I have no issues in offering programs to people caught up in the justice system. I advocate for these programs on a humanitarian or religious basis. But the essential question comes down to effectiveness, and the data to date is either inconclusive or discouraging. My criminological training emphasized accountability and not misleading taxpayers who fund these programs.
While it’s not politically correct to say, the great majority of community leaders don’t have a clue as to what it takes to create a small bureaucracy that hires and fires people, writes grants and implements programs. They are not comfortable with people evaluating them because it’s simply more outsiders who, in their opinion, don’t understand life in their communities. They are sure that their approach works but can’t offer proof (based on outside researchers) that their programs have merit.
Our world is full of organizations and publications acting as advocates. In my opinion, 90 percent of what’s written or offered regarding crime control is sketchy. People will swear that programs work when they don’t.
The TRACE seems to be an exception. They state that “Gun violence is often portrayed as an intractable problem, but a growing body of evidence shows that there are existing interventions that can save lives right now. These programs rarely get the careful, sustained attention they deserve. This project seeks to change that.”
Now, to my knowledge, gun violence community-based programs do not have a substantial body of methodologically correct research backing them. The only modality we have based on good research that lowers crime based on hundreds of evaluations is proactive policing.
The Trace and Philadelphia
Community-based violence interruption programs are a key part of local governments’ response to the nationwide rise in homicides. The Biden administration has contributed more than $10 billion in American Rescue Plan funding to more than 300 communities, including Philadelphia, for anti-violence initiatives. The Philly grant program costs $22 million altogether because of administrative costs.
Despite the push, some critics believe there isn’t enough traditional academic evidence to justify such spending. And measuring success in an emerging field made up mainly of smaller nonprofits — which lack large grant-writing teams and development infrastructure — has proven to be a complicated task. But the programs are varied and neighborhoods aren’t laboratories, complicating ordinary evaluation.
The city will likely announce the new round of grantees, and will also make public an independent evaluation of the program. But some of the puzzle pieces during the first round of the grant program were a bad fit. Take the case of Put It Down Philly, a violence interruption program co-founded by an ex-felon, which was approved for a grant of $729,696 to expand its program targeting the 18- to 30-year-old men who are at risk of being involved in violence.
Despite the organization’s impressive pitch and the ex-felon’s made-for-TV background as a reformed gangbanger, infighting led to the collapse of Put It Down Philly before it could even begin to spend the money to help young men.
The TRACE and Proof
The government — at the state and federal levels — is about to invest billions of dollars in community-based violence intervention programs, which focus on strategies like mediation of potentially violent disputes and social support for likely perpetrators of violence. Critics, however, are pushing back, arguing that there is not enough rigorous scholarship to support the investment.
In fact, there is evidence from across the country for the efficacy of such interventions. But large-scale traditional academic study of this type of work is rare. The complicated nature of violence makes it uniquely challenging to pull apart, and the expense of formal public health and sociological studies is immense. For smaller groups, which now must compete for the millions available, the burden is particularly high.
The back and forth raises an important question: If gun violence is a key social crisis of our time, why don’t we have more science about how to stop it?
