Vital City essay June 8, 2023 AB PJC

The Vital Role of the Police in Gun Violence Prevention

Anthony A. Braga and Philip J. Cook
In many U.S. cities, gun violence is the most urgent crime problem. High rates of deadly violence make a
city less livable, not only in a literal sense, but also by degrading quality of life, blocking economic
development, and lowering property values. The police are the primary agency tasked with controlling
gun violence, yet too often the advocates for gun violence prevention either ignore the police or only
reference them as a part of the problem. In our view, more effective policing is a key to the success of
any comprehensive effort to reduce community gun violence.
The stakes are high and growing higher. In 2020, with the onset of the pandemic and widespread
vilification of the police following George Floyd’s murder, gun murders increased 34% nationwide and
were up again the following year. Police officers resigned and retired in droves, and recruiting
replacements has proven difficult. While the “Defund” movement never got much traction, in fact police
departments everywhere have shrunk due to vacancies. The national homicide clearance rate has sunk to a
new low near 50%. Meanwhile, some cities are experiencing their highest murder rates on record, higher
even than during the crack cocaine era of the late 1980s.
Now as then, gun violence is concentrated in low-income Black and Hispanic communities. These
communities bear the brunt of the associated economic, social, and psychological burdens. Any
successful strategy must overcome the current impasse where the residents of high-violence
neighborhoods do not trust the police, having experienced both abuse and neglect in their dealings with
officers. Among the questions that motivate us: How can police departments find the right balance
between over- and under-policing of high-violence areas? What are the best practices for police to
preempt and deter gun violence? What can be done to engender support and cooperation from the public?

We offer a modestly optimistic perspective. Increasing the effectiveness of the police in gun-
violence prevention is both possible and essential. It is essential because there is no good
alternative to police authority for reining in gang violence, interrupting cycles of retaliation,
deterring gun carrying by youths and active criminals, and providing justice to victims and
survivors. Indeed, increasing the number of police has repeatedly been shown to reduce the
amount of violent crime, typically without increasing the number of arrests. In that sense the
police are effective, and could become still more so. Increasing police effectiveness is possible
due to considerable advances in the understanding of what works (and what doesn’t) in the
strategic use of police resources. Innovations such as focused deterrence, hot spots policing,
procedural justice, and enhanced shooting investigations have been widely studied and offer real
promise if implemented correctly. A comprehensive strategy for policing gun violence requires a
community focus and a commitment to reining in police misbehaviour. We believe that strategic
reforms and investments in the police are vital for our quality of life as well as a matter of social
justice.

In our book Policing Gun Violence, we discuss four promising areas for reform.

(1) Focus patrol on gun violence hot spots

Gun violence is not evenly spread throughout cities. Some locations are “hot spots,” which is to
say persistently dangerous. Police can control recurring gun violence by concentrating patrol
activities in such places. One approach is to curtail illicit gun carrying by conducting stops and
frisks in these locations. These kinds of enforcement strategies need to be very carefully
implemented as they risk undermining police legitimacy in the communities they serve if stops
are excessive and heavy handed. Police stops need to be lawful, conducted in a procedurally just
manner, and highly focused on risky people and high-risk places, in the spirit of “precision
policing.” In addition to proactive patrol, the police can take the lead in identifying the
underlying problems in these hot spots and help design and implement longer-term solutions.
Among the possibilities: locating vacant lots and buildings, and other places, that are conducive
to drug dealing and other dangerous activity; identify commercial places, such as clubs and bars,
that have a high incidence of violence; and improve lighting.

(2) Identify the most dangerous gangs and street crews, and use focused deterrence interventions
to reduce their gun involvement

Shootings are highly concentrated among groups of criminally active individuals who use guns
to settle disputes emanating from personal clashes, drug market business, ongoing gang rivalries,
and other conflicts. Cities can diminish their overall gun violence problems by reducing violent
victimization in these very high-risk groups through the strategic application of “carrots and
sticks” or, more formally, incentives and disincentives. This model, sometimes known as
“focused deterrence,” was first developed and implemented in Boston in the 1990s, with
considerable success in getting youth gangs to give up their guns. Similar programs have been
implemented in other cities since then, all designed to reduce gun violence through a credible
threat of arrest and prosecution to chronic perpetrators. These programs gain community
legitimacy if coupled with social services and opportunities for targeted offenders, and can help
improve police-community relationships in disadvantaged minority communities. These
multifaceted programs can be difficult to implement and sustain over extended periods.
Jurisdictions must develop a strong network of willing partners, adopt accountability structures
and sustainability plans, and conduct upfront and ongoing analyses of gun violence problems to
customize the program to local conditions.

(3) Strengthen shooting investigations to hold violent gun offenders accountable

Low clearance rates for fatal and nonfatal shootings pose a deadly problem in U.S. cities. In
Chicago and many other cities, the likelihood that a shooting will result in an arrest and
prosecution is less than 10%. That is true despite the fact that investigations of shootings now
benefit from routine use of video and other digital evidence, DNA matching, ballistics analysis,
and other technological advances. Despite these advantages, detectives still must persuade key
witnesses to cooperate, starting (in the case of non-fatal shootings) with the victim. In practice,
victims and other witnesses are often reluctant to cooperate. Among the reasons are fear of
retaliation, dislike and distrust for the police, or a belief that the police are unlikely to succeed in
locking up the perpetrator. The failure to arrest and convict undermines the preventive effects of
law enforcement. Unsolved shootings also contribute to cycles of urban gun violence, deprive
victims and their families of justice, and erode trust in the police which further undermines
witness cooperation with investigations.
One answer on how to improve clearance rates is to give shooting investigations higher priority.
Currently nonfatal investigations typically receive much lower priority and hence investigative
effort than fatal shootings. From a prevention perspective, that doesn’t make sense – the goal is
to prevent shootings. Whether the victim lives or dies is largely a matter of chance, so that fatal
and nonfatal cases are very similar in all relevant respects. Several jurisdictions, most notably
Denver, have recognized the importance of solving nonfatal shootings, and have allocated more
resources to those investigations.

(4) Reduce shootings by police by improving engagement protocols, organizational culture, and
training

Police officers in the line of duty killed nearly 1200 people in 2022. A handful of those killings
have been video recorded and sparked mass demonstrations, including household names such as
George Floyd, LaQuan McDonald, Michael Brown, and Breonna Taylor. Needless to say these
events have stoked the narrative of police indifference to Black lives, and impair community
relations. These high-profile killings of Black victims are in our view part of a larger problem of
excess use of force in fraught encounters by the police. (Only one in four civilians killed by the
law enforcement are Black.) While most police killings are legally justifiable, they are still
problematic and preventable. Much of the problem of excess violence can be dealt with through
internal policies governing hiring, training, use of force, and accountability practices. It is
noteworthy, for example, that while Phoenix and Dallas are very similar cities in a number of
respects, the Phoenix Police Department is persistently involved in three times as many killings
as the Dallas Police Department.

Decades ago when we started our research program in gun violence prevention, much of the
focus was on how best to regulate gun design, commerce, possession, and carrying. Politics and
the courts have made this avenue for prevention increasingly limited. The current interpretation
of the Second Amendment, as articulated in the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision in 2022, may
ultimately have the effect of sweeping away most regulations that we consider effective. As it is,
half the states have stopped regulating gun carrying in public, and more are poised to do so. The
dwindling role of regulation has made it all the more important that the police step up. Too many
people are dying, too many neighborhoods and cities are becoming unlivable, due to gun
violence.