Crime Reduction Solutions that Actually Work: Expanded View

“Cutting welfare funding is essentially creating and following a blueprint to increase crime in this country” – Me, a few days ago.

The fun part of having a blog is I can quote myself!

In a post earlier this week, I briefly touched on some proven strategies for reducing the rate or violent and non-violent crime in the US. To recap, the strategies boiled down the three main tenants:

1. Higher Income
2. Stable Housing
3. Healthcare Funding

The original data came from the Nevada Sentencing Commission’s Report.

Today I wanted to expand on these findings and provide more evidence that these strategies work. I also want to see what other strategies are found to be effective, and discuss how we could implement these strategies in our society to reduce the crime rate.

To start on a negative note and work back up, let’s look at what doesn’t work when trying to reduce crime.

Ineffective Crime Reduction Strategies

First up, we’ll look at sentencing. The line of thinking makes sense – introduce a longer, harsher sentence (up to and including the death penalty) and naturally people will be dissuaded from committing crimes.

It turns out, this is not an effective way to reduce crime. From a research summary by Lund University, “Despite harsher sentences and increased resources for the criminal justice system, research shows nothing to indicate that this leads to reduced criminality”. For young people especially, the measures actually INCREASE future crimes as they enforce the “criminal persona”. Think about it – if a kid spends 3 years of their adolescence in a juvenile detention center while they’re developing their personal identity, the now identify as a criminal.

These findings were backed up by NIJ Research. They found that the chance of being caught is a far more effective deterrent than harsher punishments. Since I’m not advocating living in a surveillance state, I think we need to look elsewhere for a solution.

Next, we will look at Stop and Frisk policies. These policies allow police officers to stop and search individuals they suspect might be involved in criminal activity.

Since the reasons to suspect an individual isn’t clearly defined, police officers have time and time again used it to racially profile people. This profiling led to a further breakdown of trust between minority groups and the police, a bar that was already pretty low in my experience.

In a fact database from NYCLU, the following was found to be true about stop and frisk procedures:

“No research has ever proven the effectiveness of New York City’s stop-and-frisk regime, and the small number of arrests, summonses, and guns recovered demonstrates that the practice is ineffective. Crime data also do not support the claim that New York City is safer because of the practice. While violent crimes fell 29 percent in New York City from 2001 to 2010, other large cities experienced larger violent crime declines without relying on stop and frisk abuses: 59 percent in Los Angeles, 56 percent in New Orleans, 49 percent in Dallas, and 37 percent in Baltimore. Stop-and-Frisk abuses corrode trust between the police and communities, which makes everyone less safe. Don’t believe us? Then listen to NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly in 2000: “[A] large reservoir of good will was under construction when I left the Police Department in 1994. It was called community policing. But it was quickly abandoned for tough-sounding rhetoric and dubious stop-and-frisk tactics that sowed new seeds of community mistrust.”

Another reduction method bites the dust.

These are the two biggest debunked strategies.

Strategies that Actually Work!

Youth Programs

The University of Chicago Crime Lab has done research on whether youth programs effectively reduce crime through their own program, called Choose to Change. From their website:

“Choose to Change® (C2C) focuses on youth who are beginning to disconnect from school and are at elevated risk of getting involved with crime and violence. Trained advocates support participating Chicago youth with a combination of behavioral science-informed programming, intensive mentorship, and individual and family support. The policy brief highlights that participation in such a comprehensive program can significantly reduce violent crime with sustained impact for years”.

This program has been in place for a bit, and the results are pretty incredible. Quote, “C2C® reduces the likelihood that youth will be arrested for a violent crime by 39 percent. Results persist at least until 36 months after program participation, showing participants are 23 percent less likely to be arrested and 28 percent less likely to be arrested for a violent crime. The effects are largest for the most serious violent crimes, like aggravated assault and battery, suggesting the program helps youth avoid particularly high-stakes situations“.

These findings have been echoed by other sources initiating the same. Some findings from the Annie E. Casey Foundation:

• Community Violence Intervention (CVI): Focused and Effective
  CVI strategies target high-risk individuals and locations with the help of credible messengers and wraparound support. Programs like Operation Ceasefire in Boston led to more than a 60% drop in homicides, underscoring CVI’s power to change behavior through community engagement rather than punishment.
• Deflection and Diversion: Connecting Youth to Services
  Multi-disciplinary deflection initiatives (also known as diversion), such as Cambridge’s Safety Net, bring together police, schools, mental health providers and community organizations. These programs respond to early warning signs and steer youth away from deeper justice involvement — resulting in lower arrest rates and faster access to support.
• Restorative Justice: Repairing Harm, Reducing Recidivism
  Restorative justice practices prioritize healing and accountability over punishment. When youth engage with those they’ve harmed, and take active responsibility, outcomes improve. One study showed that restorative participants were 20% less likely to be rearrested compared to peers in traditional systems.

In short, engaging with youth offenders rather than increasing punishments is much more effective at reducing crime. Think about it – earlier this week we learned that kids from single-parent households are more likely to end up criminals. I don’t think this just because the kids has one parent (usually the mother). One parent working = far less money and resources, as brought up by my awesome reader Derik. One parent raising kids also = far less attention paid to that kid by their insanely busy parent. I grew up in a house where I received little attention from my parent. I didn’t turn out a criminal, but I do have attention-seeking habits as an adult. I’m a lady with a degree in Automotive Technology and the ability to hack into anything given enough time. Sure, I am interested in those things, but I also enjoy the surprise those hobbies garner from strangers when they learn. These kids might be committing crimes as a method to gain attention, because any attention will do when you feel completely ignored.

Giving them positive attention from adults they look up to, unsurprisingly, makes them less likely to commit crime. Maybe because they’re less likely to crave attention in any form to feel like they matter to someone?

Higher Incomes / More Resources

The Center for Guaranteed Income Research at Penn’s School of Social Policy and Practice has shown that giving formerly incarcerated people a guaranteed income reduces crime.

The first pilot program I’ll discuss is the Just Income program in Gainesville, FL. This study gave participants $1000 for the first month, and $600/month for the months thereafter. The report was length and very detailed but these findings stood out:

• Income recipients were 2x as likely as the control group to be able to cover a spontaneous $400 medical bill
• Income recipients were 3x as likely to be able to contribute to family and friends financially if needed
• Income recipients displayed less rejection sensitivity than the control, allowing them to show up and engage meaningfully with those around them with the fear of rejection
• During the 18-month pilot period, unemployment among income recipients consistently declined, whereas it began to rise between 12-18 months for the control group
• Income recipient recidivism rate at 6 months was 27.8%, where it was 40.3% for the control group – this is a huge finding when concerned with reducing crime.

The second study is the Excel Pilot Program in Durham, NC. This study was similarly set up to the Just Income Program, and had these findings:

• Recipients…
  • trended toward an improved ability to cover an unexpected $400 expense with cash or a credit card paid in full;
  • improved their ability to help friends or family financially;
  • saved significantly more than the control group;
  • had significantly higher food security than the control group;
  • were significantly less likely to stay in two places in the past month, an indicator of greater housing stability;
  • were significantly more likely to report staying in their own rental unit or owned home than the control group during the program;
  • were significantly more likely to maintain full-time employment than the control group.
  • trended toward lower levels of stress, anxiety, and depression;
  • had significant positive increases in household organization and harmony; and
  • reported significantly greater physical health limitations, yet also reported significantly better general health
  • had recidivism rates of just 4%

Clearly, there’s something to providing a basic income that reduces crime. This directly aligns with the findings that less economic resources = more crime. Reducing the stress of poverty not only decreases crime, but increases the recipient’s positive interactions with the world.

Other studies have found that recipients of SNAP, Medicaid and substance abuse treatment programs also commit significantly less crime than those with prior convictions that do not. This is important, because we are comparing a group of people who have committed a crime previously, and seeing how to effectively prevent them from committing a crime again.

Based on my previous post, most murders and assaults are immediately after or during an argument. Many arguements start because of stress, like financial stress or mental health challenges, etc. Effectively reducing the conditions that stress people the f*ck out seems to also reduce their desire to beat the shit out of or murder each other. Go figure!

Beautiful!

Focused Deterrence

When it comes to gangland violence, a tactic called Focused Deterrence was found to be effective. Focused Deterrence is defined as, “strategy that uses communication techniques, peer pressure, stringent sanctions, and social services to deter high-risk groups or gang members from violent crime”.

In a study done in Kansas City, MO, law enforcement enacted this program to effectively reduce gun violence in the city. Quote:

Frontline police and probation officers first participated in group audits to identify and locate the target population by sharing and documenting what they knew about current violent groups, their members, relationships, and activities. The targeted offenders or group members were then invited to face-to-face meetings with law enforcement personnel, community members and social service providers. About 13% of targeted group members attended the call-in meetings through the 3-year intervention period. In the meetings, criminal justice officials delivered a clear message that certain and severe penalties would be imposed if these high-risk group members engaged in future violent crimes. The enforcement actions include arrests, warrants, submission of cases to federal courts, administrative jail sanctions, and enhancement of probation terms. For those who committed to nonviolence, service providers would offer them an array of services and referrals for education, employment, job training, resume/application/email assistance, substance abuse, mental health, conflict resolution, anger management, housing and transitional living assistance, and medical/dental assistance.

The results were clear. “The focused deterrence approach was associated with significant reductions in homicides, group member-involved homicides, and non-domestic gun aggravated assaults during its first year. These effects, however, diminished for all three types of violent crime during the second and third year of implementation. In fact, gun-involved aggravated assaults significantly increased in the third year. Similarly, Kansas City had 21% fewer homicide incidents in 2014 compared to the control group. In 2015, however, the Kansas City homicide rate was only 1% lower than that of the control group, and the city’s homicide rate was 22% higher than that of the control group in 2016“.

Other Resources

If this is a topic of interest, I’d highly recommend checking out the Matrix of Evidence-Based Policing findings. You can read reports on not only what works, but what didn’t work.

You can find the Matrix here: CEBCP

Conclusion

In conclusion, it seems the best way to effectively reduce crime is proactively, not reactively. Creating conditions where youth and adult offenders aren’t compelled to commit crime, aren’t so angry at their position in life they’re able to fly into a murderous rage, or aren’t so in need of attention they’re willing to join a gang to feel part of something is pretty much the recipe to reduce crime.

I will again state – this country is on a blueprint to increase crime. We are all stressed out, broke, and have no time to positively interact with each other. We’re being told to fear/hate our neighbor, fear/hate our political opposites and fear/hate the adherents of other religions. This is not how we increase cohesity and, therefore, reduce crime in our society. It’s how we raise the temperature so much that the thermometer explodes out the top and we get covered in mercury.

Thanks for reading!