Assignment task:
New York City has committed hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years to address the persistent gun violence impacting specific neighborhoods within the city, particularly those areas surrounding public housing developments. In 2014, the Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS) launched the Mayor's Action Plan for Neighborhood Safety (MAP) and City Council launched the Crisis Management System (CMS) to develop a coordinated approach to addressing gun violence and employ hundreds of Credible Messengers and Violence Interrupters to engage young people in underserved communities known to carry and use guns. More recently, NYC Office to Prevent Gun Violence (Theory of Change) launched the Atlas Program (1, 2) to increase therapeutic services targeting the highest risk children and families.
Your team is tasked with providing a critique of New York City's policies and investment strategies to address gun violence. First, identify the three greatest strengths, with supporting evidence demonstrating where and to what extent these policies and approaches have been shown to be effective. Second, identify the two most significant gaps or weaknesses in NYC's approach, and propose new or augmented policies and strategies that could redress these weaknesses, again with supporting evidence.
Note, some of the websites linked above have outdated links, due to the recent migration of the Office of Neighborhood Safety away from the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice and into the Department of Youth and Community Development. Even with the dead links, these sites provide a wealth of context for how NYC developed its gun violence policy over the past 10 years.
References provided by the class
Skogan W. G. et al (2008) Evaluation of Cease Fire-Chicago. Northwestern University & Office of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice (Only required to read the first two chapters)
Council on Criminal Justice (2022) Saving Lives: Ten Essential Actions Cities Can Take to Reduce Violence Now
READI Chicago (2023) A Community-Researcher Partnership to Reduce Gun Violence
John Jay College Research Advisory Group on Preventing and Reducing Community Violence (2020). Reducing Violence Without Police: A Review of Research Evidence. Research and Evaluation Center
Sanchez, C. et al. (2020) A systematic review of the causes and prevention strategies in reducing gun violence in the United States.
BRIC TV (2016) Sounds of Brownsville Battles Crime Through Music