annals of crime don’t shoot

A radical approach to the problem of gang violence. BY JOHN SEABROOK

n April, 2006, two brutal street killings hot spots almost as fearful of the police as in the Over-the-Rhine section of Cin- they are of the criminals. As Whalen, a Icinnati spread fear through the city. A big, bearlike man with a friendly Irish white suburban mother of three, who was face, put it to me recently, “You say, ‘O.K., trying to buy drugs at the corner of Four- we’re going to arrest everyone who jay- teenth and Race, got into an argument walks.’ So who do you arrest? Someone’s with the dealer, and was shot and killed. grandmother, or the milkman, or some A few days later, on the same block, four guy who has just worked a sixteen-hour white kids, also from the suburbs—a boy day and is trying to get home as fast as he at the wheel, three girls in the back—were can. It’s bullshit. Even in high-crime buying drugs when a black man walked neighborhoods, there are a lot of honest up to the car and shot the boy in the head. people living there. Meanwhile, the real These incidents, coming within days bad guys—they know a sweep is on, so of each other, contributed to the public’s they just stay inside until things cool off.” impression that violent crime in the streets The Cincinnati Police Department’s was out of control. In fact, much of the vi- relationship with the black community olence was occurring between people who had been a poisonous issue for years. In were closely connected. Young black men March, 2001, the A.C.L.U. and a local were shooting each other over drug deals civil-rights group filed a lawsuit against gone bad; in the majority of cases, the vic- the city for racial profiling and excessive tims and the shooters knew each other. force. Three weeks later, after a police Nevertheless, although the average Cin- officer chased and fatally shot an unarmed cinnatian had little chance of getting shot nineteen-year-old black man, the city was on the street, citizens perceived potential engulfed in three days of riots, arson, and killers everywhere. And that presented looting. Whalen was the commanding Chief Thomas Streicher and his assistant officer of the riot-response team, and he chief, Lieutenant Colonel James Whalen, saw firsthand the utter breakdown of trust of the Cincinnati Police Department, between the cops and the community. In with two problems: a crime spree and a 2002, as part of an agreement reached to public-relations crisis. settle the A.C.L.U. lawsuit and in re- The killings were perpetrated mostly sponse to a Department of Justice inves- by gangs, or “groups”—the expression tigation, a federal monitor was appointed preferred by Cincinnati civic leaders. “Not to oversee reforms in the police depart- real organized gangs such as your Crips ment. Some progress had been made and Bloods and whatnot,” Whalen told since the riots, but Operation Vortex me. “More like loose-knit groups of guys threatened to undo it. hanging out on street corners.” In the Vortex did reduce street crime, accord- summer of 2006, Streicher and Whalen ing to the police. But it had little effect on implemented a “zero tolerance” plan. the city’s murder count, which, with They assembled an élite sixty-man crime- twelve murders in September of 2006 and fighting squad code-named Vortex, which a deadly spurt over the holidays, finished began making sweeps of high-crime areas, the year at eighty-nine, the highest num- or “hot spots,” arresting people not just for ber since recordkeeping began. serious crimes but also for misdemeanors, like jaywalking and loitering. By the end fter the 2001 riots, the Cincinnati of September, more than twenty-six hun- police heard from dozens of aca- dred arrests had been made. Ademics and criminologists, who proposed The drawback of zero tolerance is that a variety of policy initiatives aimed at im- it tends to make law-abiding citizens in proving relations with the community.

32 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 22, 2009

TNY—2009_06_22—PAGE 32—133SC. Captain Daniel Gerard, who took over Vortex in the fall of 2007, didn’t put much stock in their ideas. As he said, “Aca- demia and law enforcement are at oppo- site ends of the spectrum. They like the- ories, we like results.” Therefore, when David Kennedy, a professor in the anthropology department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, in New York City, came to Cincinnati in the fall of 2006 to pitch a program he had devised to counter gang violence, the cops didn’t expect much. Kennedy was tall and slim, and in the dark clothes he favored there was something about him of the High Plains Drifter—the mysterious stranger who blows into town one day and makes the bad guys go away. He wore a grizzled beard and had thick, unbound hair that cascaded halfway down his back. “What’s some guy who looks like Jesus got to tell us about crime in Cincinnati?” was the line around police headquarters. Kennedy had been approached by Dr. Victor Garcia, the head of the trauma unit at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, who was seeing almost daily the effects of the city’s violent gangs: the stabbings, shootings, and beatings, and the injuries to innocent children caught in the crossfire. “Children with their eyes shot out, children paralyzed,” Garcia told me. “I started to wonder, in- stead of treating injuries, how can we prevent them from happening in the first place?” Garcia and a local councilman named Cecil Thomas arranged a confer- ence call between Kennedy and Mark Mallory, Cincinnati’s recently elected David Kennedy told Cincinnati that gang-related murders could be cut in half. mayor. Two months later, Kennedy out- lined his plan to the city’s officials and to attend a meeting. There the cops would “What you are doing is wrong, and we community leaders. deliver an ultimatum: the shootings must know you can do better.” Ceasefire, as Kennedy’s program is stop. “And if they do not stop,” Kennedy Like many politicians, Mallory was sometimes known, begins with the fact, said, “the consequences will be swift, and concerned about being branded soft commonly recognized by criminologists, certain, and severe, and punishment will on crime, especially at a time when that a small number of hardened criminals be handed out not just to the individual citizens were calling for more police, commit a hugely disproportionate num- involved in the shooting but to everyone longer prison terms for offenders, and ber of serious violent crimes. Often, much in that individual’s gang.” the construction of a new jail. But the of the violence is caused by gang dynam- The young men in the gangs would police seemed unable to reduce the ho- ics: score settling, vendettas, and turf is- also be given a phone number that they micide rate, and Ceasefire offered a sues, all played out according to the law of could call for help. The city would make fresh approach to the problem—Ken- the streets. Arresting the shooters doesn’t life coaching and job counselling available nedy all but guaranteed the Cincinnati generally stop the killing; nor does threat- to those who wanted out of the thug life. civic leaders that if they followed his ening them with long prison sentences. “We don’t promise them jobs—we prom- plan the city would reduce its gang- But one thing does work, Kennedy had ise to do the best we can for them,” Ken- related murder count by forty to fifty per discovered: telling them to stop. nedy said. Clergy, ex-gang members, and cent in a year. At the end of the meet- In Cincinnati, Kennedy explained, the victims and their family members would ing, the Mayor, the city manager, and police would first identify gang members be on hand to deliver the moral compo- the city council gave their support to the MARK ULRIKSEN on parole or probation and compel them nent of the message to the offenders: plan, and about five hundred thousand

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TNY—2009_06_22—PAGE 33—133SC.—live art—r 18568 dollars was budgeted over two years. with the first district. Cops were asked third of them had ten or more felony The police remained skeptical. To to draw on the map the location of any charges, and ninety-one per cent had a Chief Streicher, a blond and youthful gangs they were aware of, which would prior arrest for a violent crime. fifty-five-year-old with a military bearing, be represented by numbered circles. The whose demeanor and posture, and even officers relied on anecdotal information avid Kennedy is not a cop, or an ac- the ring of his name (pronounced that they had picked up on the streets. ademically trained criminologist, “striker”), signal a man of action, Ceasefire Engel and her students peppered them Dand his lack of formal schooling in either sounded like a social program promoted with questions. Where is the group lo- the practice or the theory of crime control by do-gooders. And the cops did not like cated? How many members does it have? may be his strongest qualification for his the idea of being on a team with social Is it allied with any other gangs? Does it job. In the bifurcated world of criminol- workers. Whalen explained to me the have any conflicts or “beefs”—which ogy, Kennedy is able to speak to both cops C.P.D.’s distinction between social work- tend to be ongoing vendettas sometimes and academics. His 2008 book, “Deter- ers and cops: “Social people hug thugs. triggered by a long-forgotten slight— rence and Crime Prevention,” has been We kick their butts.” with other gangs? What kinds of crimi- described by scholars as a landmark re- nal activity is it involved in? How orga- thinking of public policy, but it can also be incinnati has always had a strong nized is it? How violent is it? Does the read as a primer on twenty-first-century conservative streak, and its police gang have any identifying “tags” (graffiti) policing. George Kelling, the co-author, forceC is no exception. In responding to or colors? Are there any standout indi- with James Q. Wilson, of the influential crime outbreaks, police tactics hadn’t viduals? A form containing some of 1982 essay “Broken Windows,” told me, changed much since Whalen’s father was these questions was projected on a giant “Cops put on a tough front about crime, a cop, battling Vietnam War protesters video screen on one wall. but they really do care, and David speaks in the sixties. “Peace through superior “You could see the cops were wary of with passion, and with the credibility that firepower,” Gerard told me. The C.P.D. us at first,” Engel said. “They saw us as comes from spending hours in the back of relied heavily on its fleet of vehicles; “send outsiders—which we were.” But soon the squad cars, so cops respond.” another car” was standard operating pro- cops from the other districts started mark- Kennedy’s father, Christopher, a me- cedure when dealing with disturbances. ing up their maps and answering the chanical engineer, was born in the Clinton Whalen explained, “You’ve got a problem questions on the form even before Engel Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, not far at Fourteenth and Vine, so you send a and her students reached them. “That’s from where David lives now, in Fort couple of cops out there to that corner.” when I knew we were going to win them Greene, but Kennedy was raised in a sub- But even within hot spots crimes were over,” Whalen said. urb of Detroit, where his father worked in viewed as isolated incidents. “We’d say, The researchers collated and analyzed the auto industry, designing suspension ‘We’ve got a problem with Jerry, or all this information. They identified and systems. The family valued “ruthless com- Frank—we got to pick that individual mapped sixty-nine gangs, which the cops mon sense,” Kennedy told me. “Good up,’ ” Whalen said. Little effort was made estimated to contain a thousand individ- thinking!” was the highest compliment to aggregate crime data, so that the infor- uals altogether; over the coming months, David and his two sisters could receive mation could be analyzed for patterns, the cops managed to name eight hun- from their parents. He attended Swarth- which would situate Jerry’s and Frank’s dred of these. The researchers also pre- more College, where he studied moral offenses within a context and a network. pared “sociograms”—visual representa- philosophy. The beat cops often understood the con- tions of the dynamics among the different The idea that the threat of punishment text, but their captains and commanders gangs—in which gangs allied with each can act as an effective deterrent to crime rarely asked for their advice. As a result, other were connected with green lines, goes back to the eighteenth-century Italian Streicher and Whalen and the rest of the and gangs pursuing conflicts were con- philosopher Cesare Beccaria and the En­ C.P.D. leadership had no hard data about nected with red lines. With the names of glish philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Bec- how many of the murders in the city were the gang members, the researchers were caria’s 1764 essay, “On Crimes and Pun- gang-related, what the real motives for able to mine the cops’ field-incident re- ishments,” was among the first works in the killings were, and how the shooters ports, surveillance records, and arrest Western literature to argue for a humane and the victims were connected. sheets to flesh out patterns of criminal and rational system of criminal justice and In May of 2007, beat cops and inves- behavior. Among the facts they discov- against torture and the death penalty. Bec- tigators were summoned from Cincin- ered about the gang members was that a caria thought that punishment should be nati’s five districts to the new regional proportional to the crime and preventive, Homeland Security Center to meet Ken- not retributive. In order for the threat of nedy and participate in two eight-hour punishment to be an effective deterrent, he information-gathering sessions, over- wrote, the punishment itself had to be seen by Dr. Robin Engel, the director of swift, severe, and certain; Beccaria added the University of Cincinnati Policing In- that certainty and swiftness were the most stitute. Everyone gathered in the com- important of these qualities, and severity mand room, where large maps of each of the least. In the late eighteenth and early the districts were spread out on tables. nineteenth century, Bentham elaborated The researchers began a “gang audit” on Beccaria’s ideas, arguing that rational

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TNY—2009_6_22—PAGE 34—133SC.—live spot art—r 18578_h—please inspect and report on quality men, faced with the choice between plea- series of meetings attended by police in confronting chronic street crime he sure and pain, freedom and incarceration, chiefs, criminologists, and criminal-jus- stressed community involvement and a and benefits and sanctions, will make the tice experts, who were brought together heavy reliance on the skills of beat cops choice that yields the greater happiness. by Mark Moore, the founder of the and line officers. Goldstein named this This assumption is one of the foundations school’s criminal-justice program. Many approach “problem-oriented policing.” of the American criminal-justice system. in the group agreed that the two tradi- In the mid-eighties, Kennedy, while re- Immanuel Kant, on whom Kennedy tional approaches to crime—the liberal searching his case studies, accompanied wrote his senior thesis, also considered the remedy, which was to attack root causes two Los Angeles beat cops to a housing role of deterrence in matters of crime and like poverty, education, and social and project in the Watts area called Nicker- punishment. From his reading of Kant, economic injustice; and the conserva- son Gardens. The crack epidemic was just Kennedy said, he internalized the idea that tive approach, which was to rely on the beginning, and Nickerson Gardens had “morality predicated on external pressures criminal-justice system—had proved become one of the most dangerous places alone is never sufficient.” But Kennedy insufficient,­ especially in dealing with in the city. As Kennedy got out of the never anticipated that Kant’s ideas would inner-city drug and gang-related crimes. squad car and looked around, “I couldn’t help shape the core of his life’s work: de- A third approach was needed, incorporat- believe my eyes,” he told me, dropping his signing a modern system of deterrence that ing traditional elements and deploying voice and slowing down. “I stood there includes a moral component. police resources in new, creative ways. on the sidewalk and watched civilization After graduating, in 1980, Kennedy Among the participants, who met pe- coming apart. Drug dealers on the street, moved to Boston and became a freelance riodically over five years, were Edwin drug runners, old guys guarding the writer. He spent a year working on science Meese, then Reagan’s Attorney General; stashes. People with thirty-year-long her- and technology pieces before taking a sal- Ben Ward, the commissioner of the oin addictions wandering around, seri- aried job as a case-study writer at Har- N.Y.P.D.; Daryl Gates, the chief of the ous crack addicts, with that manic look. vard’s Kennedy School of Government. L.A.P.D.; George Kelling; and Herman And I had this strongly visceral response: One of his early assignments was to pre- Goldstein, a University of Wisconsin law This is not O.K. This has got to stop. And pare case studies for the Harvard Execu- professor. Goldstein argued that enforce- it was immediately obvious that nothing tive Session on Community Policing, a ment alone is inherently limited, and the police were doing was going to work.”

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TNY—2009_06_22—PAGE 35—133SC. In 1988, Moore and Malcolm Spar- row, a Kennedy School professor who was a former detective chief inspector with the hubris at Zunzal British police, asked Kennedy to work with them on a book about new ideas Nearly sunset, and time on the water in policing. “So that’s where I got my of 1984. Language its tracer. graduate-school education,” Kennedy No image like the image of language. said. “I read everything, and talked about this stuff constantly.” He had always in- I had waded out about thigh deep. tended to return to freelance writing, he Then a shout from the beach. said, “but I realized that I was too com- I held in my hand half a coconut shell mitted to the work I was doing.” He asked Moore if he could become part of the of coconut milk and 150-proof rum criminal-justice program at the Kennedy and dumped it white into the waves School, and Moore hired him, in 1992. when it came on me how sweet it had been, “It was just a magical time,” Kennedy said, of the early nineties. “There was a then the idea I was not fnished, sense that something profound had been then the act of reaching down figured out, and it was going to change with the idea I would get it back. everything. We had been dead wrong about crime for so long, and we could see —Rodney Jones we were at a point of transforming these institutions.” theory by aggressively pursuing minor in deterring gang members’ behavior. But n fact, nothing changed. Kennedy’s crimes. Advocates of longer sentencing certain moral authorities from within the timing was terrible. From 1987 to 1990, and “three strikes” legislation cited those community—clergy, ex-cons, outreach duringI the peak of the crack epidemic, measures as the main reasons for the de- workers with street credibility—could youth homicides in cities across America cline. Subsequent analysis by social scien- sometimes get through to the offenders, rapidly escalated; in Boston during that tists has suggested that the increase in in- especially when their pleas were coupled period, youth homicides increased two carceration was only a small factor in the with the promise of help. Joyce had also hundred and thirty per cent, and from great crime decline; other reasons, such as figured out how to use the gangs’ own in- 1991 to 1995 the city averaged about changing demographics and economic ternal dynamics against them. Joyce was forty-four youth homicides a year. Across circumstances, and the waning of the cryptic about this part of his operation; the country, from the smallest county crack epidemic, were collectively more when Kennedy asked how he had man- judgeship to the Presidency of the United important. Nonetheless, by the late nine- aged to calm down one gang in particular, States, political races hinged more and ties, incapacitation—locking a lot of peo- Joyce would say only, “We just told them more on the question of who could be ple up for long terms to prevent crime— the truth.” The truth, it turned out, was tougher on crime. From 1980 to 2000, the was the new ruling principle in criminal that if one more gang shooting occurred, prison population in the U.S. increased justice. Deterrence, in the classical sense by any one of their members, the whole from three hundred and nineteen thou- of the word—using the threat of punish- group was going to take the blame. sand to 1.3 million. Federal corrections ex- ment to prevent crime—had become an “I just said, ‘Holy shit!’ ” Kennedy told penditures, driven by new federal drug- even smaller part of public policy. me. “ ‘This is incredible! Do you realize sentencing changes, went from five In 1994, the National Institute of Jus- what this means?’ ” Joyce’s techniques, he hundred and forty-one million dollars in tice gave a grant to Kennedy and Anne believed, could be used to formulate a 1982 to more than $6.9 billion in 2006, Morrison Piehl, a colleague from the Ken- method of “focussed deterrence”—a sys- and state corrections expenditures that nedy School, to work out a problem- tematic, repeatable version of the ad-hoc year totalled more than forty-two billion oriented approach to youth violence in working methods that Joyce and his part- dollars. California now spends about two Boston. They were joined by Anthony ners had developed in the streets. and a half times as much per prison inmate Braga, who was then a doctoral student in Kennedy also discovered that Joyce’s as it does per student in the University of criminal justice at Rutgers University. strike force knew how the victims knew California system. Kennedy was eager to talk to cops who the shooters, and what the beefs between By the mid-nineties, crime rates were had the most street knowledge, and even- them were. “I said, ‘Oh my God, you dropping in cities around the country, no- tually he was directed to Paul Joyce, the know all this stuff!’ ‘Sure we know it,’ where more dramatically than in New leader of the police department’s Youth Joyce replied. ‘It’s just that nobody asked York City, where Mayor Rudolph Giu- Violence Strike Force. Over the next six us for it before.’ ” liani and Police Commissioner William months, Joyce gradually revealed his meth- In order to broadcast the messages Bratton were pioneering the zero-toler- ods for dealing with violent gangs. He had that Joyce imparted informally to gangs ance approach and drawing attention to observed that the use of force and the citywide, Kennedy, Braga, and Piehl Kelling and Wilson’s “broken windows” threat of prison seemed to have little effect came up with the idea of group forums,

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TNY—2009_06_22—PAGE 36—133SC. or call-ins. “We went to the Boston po- county sheriff, as well as Hamilton County the punctuation at the end of a question lice command structure and presented probation and Ohio state parole officers. for which there is no answer—What it, thinking, This is never going to fly,” It also encompassed an array of social- the fuck?—they filed into the benches Kennedy said. “But they heard us out, service providers and a dozen or so out- reserved for courtroom spectators. A and then said, ‘Yep, that’ll work.’ ” reach workers, who served as liaisons with few who were already in lockup wore The first call-in was in the spring of the gang members. The cops, social work- handcuffs and leg shackles. They sat 1996, a few months after Joyce had been ers, and outreach workers, some of whom down, and the team in the front of the succeeded by Gary French. By the second were ex-cons, would all have a stake. The room looked at them. No one spoke. round, that summer, youth homicide had group acquired a name—C.I.R.V. (Cin- Call-ins are intensely dramatic events, dropped dramatically. Just eight homi- cinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence)— like modern-day morality plays. At the cides were committed over the five months offices downtown, and a project manager, one I attended, there was a palpable, al- following the first call-in, compared with S. Gregory Baker, a civilian who handles most evangelical desire to make the expe- twenty-eight in the same five months of community relations for the C.P.D. Sev- rience transformative for the gangbangers. the previous year—a seventy-one-per- eral former executives from Procter & An older ex-gang member named Arthur cent decline. In October, there were no Gamble, which is based in Cincinnati, Phelps, whom everyone called Pops, youth homicides at all. Things got so quiet volunteered their “best practices” manage- wheeled a thirty-seven-year-old woman that French thought his pager had stopped ment expertise to the group. Eventually, in a wheelchair to the center of the room. working. “I almost took my beeper in to the C.I.R.V. team numbered almost fifty Her name was Margaret Long, and she have it checked,” he said at the time. “It partner agencies. was paralyzed from the chest down. “Sev- just stopped going off.” The first Cincinnati call-in was held enteen years ago, I shot this woman,” on July 31, 2007, in a large courtroom in Phelps said, weeping. “And I live with he Ceasefire team in Cincinnati the Hamilton County Courthouse. The that every day of my life.” Then Long came together during the first half C.I.R.V. team assembled in the court- cried out, “And I go to the bathroom in a Tof 2007. It included members of the room first. Then about thirty men, mostly bag,” and she snatched out the colostomy police department and the U.S. Attor- young, were admitted. Heads bent, avoid- bag from inside the pocket of her wheel- ney’s office, the district attorney, and the ing eye contact, and sullenly postured like chair and held it up while the young men

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TNY—2009_06_22—PAGE 37—133SC. stared in horror. When the final speaker, we was brought up,” he told me recently. (“Girl, you fine. What you doin’ hangin’ a street worker named Aaron Pullins III, “When your mom’s a crackhead, your with these thugs?”) Other street workers yelled, “Your house is on fire! Your build- dad’s in the joint, your brother sells drugs, referred to gang members as niggas, ing is burning! You’ve got to save your- and your best buddy got a Cadillac and which the cops saw as a violation of pro- selves! Stand up!,” three-quarters of the Jordans—what else you going to do? You priety and state authority. group jumped to their feet, as if they had got no other role models.” In 2006, In- Kennedy told me, “Some people been jerked up like puppets on strings. gram had been caught with a large amount within the group had become hungry for At the initial call-in, Victor Garcia was of marijuana and several guns in his house, that personal transformation, when the the first to speak. He told the young men and sentenced to ten years in federal individual offenders jump up and declare that he loved them, that they had value to prison, but it was his first felony convic- themselves done with the thug life, and their community, and that he knew they tion and the judge released him on proba- everyone cries. At the June meeting, they were better than their violent actions im- tion. His probation officer had ordered didn’t get that reaction, and they ended plied. Afterward, Chief Streicher ad- him to attend the call-in. up pushing too hard.” dressed them, thanking them for coming, Ingram told me that he was more In the months after the call-in, the and making it clear that “this is nothing influenced by the community-services as- murder rate spiked upward. “We almost personal.” He then delivered the message: pect of the Ceasefire strategy than by the provoked them to violence,” Whalen “We know who you are, we know who threat of swift and certain punishment. told me. “They went out of the room your friends are, and we know what you’re “During the cops’ presentation, I wasn’t challenged.” doing. If your boys don’t stop shooting really listening,” he said. “Some guys Streicher threatened to pull the cops people right now, we’re coming after ev- around me were snoring. They were being off the team if their concerns were not ad- eryone in your group.” To reinforce this the typical tough cops, threatening us and dressed. The Mayor assured Streicher message at a later call-in, surveillance whatnot. But you got to understand— that the mistakes would not be repeated, footage showing some of the invitees sell- threats mean nothing to these guys.” and persuaded the police to stay involved. ing drugs was projected on a screen at the Ingram kept the card with the phone Thanks to Greg Baker’s work as project front of the courtroom. “Raise your hands number. “For the next three weeks, I manager, C.I.R.V. did not go off the rails. when you see yourselves,” Streicher said. looked at it every day,” he told me. Finally, The next call-in, scheduled for the fall of One by one, hands went up. he called, and left Stan Ross, the head of 2008, was moved back to December, in The young men were introduced to the street workers, a message: “If this shit part to give the team a chance to regroup. the social workers, who were available to is for real, give me a call.” Ross called, and For Kennedy, the important thing was help them get jobs and educational as- within a month Ingram had a job in sales that “the system self-corrected,” he said. sistance, if they called the phone num- with a telemarketing firm. “That’s huge.” ber that had been provided to them in Kennedy had cautioned the C.I.R.V. an information packet. And two moth- team that the murder rate would fall only ince its success in Boston, Kennedy’s ers of sons murdered by gangs spoke of moderately after the first call-in; it was anti-gang-violence strategy has been their pain and loss. after the second set of call-ins, “the second Stried in some sixty other cities. (Kennedy’s Michael Blass, a public official who turn of the crank,” as he put it, that the method should not be confused with one was then with the Ohio Department of mechanism would really take hold. By the devised in Chicago by Gary Slutkin, a Public Safety, wrote an account of his ex- end of the year, homicides in Cincinnati physician and epidemiologist, which is perience as an observer at this first call-in. in 2007 were down twenty-four per cent sometimes referred to as CeaseFire. Slut- He described the invitees’ “awkward at- from 2006. The trend continued into kin’s strategy employs community mem- tempts to project confidence, indifference, 2008—by April, there had been a fifty- bers to mediate potential shootings while in some cases, perhaps, hostility. . . . These per-cent reduction in gang-related homi- also pushing for behavioral change in angry young men, used to being in con- cides. Kennedy had made good on his high-risk individuals and communities.) trol in the incredibly brutal environment guarantee to the Mayor. Kennedy helped Minneapolis implement of the mean streets, were noticeably off- a violence-prevention strategy in June of balance and unsure of themselves.” Blass he fourth call-in, held in June, 2008, 1996, and homicides in the summer wrote, “I saw a few young men choke back was a disaster. In contrast to the pre- months fell from forty-two that year to tears. . . . Over the course of a couple of Tvious call-ins, during which the young eight in 1997. But in Minneapolis “the hours, their facial expressions changed men had been split up into smaller groups, team lost focus,” Kennedy told me, and from those of cynicism or polite boredom this time a hundred and twenty of them “all the complicated parts of the mecha- to attention and curiosity.” One young were brought together at the same time, nism didn’t mesh.” A similar thing hap- man raised his shackled hands above his in the same room. In retrospect, this was pened, over the next five years, in In­ head and cried out, “I never knew there one of several mistakes that the team dianapolis and Stockton, California. was this much love out there . . . seriously, made. “We lost control of the room,” Spectacular early results proved difficult I never knew it.” Whalen said. Also, for the first time, the to sustain. “Ceasefire takes a lot of man- One of the gang members invited to team hadn’t rehearsed, and, partly as a re- power,” Wayne Hose, a former chief of the meeting was Dante Ingram, twenty- sult, “We went off script,” he said. Some police in Stockton, told me. “And you nine, who had been selling drugs and street workers cursed, and one started have to have people who believe in it. You stealing since he was fifteen. “That’s how flirting with a gang member’s girlfriend. have to have someone who will call the

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TNY—2009_6_22—PAGE 38—133SC. D.A.’s office and say, ‘Why aren’t your any long-range studies of the criminal be- like varnish.) The High Point Strategy, as people coming to the meetings?’ ” Even in havior of the group that was in the pro- it has come to be known, was aimed at Boston, Ceasefire didn’t last; the program gram, either. We just don’t have the evi- public drug dealing, not gang violence, but was abandoned in 2000, partly as a result dence, and until we do we can’t evaluate the methodology was largely the same. In of a personality conflict among team how effective Ceasefire really is.” 2004, Kennedy persuaded Jim Fealy, chief members. By 2001, the number of homi- When I relayed Zimring’s comments of the High Point police, to apply his cides had risen more than a hundred per to Kennedy, he laughed. “Frank still problem-oriented approach to a long- cent over the 1999 level, and it has re- doesn’t get it,” he said. “There’s plenty of standing open-air drug market in a neigh- mained high. In 2007, Gary French began research, but it’s not focussed on the im- borhood called West End. Fealy and his to implement a renewed Ceasefire ap- pact on the people in the call-ins, because predecessor had tried for years to shut proach, and so far the results have been the strategy isn’t just about the people in down the market with periodic sweeps promising. the room.” He added, “When you have a and stings. “We would go in and arrest Franklin Zimring, a professor of law at couple of meetings and homicide city- ’em, and things would quiet down for a the University of California at Berkeley, wide goes down forty per cent, it’s not be- few months, but then new guys would be who is a leading deterrence scholar, told cause the forty guys you’ve talked to have back,” he said. The Reverend Jim Sum- me that one reason that Ceasefire’s ef­ turned their lives around. There are a mey, who was at the time the pastor of the fective­ness is difficult to predict in any thousand guys on the street you haven’t English Road Baptist Church, in the cen- given city is that Kennedy’s results have talked to. But the forty get the word out ter of West End, told me that on Sunday not been subjected to a rigorous indepen- to the thousand—which ruins them as mornings there were so many drug deal- dent analysis. “Ceasefire is more a theory controls for the kind of evaluation that ers, prostitutes, and johns on the sidewalk of treatment than a proven strategy,” he Frank’s talking about.” in front of the church that worshippers said, adding, “It’s odd that no one has ever Perhaps Kennedy’s greatest success to coming for services couldn’t steer their cars said, ‘O.K., here are the youths who were date has occurred in High Point, North into the parking lot. not part of the Ceasefire program in Bos- Carolina, a small city, of some ninety Fealy was seated at his desk when I ton, let’s compare them to the youths who thousand people, that is known for pro- spoke to him; a photograph behind him were. And no one has followed up with ducing furniture. (The entire city smells showed him in full swat regalia. “Ev­

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TNY—2009_06_22—PAGE 39—133SC. eryone knows I’m as conservative as they Providence Police Department, brought “Clearly this stuff works,” Travis said. come,” he drawled. “My approach as a cop Kennedy’s strategy to open-air drug mar- “David has proved that when you com- had always been either arrest the problem kets in his city, beginning in 2006, and so municate directly with offenders, tell or scare the problem away with high- far the results have been spectacular and them their actions have consequences— profile prosecutions. You know, ‘Cuff ’em sustained. Esserman, a former assistant not abstract consequences but direct, im- and stuff’em.’ But in West End the prob- district attorney in New York City, now mediate ones—and then offer them a way lem always came back.” When he first gives a speech he calls “Getting Ready for out, that it can have an enormous deter- heard about Kennedy’s strategy, he thought David Kennedy.” When I asked Esser- rence value.” He added, “The last ten it was ridiculous, but he agreed to meet man what it takes to get ready, he re- years have served as a proof of concept. In him. “David said, ‘Give me a half hour be- sponded with one word: “Failure.” By the next ten, we need to build a network fore you decide I’m crazy.’ And at the end that, he said, he meant “the failure of the that can institutionalize and sustain these of that half hour I was still sitting there.” idea that you can deal with the problem of practices around the country.” Kennedy’s strategy not only closed drugs by arresting it.” It had taken Esser- Could a methodology that works on down the West End drug market; the man years of work on narcotics cases in gangs also work on other groups—terror- drug market disappeared the day after New York to reach this state of readiness. ists, say? “The group dynamics are similar the first call-in. “We had worked on “As a younger prosecutor, I wasn’t ready. to the gang dynamics Ceasefire deals these problems for twenty years and got Maybe as a younger cop, Chief Streicher with,” Kennedy said. “People don’t think nowhere, and in one day it was over,” wasn’t ready, either.” you could deter terrorists with a moral ar- Fealy said. “In one day. Honestly, I never The next step for Kennedy and his gument, but maybe you could.” Marc would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it colleagues is to expand these regional Sageman, a terrorism expert who is the with my own eyes.” successes into what he calls a “national author of the 2008 book “Leaderless It’s unclear whether any of the dozen or standard of practice.” To that end, Ken- Jihad,” told me, “There is quite a lot of ev- so High Point drug dealers who called the nedy is working with Jeremy Travis, the idence in the terrorism literature that this services number ultimately left behind the president of John Jay College, on a na- type of gang-intervention program can life of crime. None of the root-cause prob- tional network of people trained in the work, if you apply it to terrorists in the lems behind drugs and crime were solved; use of Ceasefire-style gang-violence early stages of the radicalization process. drug dealing may have moved indoors, or and drug-market strategies. Kennedy, Then it could very well work—because to other neighborhoods, or to nearby cities. who is now the director of the Center for there’s nothing deterministic about be- But public drug dealing never returned to Crime Prevention and Control at John coming a terrorist. But at a certain point, West End, and, once the threat was re- Jay, has submitted a white paper to Eric once terrorism becomes something one moved from the streets, the community re- Holder, the Attorney General, outlin- does for a higher cause, I don’t think this claimed its neighborhood. Within weeks, ing the proposal, and he and Travis plan type of method would work.” Scott Atran, residents were planting flowers in their gar- to announce the National Network for an anthropologist who has done field dens, and in the spring of 2005 the com- Safe Communities on June 15th, at the work with jihadist groups and is also on munity threw a barbecue for the police. annual meeting of the United States the faculty at John Jay, told me that Ken- Colonel Dean Esserman, chief of the Conference of Mayors, in Providence. nedy’s “community-based ideas seem to jibe with what I see works with young people in neighborhoods where friends go off in bunches to jihad. Few ever join jihad alone, and they almost always com- mit to it, including suicide bombings, for love of friends and family.” He added, “There’s also a strong dose of ‘jihadi cool’ that clerics can’t penetrate too well, unless they’re plugged into the youth culture.”

takes were high at the December, 2008, call-in. Kennedy went to Cin- Scinnati for a rehearsal the week before, in an effort to avoid the mistakes of the di- sastrous June call-in. On December 10th, I accompanied him to the Hamilton County Courthouse. Kennedy wore his usual dark shirt, dark suit, and dark tie. The hall outside the courtroom was crowded with the heterogeneous group that makes up the C.I.R.V. team. Jim Whalen was there, with his nine- “I’m saving that one for someone really special.” teen-year-old daughter, Amy, a student

TNY—2009_06_22—PAGE 40—133SC.—Live art a14037 at the University of Cincinnati who cial networks within the Northside Tal- sequently failed the mandated regular works for Robin Engel at the policing iband group, which numbered ninety- drug tests. Cincinnati is a center of the institute. Chief Streicher was also there, six members, the cops needed to arrest health-care industry, and Victor Garcia scanning the crowd. His gunmetal gaze twenty-five men, who were identified had hoped to persuade some companies alighted on the Reverend Pete Mingo, by name, and by photograph. Their pic- that do contract work in the city’s health- a former serial robber and gang mem- tures, along with their positions in their care sector to hire convicted felons, but he ber, who is now one of the C.I.R.V. social networks, were displayed on has had no success. street workers. “When I was a younger screens in police cruisers (cops could Garcia has grown disenchanted with cop, I used to chase Pete all over the click a tab to see a suspect’s tattoos); ul- what he sees as Kennedy’s over-emphasis city,” Streicher said. He laughed softly. timately, the police were able to arrest on the deterrence component of Ceasefire, “Now look at us.” all twenty-five. The prosecutors on the which he believes comes at the expense of Members of the Vortex unit, in white C.I.R.V. team expedited their indict- the program’s social-service as dress shirts and creased blue pants, were ments; three had already been indicted pect. “I’d like it to do more to save the kids on hand to provide security. Captain Ge- under federal drug and weapons charges, on the street,” he told me, with some frus- rard excitedly told Kennedy about the and were facing long prison sentences. tration, in January. When I mentioned unit’s recent crackdown on the Northside Other members of the Northside Tali- that to Kennedy, he said tersely, “Look, Taliband, one of the largest and best- band were so impressed by the cops’ we would all like to save everyone, but we organized gangs in the city. Some of its precision that they had started turning can’t. We don’t know how to do that yet, members had been warned at an earlier themselves in, hoping to make a deal and Cease­fire is fundamentally about what call-in, they didn’t listen, and now an ex- while there was still time. So many were can be done. It’s engineering, not evange- ample was being made of them. But, un- showing up at district headquarters, lism.” In May, Garcia was dismissed from like the Vortex unit’s zero-tolerance strikes Streicher told Kennedy, that the cops the Ceasefire team. of two years earlier, which enraged the had to put a sign-up sheet at the desk. Dante Ingram, who was also at the community and provoked widespread crit- As a policing tool, Kennedy’s meth- courthouse that day, lost his job in phone icism of the police, the Northside Taliband odology had been a big success in Cin- sales in December, 2008, when he was ar- roundup used social-network-analysis soft- cinnati. In 2008, murder was down over rested in a domestic-violence incident and ware to identify and target only key players all, arrests had declined, and morale in spent eighteen days in jail and twenty days in the gang. The software, which can be the department was high. (The murder under house arrest. After that, C.I.R.V. used to map interpersonal dynamics in count was up slightly in the first quarter managed to place him in another job, in anything from business organizations to of 2009, but was still significantly lower the receiving department of a warehouse. infectious-disease outbreaks and terrorist than comparable periods in 2006 and Ingram was unable to hold that position, groups, represents people as nodes and as- 2007.) Whalen had experienced his own either, and was considering returning to signs numeric values to their connected- personal transformation: “We will never the gang. Despite Ingram’s difficulties, ness. If Joe knows Peter and Peter knows engage in this kind of gang work again Stan Ross, who was impressed by his de- Bob, then the link between Joe and Peter without academic support,” he told me termination to change his life, offered him gets a value of two; the connection between fervently. “No police department should.” a job as a C.I.R.V. street worker. “I love it,” Joe and Bob gets a one. “The guiding the- The initiative had also been a public- Ingram said of his work. So far, he had oretical principle is that the nodes that are relations coup for the cops; the media found jobs for two other men, one in a gas more central in the network have certain coverage of the Northside Taliband station and one as a janitor. Among his advantages over other nodes, which en- strike had been very favorable—in con- new duties is making sure that these men ables us to predict that they will perform trast with the reception that the Vortex get to work on time, and he sometimes better than others,” Steve Borgatti, a pro- unit had got in 2006. In November, dur- takes them and picks them up himself. “A fessor at the University of Kentucky who ing the Northside Taliband crackdown, lot of these guys have never had a job be- created the software, explained to me. Gerard and other members of his unit fore,” Ingram said. As in the earlier gang audits, the Uni- attended a community-board meeting in Streicher told Kennedy that he had versity of Cincinnati researchers col- the Northside and received a standing found employment for one young man lected information from the cops, but ovation. himself. The man had approached the this time they focussed on relationships Chief after an earlier call-in, saying that between individuals in one gang, rather he social-services piece of Ceasefire he wanted to get out of the gang, but he than on connections between gangs. En- has been less successful. More than had a felony conviction and doubted he gel’s group asked questions like “Where threeT hundred and fifty people have called could get a job. “I’ll get you a job,” Strei­ do this one’s friends live? Who was with the C.I.R.V. phone number, seeking help cher said. “You want to be a roofer? My him in the car when he was arrested? and employment—far more than the ser- friend can get you on a roof tomorrow.” Who bailed him out of jail?” Using this vice providers can find jobs for. A hun- The man accepted, and, so far, he has information, they were able to identify dred got jobs, but only fifty-three of them been gainfully employed. the central nodes of the Northside Tali- remain employed. C.I.R.V. did persuade As the Chief walked away, Kennedy band, whose removal would severely the city to change its policy of not hiring shook his head in disbelief and said, damage the gang’s structure. convicted felons, and three were placed in “That’s not the Tom Streicher I knew two In order to affect all the smaller so- low-level city jobs; one of those men sub- years ago.” 

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