Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-cphqk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-27T17:42:16.769Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Critic Partnership, accountability, and innovation: clarifying Boston's experience with pulling levers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

By
Anthony A. Braga  and
Christopher Winship
Edited by
David Weisburd  and
Anthony A. Braga
Anthony A. Braga
Affiliation:
Senior Research Associate in the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management of the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government
Christopher Winship
Affiliation:
Norman Tishman and Charles M. Diker Professor Sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Fellow Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations
David Weisburd
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Anthony A. Braga
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
Get access

Summary

The pulling levers focused deterrence strategy has been embraced by the US Department of Justice as an effective approach to crime prevention. In his address to the American Society of Criminology, former National Institute of Justice Director Jeremy Travis (1998) announced “[the] pulling levers hypothesis has made enormous theoretical and practical contributions to our thinking about deterrence and the role of the criminal justice system in producing safety.” Pioneered in Boston to halt youth violence, the pulling levers framework has been applied in many American cities through federally sponsored violence prevention programs such as the Strategic Alternatives to Community Safety Initiative and Project Safe Neighborhoods (Dalton 2002). In its simplest form, the approach consists of selecting a particular crime problem, such as youth homicide; convening an interagency working group of law enforcement practitioners; conducting research to identify key offenders, groups, and behavior patterns; framing a response to offenders and groups of offenders that uses a varied menu of sanctions (“pulling levers”) to stop them from continuing their violent behavior; focusing social services and community resources on targeted offenders and groups to match law enforcement prevention efforts; and directly and repeatedly communicating with offenders to make them understand why they are receiving this special attention (Kennedy 1997; Kennedy in this volume).

Despite the enthusiasm for the approach, there is relatively little rigorous scientific evidence that pulling levers deterrence strategies have been useful in preventing violence beyond the Boston experience (Wellford, Pepper, and Petrie 2005).

Type
Chapter
Information
Police Innovation
Contrasting Perspectives
 , pp. 171 - 188
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bardach, E. (1998). Getting agencies to work together. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Berrien, J. and Winship, C. (2002). An umbrella of legitimacy: Boston's Police Department – ten point coalition collaboration. In Katzmann, G. (ed.), Securing our children's future: New approaches to juvenile justice and youth violence. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Berrien, J. and Winship, C. (2003). Should we have faith in the churches? The ten-point coalition's effect on Boston's youth violence. In Harcourt, B. (ed.), Guns, crime, and punishment in America. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Braga, A. (2002). Problem-oriented policing and crime prevention. Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Press.Google Scholar
Braga, A., Kennedy, D., and Tita, G. (2002). New approaches to the strategic prevention of gang and group-involved violence. In Huff, C. R. (ed.), Gangs in America (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Braga, A., Kennedy, D., Waring, E., and Piehl, A. (2001). Problem-oriented policing, deterrence, and youth violence: An evaluation of Boston's operation ceasefire. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 38, 195–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chacon, R. (1995). Boston police investigators seek cause of undercover officer's injuries. The Boston Globe, February 4, 22.Google Scholar
Coles, C. and Kelling, G. (1999). Prevention through community prosecution. The Public Interest, 136, 69–84.Google Scholar
Corbett, R., Fitzgerald, B., and Jordan, J. (1998). Boston's operation night light: An emerging model for police-probation partnerships. In Petersilia, J. (ed.), Community corrections: Probation, parole, and intermediate sanctions. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dalton, E. (2002). Targeted crime reduction efforts in ten communities: Lessons for the Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative. US Attorney's Bulletin, 50, 16–25.Google Scholar
Fagan, J. (2002). Policing guns and youth violence. The Future of Children, 12, 133–151.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grunwald, M. and Anand, G. (1995). Authorities praised; Some blacks wary. The Boston Globe, September 30, 80.Google Scholar
Kennedy, D. (1997). Pulling levers: Chronic offenders, high-crime settings, and a theory of prevention. Valparaiso University Law Review, 31, 449–484.Google Scholar
Kennedy, D. (2002). A tale of one city: Reflections on the Boston gun project. In Katzmann, G. (ed.), Securing our children's future: New approaches to juvenile justice and youth violence. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Kennedy, D. and Braga, A. (1998). Homicide in Minneapolis: Research for problem solving. Homicide Studies, 2, 263–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, D., Braga, A., and Piehl, A. (2001). Developing and implementing operation ceasefire. In Reducing gun violence: The Boston gun project's operation ceasefire. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, US Department of Justice.Google Scholar
Kennedy, D., Piehl, A., and Braga, A. (1996). Youth violence in Boston: Gun markets, serious offenders, and a use-reduction strategy. Law and Contemporary Problems, 59, 147–196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levitt, S. (2004). Understanding why crime fell in the 1990s: Four factors that explain the decline and six that do not. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18, 163–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mallia, J. and Mulvihill, M. (1994). Minister dies as cops raid wrong apartment. The Boston Herald, March 26, 1.Google Scholar
McGarrell, E. and Chermak, S. (2003). Strategic approaches to reducing firearms violence: Final report on the Indianapolis violence reduction partnership. Final report submitted to the US National Institute of Justice. East Lansing, MI: School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University.Google Scholar
Moore, M. (2002). Creating networks of capacity: The challenge of managing society's response to youth violence. In Katzmann, G. (ed.), Securing our children's future: New approaches to juvenile justice and youth violence. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Sherman, L. and Rogan, D. (1995). Effects of gun seizures on gun violence: “Hot spots” patrol in Kansas City. Justice Quarterly, 12, 673–694.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skogan, W. and Hartnett, S. (1997). Community policing, Chicago style. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tench, M. (2002). Group offers support for Evans, points to progress in curbing violence. The Boston Globe, September 21, 34.Google Scholar
Travis, J. (1998). Crime, justice, and public policy. Plenary presentation to the American Society of Criminology. Washington, DC: November 12. (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/speeches/asc.htm).Google Scholar
Wellford, C., Pepper, J., and Petrie, C. (eds.). (2005). Firearms and violence: A critical review. Committee to Improve Research Information and Data on Firearms. Committee on Law and Justice, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.Google Scholar
Winship, C. (Forthcoming). The end of a miracle? Crime, faith, and partnership in Boston in the 1990s. In Smith, R. Drew (ed.), The public influence of black churches, II. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Winship, C. and Berrien, J. (1999). Boston cops and black churches. The Public Interest, 136, 52–68.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×