- Denver: “Clients assigned to the intervention were nearly 70 percent less likely to perpetrate violence.” That’s one key finding from a new study authored by CU Boulder Professor David C. Pyrooz and colleagues—Jose Antonio Sanchez and Elizabeth Weltman. Here are the authors describing the study:
“The multidisciplinary team and street outreach worker intervention led by the Gang Reduction Initiative of Denver (GRID) was subject to a randomized controlled trial between 2019 and 2022. One hundred forty-three people were assigned at random to receive individualized, coordinated case management, developed by the multidisciplinary team and facilitated by street outreach workers … The impact evaluation was paired with a process evaluation, which entailed 19 interviews with members of organizations participating in the multidisciplinary team, 197 hours of multidisciplinary and GRID team meeting observations, and 70 hours of field-based observations with street outreach workers.”
And here is the most relevant finding:
“Violent offending variety and prevalence scores were statistically significant and lower [for people randomly assigned to GRID]. In other words, respondents assigned at random to GRID … were 69 percent less likely to perpetrate violence during the recall period. On the whole, we can conclude that assignment to GRID corresponded with reductions in the perpetration of violence.”
- Chicago: In a study supported by the National Bureau of Economic Research, University of Chicago researcher Monica Bhatt and her colleagues—Sara B. Heller, Max Kapustin, Marianne Bertrand, and Christopher Blattman—conducted “a randomized controlled trial (N = 2,456) of a community-researcher partnership called the Rapid Employment and Development Initiative (READI) Chicago.” READI “operate[s] in five of Chicago’s highest-violence neighborhoods” and provides support to men with “the very highest risk of shooting involvement” by providing them with “subsidized, supported work combined with group cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
Here’s the logic that drives the support:
“The job was designed to provide several elements: a stable source of income to deter illegal work, an incentive to participate in the therapy, a place to build and reinforce new skills and norms, and a reason to spend less time in dangerous settings. Meanwhile, the CBT-informed programming was designed to foster several complementary behavior changes: to help participants reflect on their own thinking, practice less harmful responses in dangerous situations, and promote more positive behaviors and identities. Due to the significant barriers to participation this population faces, READI also provided participants with referrals to housing, substance abuse, mental health, and legal services when needed.”
The results show “signs that this program model has promise.” For example, “shooting and homicide arrests, decline[d] 65 percent. [And], because shootings are so costly, READI generates estimated social savings between $182,000 and $916,000 per participant, implying a benefit-cost ratio between 4:1 and 20:1.” Moreover, “participants referred by outreach workers—a pre-specified subgroup—show enormous declines in both arrests and victimizations for shootings and homicides (79 and 43 percent, respectively) that remain statistically significant even after multiple testing adjustments.”
ICYMI: Earlier this Spring, Safer Cities covered a Johns Hopkins study of Safe Streets, Baltimore’s flagship community violence intervention program, which focuses resources on high gun violence zones within the city, using trained experts to de-escalate conflict before it spreads. The researchers concluded that Safe Streets is “associated with a statistically significant 23% reduction in nonfatal shootings” across the various program sites. Moreover, in the city’s five longest running program sites, “homicides were 22% lower than forecasted” if Safe Streets “had not been implemented.”