Above link is to a report on Operation Ceasefire, which was part of the Boston Gun Project carried out in the Nineties, when gang violence was at a peak. I found it interesting and informative. I don't know much about criminal justice, apart from the fact that I treat law enforcement personnel in my psychology practice.
One of the findings of the report is that the majority of the most violent crimes, typically murders, were committed by a small number of repeat offenders based in a large black neighborhood. The social workers and non-profit liberal types who provided services in that community said that if one kid personally knew a shooting victim, the surviving kid had 9 times the risk of becoming a shooting victim himself, as opposed to peers who didn't know the victim.
I recall Glenn Loury and John McWhorter making similar statements, about a small number of young black criminals being responsible for the majority of violent crimes. I think this is a well established finding now, that the bulk of the crimes are committed by young black men who started their violent behavior in their teens and who become career criminals.
The Boston Gun Project was successful in reducing the number of shootings, but not in eliminating them. The authors also noted that the interventions they did were very intensive, resource expensive, and not practical to implement broadly in the way they were implemented during the Project. Some form of their model was recommended for use, however, and I was interested to see that Portland was one of the cities that planned to try it out.
I don't know what happened with the Portland experiment. The higher ranking police personnel who would have managed the project have all retired and many have died; I don't know if there is still anyone around here who remembers if the project was implemented or how it turned out. Officers who worked Portland's small black neighborhood during the Nineties have told me about the incredible levels of gang violence going on during that time. Oregon passed mandatory sentencing laws, and many if not most police officers credited those laws with getting the gang leaders out of the neighborhoods for a long enough time for some recovery to occur. The officers dreaded the dates when these guys were scheduled for release from prison, anticipating that the violence would explode again. That turned out to be not so true until recently, with the Nineties being a record peak for black gang violence nationally.
It does appear that removing the core violent criminals from big city black neighborhoods has been an effective strategy for reducing the extreme violence they perpetrate. There may be a lot of these guys in terms of prison cells needed, but they are a very small percentage of the young black men in our country.
Again, I don't know enough about criminal justice to offer a sophisticated comparison of black neighborhood crime organizations with twentieth century Italian American neighborhood crime, but prosecuting and imprisoning the Casa Nostra leadership did seem to diminish their power. I recently read, however, that the Detroit Mafia is still alive and kicking, albeit with a leaner organization. I think one of the differences between the Italian and black criminals, however, is that the Mafia children were able to transition into legitimate businesses. The Little Italy neighborhoods also transitioned as their citizens followed the usual immigrant paths to assimilation and middle class or better success.
Yup! That's Portland. Just recently (past month) the City has finally started moving the junkies, mentally ill and other so-called homeless people off the streets. They aren't exactly leaving town, however. The wokesters want all of us to pay for free permanent housing for all of them. This of course is not what most of the people on the street want, but the wokesters didn't ask them.
Meanwhile, a couple of locally based state legislators proposed a bill that would impose a $1K fine against anyone who "harasses" a street person or tells them to move their tent, and would also enable the street person to sue citizens or agencies for similar offenses.
Fortunately, this bill did get enough pushback so it has been stopped.
https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles1/nij/188741.txt
Above link is to a report on Operation Ceasefire, which was part of the Boston Gun Project carried out in the Nineties, when gang violence was at a peak. I found it interesting and informative. I don't know much about criminal justice, apart from the fact that I treat law enforcement personnel in my psychology practice.
One of the findings of the report is that the majority of the most violent crimes, typically murders, were committed by a small number of repeat offenders based in a large black neighborhood. The social workers and non-profit liberal types who provided services in that community said that if one kid personally knew a shooting victim, the surviving kid had 9 times the risk of becoming a shooting victim himself, as opposed to peers who didn't know the victim.
I recall Glenn Loury and John McWhorter making similar statements, about a small number of young black criminals being responsible for the majority of violent crimes. I think this is a well established finding now, that the bulk of the crimes are committed by young black men who started their violent behavior in their teens and who become career criminals.
The Boston Gun Project was successful in reducing the number of shootings, but not in eliminating them. The authors also noted that the interventions they did were very intensive, resource expensive, and not practical to implement broadly in the way they were implemented during the Project. Some form of their model was recommended for use, however, and I was interested to see that Portland was one of the cities that planned to try it out.
I don't know what happened with the Portland experiment. The higher ranking police personnel who would have managed the project have all retired and many have died; I don't know if there is still anyone around here who remembers if the project was implemented or how it turned out. Officers who worked Portland's small black neighborhood during the Nineties have told me about the incredible levels of gang violence going on during that time. Oregon passed mandatory sentencing laws, and many if not most police officers credited those laws with getting the gang leaders out of the neighborhoods for a long enough time for some recovery to occur. The officers dreaded the dates when these guys were scheduled for release from prison, anticipating that the violence would explode again. That turned out to be not so true until recently, with the Nineties being a record peak for black gang violence nationally.
It does appear that removing the core violent criminals from big city black neighborhoods has been an effective strategy for reducing the extreme violence they perpetrate. There may be a lot of these guys in terms of prison cells needed, but they are a very small percentage of the young black men in our country.
Again, I don't know enough about criminal justice to offer a sophisticated comparison of black neighborhood crime organizations with twentieth century Italian American neighborhood crime, but prosecuting and imprisoning the Casa Nostra leadership did seem to diminish their power. I recently read, however, that the Detroit Mafia is still alive and kicking, albeit with a leaner organization. I think one of the differences between the Italian and black criminals, however, is that the Mafia children were able to transition into legitimate businesses. The Little Italy neighborhoods also transitioned as their citizens followed the usual immigrant paths to assimilation and middle class or better success.
Yup! That's Portland. Just recently (past month) the City has finally started moving the junkies, mentally ill and other so-called homeless people off the streets. They aren't exactly leaving town, however. The wokesters want all of us to pay for free permanent housing for all of them. This of course is not what most of the people on the street want, but the wokesters didn't ask them.
Meanwhile, a couple of locally based state legislators proposed a bill that would impose a $1K fine against anyone who "harasses" a street person or tells them to move their tent, and would also enable the street person to sue citizens or agencies for similar offenses.
Fortunately, this bill did get enough pushback so it has been stopped.
https://ktvz.com/news/national-world/cnn-national/2023/05/08/a-huge-homeless-camp-will-be-cleared-after-neighbors-sued-what-happens-to-its-vulnerable-residents-is-an-open-question-2/