MISSING PIECES - Inter-Parliamentary Union
MISSING PIECES - Inter-Parliamentary Union
MISSING PIECES - Inter-Parliamentary Union
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THEME 6<br />
areas of the country. 13 This partnership analysed the dynamics driving<br />
the city’s youth homicide problem and developed an intervention its members<br />
believed would have a substantial near-term impact on the problem. 14<br />
Operation Ceasefire was launched the following year and employed a<br />
deterrence strategy that focused criminal justice attention (e.g. increased<br />
policing and enforcement, and improved legal processing) on a small<br />
number of chronically offending gang-involved youth. The deterrent effect<br />
of focused policing rapidly increased the price of gun acquisition while<br />
simultaneously reducing preferences through perceived improvements in<br />
community safety and security. An impact evaluation undertaken following<br />
Operation Ceasefire indicated that the project was associated with<br />
significant reductions in indicators of violence, such as youth homicide,<br />
reports to the police of shots having been fired, and incidence of gun assaults<br />
in Boston. 15<br />
Increasingly programmes are also set up to try and influence the relationship<br />
between masculinities, violence and guns. For example, the “White<br />
Ribbon Campaign” 16 is a global campaign which started in Canada in the<br />
early 1990s after a man who had not been accepted into a graduate programme<br />
in Montreal entered a classroom and killed fourteen female students<br />
in revenge. It consists of men speaking out against violence against<br />
women and is now active in more than 40 countries worldwide.<br />
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PARLIAMENTARIANS<br />
Local efforts to address the demand side of the small arms equation have<br />
generated an institutional knowledge base that is overdue for assimilation<br />
into policy discussions on small arms. Some recommendations for parliamentarians<br />
to consider include the following:<br />
1. Investigate demand factors. Increasing attention is being directed to<br />
various ‘demand’ factors, such as linkages between poverty and violence<br />
or police reform. Parliamentarians can conduct inquiries and public consultation<br />
and contribute to action oriented research about demand factors,<br />
or call on national commissions on small arms to take over these tasks.<br />
This can significantly inform policy development and public debate about<br />
weapons control.<br />
2. Governments and multilateral agencies should integrate thinking<br />
about demand factors for guns into their practical responses to violence<br />
and arms reduction. Parliamentarians are ideally placed to encourage gov-<br />
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