Reducing Violent Crimes and Intentional Injuries. Research in Action

摘要

Since the mid-1980's, the rise in serious urban violence has had at least two effects. First, it has threatened the lives of urban residents, especially youths, and the social and economic fabric of the communities in which they live. Second, it has aggravated public doubts about the ability of government to maintain the quality of urban life. More specifically, these doubts have raised questions about traditional responses to violence such as reducing poverty and other suspected root causes of violence, imprisoning perpetrators, and rehabilitating criminal offenders. Recently, an alternative problem-solving approach has been gaining adherents. This approach is based on the notion that some violence can be averted by crafting simple, low-cost, common-sense solutions to specific local problems that give rise to repeated incidents of violence. This strategy emphasizes that surprisingly simple tactics can sometimes reduce violence more cost-effectively than filling more prison cells, generate more immediate results with less political opposition than trying to fix poorly understood root causes, and offer greater prospects for success than interventions to rehabilitate violent offenders.