Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Despite 20 years of declining crime in the United States, the toll of serious violence — especially gun violence — continues to harm communities and destroy lives. Public officials and community leaders struggle to identify effective responses. The most popular approaches for preventing violence rely on deterrence and suppression techniques. When implemented correctly, intensive enforcement efforts can be very effective in the short run, but such strategies are not sustainable in the long run unless they are followed by deeper social change. Real and lasting progress in the fight against violence may require changing the social norms and attitudes that perpetuate the cycle of violence. In addition, communities need support to develop the preventive resources that are required to stop young people from being drawn into the culture of violence.

Cure Violence (formerly CeaseFire) is a violence prevention program that works in communities with high levels of gun violence. The program assumes that violence-endorsing attitudes spread through social networks, transfer from individuals to groups, and may be eventually embraced by entire communities. To counter such a contagion, Cure Violence staff conduct public education campaigns to shift community attitudes and work to establish confidential relationships with the neighborhood residents most likely to participate in violence. Drawing on these relationships, workers teach participants how to avoid violent conflicts and connect them with community resources that promote educational attainment and labor market success.

This presentation will discuss findings from an evaluation conducted by the Research & Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice suggesting that the Cure Violence strategy may be effective at shifting violence-endorsing attitudes. Between 2014 and 2016, researchers at John Jay College surveyed over 6,000 young men ages 18 to 30 in twelve New York City neighborhoods with matching demographics and crime rates. Six neighborhoods operated Cure Violence programs and six served as comparison sites. Researchers recruited survey respondents using a method known as respondent-driven sampling. The study measured the attitudes of young men in general and did not attempt to identify which respondents may have been Cure Violence participants. Regression analysis examined the intervention effect of Cure Violence using an interaction term (survey wave X intervention) and other control variables. Results suggest that the presence of Cure Violence in a neighborhood is associated with significant reductions in pro-violence attitudes among young male residents.