and members of the communities most affected is an additional catalyst to the completion of our tasks. We have also been spurred on by the remarkable wisdom and generosity of everyone who contributed to our work: Participants and their counsel, witnesses (both through interviews and in public proceedings), experts, stakeholders, the media, community members, the wider public, and Commission staff. To all of you, we express our gratitude. This Report marks the end of our mandated responsibilities as a public inquiry and the shift to a shared responsibility to act. We do not absolve ourselves of obligations to contribute to the implementation of the Report’s recommendations in the days, weeks, and years to come. Yet acting on our recommendations is clearly in the hands and purview of others once the Commissioners have produced the Report. The leadership for this next phase includes those who participated in the Commission’s work; those external to the Commission, such as those who have reported on it and followed it; and others who have a formal, recognized duty to contribute to public safety and community well-being. We have said many times that this is a shared responsibility and opportunity. In Volume  6, Implementation, we expand on the importance of this collective responsibility, highlighting the significance of co-operation among politicians, policy-makers, institutions, organizations, community groups, and individuals right across society.   

Halifax, NS: Joint Federal/Provincial Commission into the April 2020 Nova Scotia Mass Casualty, 2023. 83p.

 By The Joint Federal/Provincial Commission into the April 2020 Nova Scotia Mass Casualty

  in this volume, we build on the findings and conclusions reached so far by turning to the institutional context of policing. This volume addresses the policing dimensions of the following issues set out in our mandate: … (iii) interactions with police, including any specific relationship between the perpetrator and the RCMP and between the perpetrator and social services, including mental health services, prior to the event and the outcomes of those interactions, (iv) police actions, including operational tactics, response, decision-making and supervision, (v) communications with the public during and after the event, including the appropriate use of the public alerting system established under the Alert Ready program, (vi) communications between and within the RCMP, municipal police forces, the Canada Border Services Agency, the Criminal intelligence Service Nova Scotia, the Canadian Firearms Program, and the Alert Ready program, (vii) police policies, procedures and training in respect of gender-based and intimate partner violence, (viii) police policies, procedures and training in respect of active shooter incidents, … (x) policies with respect to police responses to reports of the possession of prohibited firearms, including communications between law enforcement agencies, and (xi) information and support provided to the families of victims, affected citizens, police personnel and the community  

Halifax, NS: Joint Federal/Provincial Commission into the April 2020 Nova Scotia Mass Casualty, , 2023. 722p.

By Shani A Buggs , Daniel W Webster, Cassandra K Crifasi  

Objective To estimate the long-term impact of Safe Streets Baltimore, which is based on the Cure Violence outreach and violence interruption model, on firearm violence. Methods We used synthetic control methods to estimate programme effects on homicides and incidents of non-fatal penetrating firearm injury (non-fatal shootings) in neighbourhoods that had Safe Streets’ sites and model-generated counterfactuals. Synthetic control analyses were conducted for each firearm violence outcome in each of the seven areas where Safe Streets was implemented. The study also investigated variation in programme impact over time by generating effect estimates of varying durations for the longest-running programme sites. Results Synthetic control models reduced prediction error relative to regression analyses. Estimates of Safe Streets’ effects on firearm violence varied across intervention sites: some positive, some negative and no effect. Beneficial programme effects on firearm violence reported in prior research were found to have attenuated over time. Conclusions For highly targeted interventions, synthetic control methods may provide more valid estimates of programme impact than panel regression with data from all city neighbourhoods. This research offers new understanding about the effectiveness of the Cure Violence intervention over extended periods of time in seven neighbourhoods. Combined with existing Cure Violence evaluation literature, it also raises questions about contextual and implementation factors that might influence programme outcomes.  

  Inj Prev 2022;28:61–67  

By Jenniina Kotajoki

This publication describes how and to what extent violent extremism and different forms of crime converge in Nordic country prevention of violent extremism (PVE) and crime prevention (CP) strategies and action plans. The text’s author argues that despite some significant differences regarding PVE and CP in these countries, the relationship between violent extremism and different forms of crime may actually be inextricable and have much more of a profound impact than traditionally described. Considering the relation between violent extremism and criminality in theory and in practice could therefore help tackle possible threats and improve the design of policies and prevention measures.

Stockholm: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute - SIPRI, 2018. 20p.

By John McCoy, David Jones and Zoe Hastings

The ideologies that foment extremist violence are varied and grounded in online communities and social networks. Today, individuals from any community, any walk of life, from any part of the world, can become inspired, indoctrinated and mobilized to conduct violence in the name of a cause. These globalized problems have local impacts and gaining a better understanding of those impacts is the first essential step in pursuing prevention. It is exactly this idea that underpins this report. Canada and Alberta are peaceful and prosperous - home to a liberal, democratic and multicultural society. The impacts and manifestations of extremism outlined in this report are surprising to many of us and are further evidence of the growing diffusion of extremism globally. These impacts are not unique to Alberta; there are no characteristics that make the province more susceptible to extremism,

Drawing on more than a year of research and hundreds of interviews with community leaders, human service professionals, victims and perpetrators, and members of law enforcement, this report provides a holistic and highly localized understanding of the problem and represents both a historical overview and a snapshot of extremism in Alberta during 2018.

Edmonton, Alberta: Organization for the Prevention of Violence, 2019. 190p.

By Joshua J. Skoczylis

This book explores the successes and failures of the Prevent strategy, which was developed by the UK Government to help stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. It provides a holistic overview of the policy's formation, delivery, and impact on Muslim communities. Based on interviews with former Ministers, senior policy makers, frontline professionals and community focus groups, Joshua Skoczylis also analyses the various impacts of policy and organizational tensions. These include the ambiguous scope of Prevent, the idea of community cohesion, and funding and evaluation issues.

The Local Prevention of Terrorism highlights the difficulties in applying terrorism prevention policies and the limitations of their impact. It shows that strategies such as Prevent may have particularly negative effects on Muslim communities, undermining their trust and perceptions of legitimacy. In its use of a large body of primary data and up-to-date analysis, the book will be of great interest to policymakers as well as scholars studying terrorism and security.

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. 312p.

By Lorraine Mazerolle,Adrian Cherney,Elizabeth Eggins,Lorelei Hine and Angela Higginson

Multiagency responses to reduce radicalisation often involve colla-borations between police, government, nongovernment, business and/or community organisations. The complexities of radicalisation suggest it is impossible for any single agency to address the problem alone. Police‐involved multiagency partner-ships may disrupt pathways from radicalisation to violence by addressing multiple risk factors in a coordinated manner.Objectives:1. Synthesise evidence on the effectiveness of police‐involved multiagency interventions on radicalisation or multiagency collaboration. Qualitatively synthesise information abouthowthe intervention works (me-chanisms), interventioncontext(moderators), implementation factors and eco-nomic considerations.Search Methods:Terrorism‐related terms were used to search the Global PolicingDatabase, terrorism/counterterrorism websites and repositories, and relevantjournals for published and unpublished evaluations conducted 2002–2018. Thesearch was conducted November 2019. Expert consultation, reference harvestingand forward citation searching was conducted November 2020.Selection Criteria:Eligible studies needed to report an intervention where policepartnered with at least one other agency and explicitly aimed to address terrorism,violent extremism or radicalisation. Objective 1 eligible outcomes included violentextremism, radicalisation and/or terrorism, and multiagency collaboration. Only impact evaluations using experimental or robust quasi‐experimental designs were eligible. Objective 2 placed no limits on outcomes. Studies needed to report anempirical assessment of an eligible intervention and provide data on mechanisms,moderators, implementation or economic considerations.Data Collection and Analysis:The search identified 7384 records. Systematic screening-identified 181 studies, of which five were eligible for Objective 1 and 26 for Objective 2.

Oslo, Norway: Campbell Collaborative, 2021. 88p.

The Knife Crime Prevention Programme: Process Evaluation

By Grant Thornton UK LLP

The Knife Crime Prevention Programme (KCPP) is an intervention which aims to reduce the prevalence of knife carrying and use by young people. Young people are referred to the programme if they are aged between 10 and 17 and have been convicted of an offence where a knife or the threat of a knife is a feature. The programme is based on a national delivery framework, with flexibility for local adaptation. It was rolled out as part of the Home Office ‘Tackling Knives Action Programme’ (TKAP). This process evaluation was commissioned to:  provide a picture of the implementation and delivery of KCPP  explore participants’ knowledge, perceptions and attitudes to knife crime before and after the programme  explore staff attitudes to the programme.

London: Youth Justice Board for England and Wales 2013. 29p.

By Simone Eisenhauer

This thesis explores the security risk management and commercial organisation of public urban spaces at the 2010 FIFA World Cup (FWC) in South Africa. Extending knowledge of how commercial interests intersect with security risk management of public urban spaces at sport mega-events, this study examines these concepts in a developing world context. Using a neoliberal theoretical lens and drawing on the concepts of Festivalisation and Disneyisation, the research contributes to academic scholarship in the areas of both sport and event management. This is achieved through a critical examination of security and commercialisation strategies in ‘public spaces’ at a sport mega-event, namely, public viewing areas (PVAs) and commercial restricted zones (CRZs). The research problem was investigated by means of an inductive interpretive qualitative case study approach. The selected event was the 2010 FWC, and within this event an in-depth case study of Cape Town was selected for examination. Multiple sources of evidence included government, management, and media documentation.

Sydney: University of Technology, Sydney: 2013. 364p.

By D. Elaine Pressman

Risk factors for violent individuals have been used in risk assessment protocols for decades. Such tools and guides have been shown to be a valid and reliable way to assess risk of future violence. The risk assessment protocols currently available, however, have questionable relevance to violent extremists and terrorists because the factors used to assess risk do not relate to the background and motivations of this group of violent actors. The need was identified for a relevant tool for the population of violent ideologically motivated extremists. Approaches to risk assessment for violence are described in the document. These include unstructured clinical judgment, actuarial approaches and structured professional judgment (SPJ). Unstructured approaches have been criticized for not demonstrating high validity or good inter-rater reliability. Given the low base rate of violent extremists, it is difficult to create empirically based actuarial prediction instruments for violent extremism. The structured professional judgment approach (SPJ) has been used successfully with forensic populations and was considered appropriate for a tool to address risk assessment for the population of violent extremists. As current SPJ guides were found to be inadequate to address the specific historical and contextual features of violent extremists, a new SPJ guide was developed and is described in this document. The major goals of the project were to identify and compare the specific characteristics and factors of those who perpetrate “general” criminal violence and those who perpetrate ideologically motivated violence, to highlight the salient differences among the historical, contextual, attitudinal and protective risk factors of these types of criminal violence and to construct a new tool to assess the risk of violence in ideologically motivated extremists. ‘Political violence’, ‘radicalization’, ‘extremism’ and ‘terrorism’ were defined and elaborated in the document. The most significant risk factors relevant to violent extremism and terrorism were extracted from the literature and organized into a structured professional judgment (SPJ) protocol. Five categories were identified as risk factors and relevant items were identified for each category. These categories are modeled after other well-established SPJ tools but are item specific to violent extremism. The categories include attitude factors, contextual factors, historical factors, protective factors and demographic factors. A preliminary model for the assessment of de-radicalization and disengagement efficacy was proposed. The new SPJ protocol, Violent Extremist Risk Assessment or VERA is designed to be used with persons having a history of extremist violence or having been convicted of such offences. At this stage of development, the VERA is a conceptual “research” tool intended to generate debate and discussion.

Ottawa: Public Safety Canada, 2009. 44p.