Crime policy and informal social control

• Date: 01 November 2011
• Author: Megan Ferrier,Jens Ludwig
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9133.2011.00775.x
• Published date: 01 November 2011

POLICY ESSAY

COMMUNITY-DRIVEN VIOLENCE

REDUCTION PROGRAMS

Crime policy and informal social control

Megan Ferrier

Northwestern University

Jens Ludwig

University of Chicago

The article by Wilson and Chermak (2011, this issue) addresses an important topic:

What policy levers outside of the criminal justice system can help reduce crime

and violence in our nation’s most distressed and dangerous urban areas? Wilson

and Chermak try to answer that question by evaluating the effects of the One Vision

One Life program in Pittsburgh, PA. One Vision involved a collaborative problem-solving

process resulting in a multipart intervention that included continuing data analysis to guide

program activities; the use of street workers to try to connect high-risk young people to

social services such as job training and substance-abuse counseling; and some “violence-

interruption” activity intended to de-escalate situations in which retaliatory and other types

of violence were likely.

In what follows we first discuss whether these analyses are likely to have isolated the

causal effects of the One Vision intervention, which is the key question that determines

whether we can use these results to guide crime-policy decisions. Unfortunately we think

the answer is “no,” which is mostly a result of the nature of the intervention and how it was

implemented rather than from any fault of the investigators themselves. Wethen offer some

thoughts about the underlying logic behind One Vision, including the (usually implicit)

theory behind these sorts of “kitchen sink” interventions that risk factors have more-than-

additive effects on criminal behavior, as well as the practical challenges associated with

asking real-world organizations to engage in complicated problem-solving and collaborative

activities. We close with some discussion about the great value of learning more about how

Thanks to Wesley Skogan for helpful suggestions. This essay was supported in part by grants from the Joyce,

MacArthur and McCormick foundations to the University of Chicago Crime Lab. All opinions are our own.

Direct correspondence to Megan Ferrier, Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, 2040 Sheridan

Road, Evanston, IL, 60208–4100 (e-mail: m-ferrier@northwestern.edu).

DOI:10.1111/j.1745-9133.2011.00775.x C2011 American Society of Criminology 1029

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 10 rIssue 4