Response to “What works with gangs: A breakthrough”

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12438
• Date: 01 February 2019
• Published date: 01 February 2019
• Author: David M. Kennedy

DOI: 10.1111/1745-9133.12438

SPECIAL ESSAY

RESPONSE TO WHAT WORKS WITH GANGS

Response to “What works with gangs:

A breakthrough”

David M. Kennedy

John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Correspondence

DavidM. Kennedy, National Networkfor Safe Communities, John Jay College of Cr iminal Justice,524 W. 59th St., Ste. 1140B,

NewYork, NY 10019.

Email:dakennedy@jjay.cuny.edu

The November 2018 issue of Criminology & Public Policy includes the policy essay “What Works

with Gangs: A Breakthrough” (Howell, 2018). In this essay, Howell addressed, in part, the Group

Violence Intervention, or GVI, the dominant current name for a portfolio of “focused deterrence”

interventions that began with “Operation Ceasefire” in Boston more than 20 years ago and that has

since been developed, refined, and seen wide implementation (Braga, Weisburd, & Turchan, 2018). In

the essay, Howell stated that:

The Group Violence Intervention (GVI) is a problem-oriented policing deterrence project

that instituted a zero-tolerance policy for any law-breaking activity on the part of iden-

tified individuals, with the aim of reducing homicide (Kennedy, 2010). High-rate vio-

lent offenders with histories of gang-relatedcr imes (identified through a review of police

arrest records in a problem analysis) are notified in a community meeting (to which they

are invited) that they are subject to long prison sentences for any subsequent offenses,

probation, or parole violations. In these community meetings, federal, state, and local

law enforcement authorities communicate emphatically that violence will no longer be

tolerated (Braga and Hureau, 2012: 134). Successful convictions that drew long federal

sentences are widely publicized in the community to deter others. In various ceasefire

sites, a menu of “sticks” and “carrots” was offered to offenders. Sticks were a range of

sanctions or “levers” used to encourage gang members to desist from violence, notifying

gang members that (a) all of them would be held accountable for violence committed by

any one of them and that (b) violent crime surely would have consequences (i.e., long

prison sentences). (Howell, 2018, p. 993)

This is almost completely wrong, not only in its details but also in its disregard for the core under-

standing of violence dynamics that informs GVI; for its resultant theory of action; and for the additional

goals, beyond violence prevention, that it seeks to achieve.1GVI is most fundamentally premised on

the central finding across large numbers of jurisdictions that homicide and gun violence are concen-

trated among small numbers of extremely high-risk groups, with aggregate members of all such groups

typically representing at or less than one half of 1% of the population while being connected to half to

Criminology & Public Policy. 2019;18:E1–E4. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/capp © 2019 American Society of Criminology E1