Policing UK 2013 - Police Federation

THE ROLE OF POLICE
“In recent years, Ceasefire has been
a key strategy used by the Boston
Police to reduce fatal and non-fatal
shootings by 31 per cent.”
research ensures that the intervention is
properly focused on the most violent gangs
in Boston and the conflicts and alliances
of these gangs are well understood.
The strategy itself is co-ordinated by an
interagency working group of criminal
justice, social service and communitybased
partners. Analysis helps to inform
their decision-making.
The Operation Ceasefire focused
deterrence strategy is designed to prevent
violence by reaching out directly to
gangs, saying explicitly that violence
would no longer be tolerated, and
backing up that message by ‘pulling every
lever’ legally available when violence
occurred.
A co-ordinated response
The chronic involvement of gang
members in a wide variety of offences
makes them, and the gangs they form,
vulnerable to a co-ordinated criminal
justice response.
The criminal justice agencies
disrupt street drug activity, focus police
attention on low-level street crimes
such as trespassing and public drinking,
serve outstanding warrants, cultivate
confidential informants for mediumand
long-term investigations of gang
activities, deliver strict probation and
parole enforcement, seize drug proceeds
and other assets, ensure stiffer plea
bargains and sterner prosecutorial
attention, request stronger bail terms
(and enforce them), and bring potentially
severe federal investigative and
prosecutorial attention to gang-related
drug and gun activity.
Simultaneously, youth workers,
probation and parole officers, and
clergy and other community groups
offer gang members services and other
kinds of help. Providing gang youth
with opportunities and services is an
important element of the strategy.
Community and social service partners
also deliver an explicit message
that violence is unacceptable to the
community and that ‘street’ justifications
for violence are mistaken.
The interagency working group
delivers this message in formal meetings
with gang members (known as ‘forums’
or ‘call-ins’), through individual police
and probation contacts with gang
members, through meetings with inmates
at secure juvenile facilities in the city, and
through gang outreach workers.
The deterrence message is not a deal
with gang members to stop violence.
Rather, it is a promise to gang members
that violent behaviour will evoke an
immediate and intense response. If
gangs commit other crimes but refrain
from violence, the normal workings of
police, prosecutors, and the rest of the
criminal justice system deal with these
matters.
However, if gang members shoot
people, the Ceasefire working group
concentrates its enforcement actions on
their gangs. An ongoing working group
process monitors the city for outbreaks
of gang violence and frames any
necessary responses in accord with the
Ceasefire strategy.
Key strategy
Operation Ceasefire was associated with
a two-thirds reduction in youth homicides
during the 1990s. In recent years,
Ceasefire has been a key strategy used by
the Boston Police to reduce fatal and nonfatal
shootings by 31 per cent – from 377
shooting victims in 2006 to 259 shooting
victims in 2011. Equally important,
the Ceasefire strategy is embraced by
the community as a legitimate gang
violence prevention strategy. We believe
this legitimacy is accrued for, at least,
three reasons.
First, community members, especially
black clergy, are involved in the strategy.
Law enforcement actions are transparent
to these influential community members.
Second, gang members are warned
to halt their violent behaviour before
criminal justice agencies deliver a strong
law enforcement response.
Third, gang youth who want the
opportunity to change their life
trajectories are provided with services to
help that happen.
Increasing trust
In closing, it is appropriate to point out
that the lessons of Ceasefire fit well within
the wise teachings of Sir Robert Peel who
famously stated that “the police are the
public and the public are the police.”
In the opening words of a police
handbook issued to all members of the
precursor to the London Metropolitan
Police, Peel said: “When many offenders
are committed, it must appear to the
Commissioners that the police is not
properly conducted in the Division; and
the absence of crime will be considered
the best proof of the complete efficiency
of the police.”
Indeed, Ceasefire is focused on
producing the outcome of reduced
shootings through the strategic use
of a smaller number of arrests and
prosecutions. Leaving neighbourhoods
intact and ultimately increasing
community trust in their police.
POLICING UK | 67