Using a Public Health Model To Prevent Crime

As joblessness and hot weather combine to spread crime, Catalyst reports on a Chicago program designed to help cities contain violence.

By Angela Sivak, NCPC Staff

With unemployment rising, people are becoming increasingly desperate to earn money and are turning to illegal, possibly violent, ways of getting it. At the same time, many law enforcement agencies are facing budget cuts and being forced to lay off sworn officers. The United States needs a less expensive way of preventing crime, and that is what Chicago’s CeaseFire program provides.

CeaseFire is a public health model administered by the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention at the University of Illinois’ School of Public Health. As a public health model, CeaseFire defines violence as a disease, and examines how, when, and by whom it is spread, and how it can be stopped. The nonprofit program attempts to interrupt the cycle of violence, especially gun violence, and to change norms about behavior.

The program uses two teams of people to prevent violence. The first group consists of outreach workers who collaborate with the local clergy to oppose violence. The second group is a less conventional one, called “violence interrupters,” who operate at night. They are mainly former gang members and graduates of the CeaseFire program. These people search out crime and use a tough, realistic approach to enforcing the law—in their own way. If they come across a man intent on shooting someone, for instance, they will try to physically separate the two parties, even if it means using force, then mediate a solution that is satisfactory to both.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s study of CeaseFire in 2008, it is a success. Five out of the seven areas where the CeaseFire program operates in Chicago reported a sharp decrease in gun violence. Shootings and killings dropped 40 percent in crime hot spots. Retaliatory murders dropped 100 percent. These results brought praise for the program. “I found the statistical results to be as strong as you could hope for,” said Wes Skogan, author of the Justice Department’s study.

It appears that the CeaseFire program is needed more at certain times of the year. According to The New York Times, multiyear homicide trends show that the prime time for murder is the summer.

It is not simply that warm weather incites violence. Murder peaks in summer because this is when people are outdoors or off work and come together to socialize, drink, and do drugs. While under the influence of substances and peers, people are more prone to act out and make a commotion. As Professor Steven F. Messner from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, “Homicides vary with social acting. They evolve from interactions.”

The idea that social interaction incites violence makes violence like a disease. It spreads from person to person when people interact. Dr. Gary Slutkin, the chief architect of Ceasefire, looks at violence as an epidemiologist, describing it as a disease and a public health crisis.

The people that the CeaseFire program keeps from becoming crime statistics aren’t the only beneficiaries of the program. The “violence interrupters” also benefit from the program, as they are at-risk individuals who, if they were not recruited into the program, might commit crimes and be a danger to the community. The program helps set these people on a less violent path through life by helping them find a job, receive an education, or leave a gang. According to the White House’s website, “[President] Obama and [Vice President] Biden support innovative local programs, like the CeaseFire program in Chicago, which implement a community-based strategy to prevent youth violence and have been proven effective.”

The CeaseFire program has proven its effectiveness. It has helped keep people from becoming the victims—and even the perpetrators—of violent crime. And it is spreading, though this time one would not use the word virus to describe its migration. Baltimore, Cincinnati, Las Vegas, and New York may all soon see the launch of CeaseFire programs.