The Relationship Between City “Greenness” and Homicide in the US: Evidence Over a 30-Year Period

Residents in US cities are exposed to high levels of stress and violent crime. At the same time, a number of cities have put forward “greening” efforts which may promote nature’s calming effects and reduce stressful stimuli. Previous research has shown that greening may lower aggressive behaviors and violent crime. In this study we examined, for the first time, the longitudinal effects over a 30-year period of average city greenness on homicide rates across 290 major cities in the US, using multilevel linear growth curve modeling. Overall, homicide rates in US cities decreased over this time-period (52.1–33.5 per 100,000 population) while the average greenness increased slightly (0.41–0.43 NDVI). Change in average city greenness was negatively associated with homicide, controlling for a range of variables (β = −.30, p-value = .02). The results of this study suggest that efforts to increase urban greenness may have small but significant violence-reduction benefits.

Approaching a New Normal: Lessons Learned Transitioning Family Education Programming to a Virtual Environment

The COVID-19 pandemic is highlighting deep-rooted health inequities. While the virus itself does not discriminate, gaps in access to services and disparities in health outcomes are prevalent. Concerns over worsening mental health outcomes and increases in family violence exist. Thus, service organizations have faced an unprecedented call to rethink services, with many transitioning to virtual programming to ensure the needs of their clients can be met. This brief highlights lessons learned as one organization pivoted to meet critical client needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence suggests atypically high engagement and retention in family education and family violence reduction programming under Safer at Home orders when compared with pre-COVID engagement. Findings suggest key tenants for program success are tied to strong programming, staff engagement, and participation retention and satisfaction. Program adaptations create opportunities for increasing service equity, improving engagement and satisfaction, and improving family and mental health outcomes by maintaining connections, while providing a model for delivering services to reduce child maltreatment during times of social isolation and increased hardship.

Conflict Disruption

This chapter examines how violent conflict can be disrupted and how the space that is created by the disruption might allow pro-peace and pro-social developments to take place. There are two parts to the chapter. The first examines remarkable friendships or intergroup friendships that cross the main fissure of society. It reflects on how charismatic personalities are often the key in helping localised violence reduction. The second part develops the notion of conflict disruption and how individuals and actions can disrupt the dominant logic of conflict in a society and contradict hegemonic narratives that regard violent conflict as normal. The discussion of conflict disruption is informed by economic theory.

Urban safety, community healing & gun violence reduction: the advance peace model

Cities around the world continue to grapple with safety, security and the role for law enforcement in reducing gun crime. Recent calls for alternatives to militarized policing in cities and addressing racism in urban crime policies and practices gives new urgency to explore community-led strategies. Advance Peace is a program that aims to reduce urban gun violence using formerly incarcerated community members as street outreach mentors and violence interrupters. Yet, few urban policy makers know of Advance Peace and how it is distinct from other community-based urban gun violence interruption programs, often called focused deterrence. In this paper, we describe the innovative approach used by Advance Peace, what distinguishes it from other municipal gun violence reduction strategies, and examine the elements of its unique, public health informed program called the Peacemaker Fellowship®. The Peacemaker Fellowship enrolls the small number of the most violent and hard to reach members of a community at the center of gun violence in an intensive 18-month program of trauma-informed, healing-centered, anti-racist mentorship, education, social services, and life opportunities. We suggest that cities around the world seeking transformations in their approach to public safety, including addressing structural racism and centering community expertise, explore the unique features of the Advance Peace approach.

The history of Scotland's ACEs movement: grounded in a focus on relationships

As 2021 commences, Scotland finds itself in the midst of a dynamic movement driven by awareness of the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). That drive comes from unparalleled grassroots interest as well as moves towards reform in public services. This article traces the history of Scotland's ACEs journey, published, to our knowledge, for the first time in an academic journal. The start of the movement is dated to 2005, when the newly founded Violence Reduction Unit adopted a developmentally informed, public health approach to reducing Scotland's high rate of violence. In 2017, a national tour of the documentary film Resilience sparked widespread public engagement. It demonstrates that, from the outset, the Scottish movement has been grounded in a focus on relationships. This aligns it with an attachment perspective, posing an interesting contrast with the epidemiological origins of the ACE Study itself and the associated movement that has since emerged in the USA. The significance of this distinction has received insufficient consideration, perhaps because the trajectory of the Scottish ACEs movement has not been apparent. This article provides that narrative and reflects on its theoretical and practical implications.

Advancing Urban Peace: Preventing Gun Violence and Healing Traumatized Youth

This descriptive article highlights the inner-practices of a trauma-informed, healing-centered, urban gun violence reduction program called Advance Peace. We find that the Advance Peace model uses a unique curriculum called the Peacemaker Fellowship, that offers intensive mentorship, caring, and ‘street love’ to youth at the center of gun violence. The Advance Peace approach is one public safety model that may help young people of color heal from the traumas that contribute to gun violence while also reducing gun crime in urban neighborhoods.

Nile Ward PICU violence reduction quality improvement project

AimsTo reduce incidents of inpatient violence and aggression at Nile Ward Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), St Charles Hospital by at least 30% between December 2019 and December 2020. Reducing inpatient violence is a major quality improvement (QI) priority for CNWL NHS Foundation Trust.MethodAs a Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit, Nile Ward looks after male patients suffering from severe mental illness (SMI). This usually includes patients presenting with high levels of violent and aggressive behaviour. Prior to this QI project, there were high levels of patient assaults towards staff and other patients. This required a lot of medication use, including rapid tranquilisation, restraint and the use of seclusion. This QI project was started to allow the Nile MDT to explore ways to reduce serious incidents on the ward in the least restrictive manner.We implemented a number of change ideas within this project. Our change ideas included: 1. A new risk management tool : ‘Ragging', a daily risk assessment tool, was created to assess patients’ risk of violence and aggression to allow signposting of appropriate interventions to safely manage risk. 2. A brand new Staff Photo board : New photos of all permanent and bank staff displayed in the ward with no hierarchy of positions. 3. A new Patient Feedback board : Patient experience, comments and feedback displayed in common areas of the ward which are regularly updated. 4. Mutual Expectations between Staff and Patients: A set of expectations created in co-production with patients displayed in the communal areas of the ward to be followed by both staff and patients. 5. Gardening sessions : One of our newer change ideas during the COVID-19 pandemic was to provide a safe, socially distanced space for patients to be involved in growing and caring for the Nile Ward garden with our activities co-ordinator. 6. Optimisation of Physical Exercise : Focus on physical activity through garden fitness sessions and 1-1 fitness sessions in the gym. This was another change idea commenced during the COVID-19 pandemic. These sessions occur throughout the day with our fitness instructor and enable our patients to focus on their physical health & fitness. 7. Improved Ward Environment : Gym equipment were upgraded and the appearance of the ward gymnasium was enhanced using quality art created in co-production with patients.ResultThere was a 43% reduction in the number of violent incidents in the ward following QI interventions. The details of the results will be depicted in pictorial form in the poster.ConclusionOur patients are able to recover in a safe environment with a reduced level of violence and aggression resulting in patients receiving less rapid tranquilisation and restrictive interventions. We have had fewer assaults on staff which has made our staff feel safer to work in a busy PICU. Staff feel more confident in their role through the use of the new risk assessment tool . Patients and staff alike have given positive feedback to the changes implemented in this QI project, with violence being successfully reduced by 43%. We hope that our QI project can be used as an example to show how QI methodology can enable Violence Reduction within mental health services.

Social Media and the Variable Impact of Violence Reduction Interventions: Re-Examining Focused Deterrence in Philadelphia

Focused deterrence is a gang violence reduction strategy that relies on a unique mix of strong enforcement messages from law enforcement and judicial officials coupled with the promise of additional services. At the heart of the intervention is a coordinated effort to communicate the costs and consequences of gun violence to identified gang members during face-to-face meetings and additional community messaging. In Philadelphia, focused deterrence was implemented between 2013 and 2016, and although an impact evaluation showed a significant decrease in shootings in targeted areas relative to matched comparison neighborhoods, the effect on targeted gangs was not universal, with some exhibiting no change or an increase in gun-related activity. Here, we employ data on group-level social media usage and content to examine the correlations with gun violence. We find that several factors, including the nature of social media activity by the gang (e.g., extent of activity and who is engaging), are associated with increases in the average rate of gang-attributable shootings during the evaluation period, while content-specific variables (e.g., direct threats towards rivals and law enforcement) were not associated with increases in shootings. Implications for violence reduction policy, including the implementation of focused deterrence, are discussed.

A New Narrative on Gun Violence

Chapter 3 offers narratives about gun violence; these narratives draw from public health tenets and practice. Contributors sketch a road map to how people with differing philosophies can act together to prevent gun deaths: Michael B. Siegel describes public health principles that can shape thinking about gun policy. Drawing from his experiences in Baltimore, Daniel W. Webster illustrates how gun violence has influenced urban life, examining the implications of aggressive law enforcement. His work with police and community members and his involvement with a gun violence reduction consortium yield strategies for reducing harm. Zeroing in on the community environments in which gun violence occurs, Bernadette Callahan Hohl illustrates how a public health approach can improve safety. Using examples from community-driven projects, she offers evidence that strengthening neighborhoods pays off. The chapter concludes an action agenda.