Focused Deterrence Strategies and Crime Control

• Author: Brandon Turchan,Anthony A. Braga,David Weisburd
• Published date: 01 February 2018
• Date: 01 February 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12353

RESEARCH ARTICLE

FOCUSED DETERRENCE STRATEGIES

AND CRIME CONTROL

Focused Deterrence Strategies and Crime

Control

An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

of the Empirical Evidence

Anthony A. Braga

Northeastern University

David Weisburd

George Mason University and Hebrew University

Brandon Turchan

Rutgers University

Research Summary

Focused deterrence strategies are increasinglybeing applied to prevent and control gang

and group-involved violence, overt drug markets, and individual repeat offenders. Our

updated examination of the effects of focused deterrence strategies on crime followed the

systematic review protocols and conventions of the Campbell Collaboration. Twenty-

four quasi-experimental evaluations were identified in this systematic review. The

results of our meta-analysis demonstrate that focused deterrence strategiesare associated

with an overall statistically significant, moderate crime reduction effect. Nevertheless,

program effect sizes varied by program type and weresmaller for evaluations with more

rigorous research designs.

Policy Implications

The available empirical evidence suggests these strategies generate noteworthy crime

reduction impacts and should be part of a broader portfolio of crime reduction strategies

available to policy makers and practitioners. Investmentsstill need to be made, however,

Direct correspondence to Anthony A. Braga, Northeastern University, College of Social Sciences and

Humanities, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 204 Churchill Hall, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston,

MA 02115 (e-mail: a.braga@northeastern.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12353 C2018 American Society of Criminology 205

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Research Article Focused Deterrence Strategies and Crime Control

to strengthen the overall rigor of program evaluations and improve our understanding

of key program activities associated with observed crime reduction impacts.

Keywords

Deterrence, problem-oriented policing, gang violence, repeat offenders, drug markets

Focused deterrence strategies, also known as “pulling levers” policing programs,

have been increasingly implemented in the United States and other countries to

reduce serious violent crime committed by gangs and other criminally active groups,

recurring offending by highly active individual offenders, and crime and disorder problems

generated by overt street-leveldr ug markets. These strategies areframed by an action research

model that is common to both problem-oriented policing and public health interventions to

reduce violence (Braga and Weisburd,2015). Briefly, the aim of focused deterrence strategies

is to change offender behavior by understanding underlying crime-producing dynamics and

conditions that sustain recurring crime problems and by implementing an appropriately

focused blended strategy of law enforcement, community mobilization, and social service

actions (Kennedy, 2008, 2011). Direct communications of increased enforcement risks

and the availability of social service assistance to target groups and individuals are defining

characteristics of focused deterrence strategies.

The focused deterrence approach was pioneered as the “Operation Ceasefire” interven-

tion in Boston, Massachusetts, to address an epidemic of gang homicide in the early-to-mid

1990s (Braga, Kennedy, Waring, and Piehl, 2001; Kennedy, Piehl, and Braga, 1996) and

then was eventually tested in other jurisdictions (e.g., McGarrell, Chermak, Wilson, and

Corsaro, 2006; Papachristos, Meares, and Fagan, 2007; Tita et al., 2004). Although the

goal of focused deterrence strategies is to prevent crime by changing offender perceptions

of sanction risk, other complementary crime prevention mechanisms seem to support the

crime control efficacy of these programs (Braga and Kennedy, 2012; Kennedy, Kleiman,

and Braga, 2017). These strategies are also intended to change offender behavior by mo-

bilizing community action, enhancing procedural justice, and improving police legitimacy.

To some observers, focused deterrence strategies hold great promise in reducing serious

violence while improving strained relationships between minority neighborhoods and the

police departments that serve them (Brunson, 2015; Meares, 2009).

In a now-dated Campbell Collaboration systematic review, ten quasi-experimental

evaluations of the crime control impacts of focused deterrence programs were identi-

fied based on a search for eligible studies completed in 2010 (Braga and Weisburd,

2012a, 2012b). In that Campbell review, researchers found that focused deterrence strate-

gies were associated with significant reductions in targeted crime problems. Although

the authors concluded that the available evidence was highly supportive of crime re-

duction impacts (Braga and Weisburd, 2012a, 2012b), they also noted the absence of

206 Criminology & Public Policy

Braga, Weisburd, and Turchan

randomized experiments and the fact that, in several of the included evaluations, weaker

designs were used with nonequivalent comparisons. By drawing on the results of the original

Campbell review and a growing body of evaluation evidence, ProfessorKenneth Land (2015:

515) concluded that focused deterrence programs “work” in violent crime control and that

policy makers should “let the focused deterrence and pulling levers programs roll with eternal

vigilance.”

Recently, more cities have tested the focused deterrence approach to control gang

violence, disorderly drug markets, and repeat offender problems. The National Networkfor

Safe Communities, an applied research project of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice,

provides support to some 84 U.S. cities who are implementing some version of a focused

deterrence strategy.1A few other countries have started to test the approach. For instance,

a focused deterrence program has been implemented targeting youth violence in Glasgow,

Scotland (Deuchar, 2013). Police executives and other public officials in Eastern European

and South American countries, such as Turkey and Brazil, have also explored the possibility

of implementing focused deterrence strategies to control gang and group-related violence

in their cities (National Network for Safe Communities, 2013).

The small number of studies and the preponderance of weaker evaluation designs, how-

ever, contribute to some healthy ongoing skepticism regarding the crime control benefits

associated with focused deterrence programs among practitioners and crime policy scholars.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani criticized the “Boston Model” as not leading

to lasting crime control gains in his 2001 farewell address (The New York Times Staff,

2001). In an article published in The New Yorker, well-respected deterrence scholar Pro-

fessor Franklin Zimring is quoted as lamenting the lack of rigorous evaluations of focused

deterrence programs and, when assessing the Boston experience, suggested, “Ceasefire is

more of a theory of treatment rather than a proven strategy” (Seabrook, 2009: 37). Other

criminologists seem unaware of the existing empirical evidence. For instance, in his 2013

summary of the crime prevention value of focused deterrence programs, former National

Council on Crime and Delinquency president Barry Krisberg reported, “It certainly hasn’t

been effective so far, and there is no information suggesting it is effective” (as interviewed

by KTVU, 2013).

Given the growing popularity of focused deterrence programs and conflicting scholarly

views on the crime reduction value associated with the approach, ongoing systematic review

of rigorous program evaluations is necessary to keep policy and practice debates rooted in

the most up-to-date and comprehensive scientific evidence. In this article, we present the

findings of an updated Campbell Collaboration systematic review of 24 eligible program

evaluations in which the effects of focused deterrence on crime are measured. In this updated

review, more than twice as many eligible studies are considered when compared with its

1. For a complete list of cities supported by the National Network for Safe Communities, go to

nnscommunities.org/impact/cities (last accessed August 30, 2017).

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