The Spillover Effects of Focused Deterrence on Gang Violence (Research Paper Sample)

The Spillover Effects of Focused Deterrence on Gang Violence
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All details in this paper relate to research that was conducted by a combined team of researchers. These researchers came from three universities from the United States: Rutgers; Harvard; and Northeastern. They carried out their work in collaboration with researchers from the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement. The research was propelled by the scholar’s intent to look into how crimes could be deterred. In line with crime deterrence theory, another theory came up: the focused deterrence theory. This theory is just a modification of the deterrence theory in crime prevention. Contained in the deterrence theory, the focused deterrence tries to delineate its focus of attention to particular methods and groups in combating crimes. It is, therefore, worth noting that focused deterrence strategies were the theory that was being validated by the researchers in its effectiveness of deterring crimes.
These scholars set out in the field with one primary goal; to determine whether focused deterrence strategies, otherwise known as ‘pulling-levers’ policing, generate spillover deterrent effects on the gun violence behaviors of vicariously treated gangs that were socially tied to directly-treated violent gangs. For a better comprehension of this goal, there is an overarching need to elaborate further. Focused deterrent strategies are initially focused on a group of gun-violent victims. For law enforcement, these victims are subjected to extremely severe punishments after they are reprimanded. The brutality of the retribution is aimed at making them realize that the cost of committing the crimes is greater than the benefits. As a result, prudence dictates their future actions; a complete deterrence from the crimes. This is the group that is referred to as ‘directly treated’ in this research. On the other hand, in their social lives, the directly treated group is not isolated from the society. Within this society are other potential gang members who may perpetrate gun-violent behaviors. Focused deterrence strategies expect this latter group to understand the gravity of their routine crimes from the directly treated group; they, therefore, understand or learn vicariously from the treated group. In this way, the group is deterred from committing the crimes, not from personal treatment, but vicariously through the other group’s experience. For this reason, the group is referred to as vicariously-treated. This vicarious deterrence is a spillover effect arising out of an indirect realization of the severity of the punishments. It is spilling over from the directly treated to the vicariously-treated. The spillover deterrence of the vicariously treated gang members was the expected outcomes or results of the evaluation of the program by the researchers. They proposed to give credence or validity to the theory of focused deterrence strategies if this result was observed.
As aforementioned, the research aimed at evaluating whether focused deterrence strategies generate spillover deterrent effects on the gun violence behaviors of vicariously treated gangs that were socially tied to directly-treated violent gangs. The background to this research stems from Deterrence theory, which proposes that crimes can be prevented or scaled down when the offender feels that the cost associated with the commission of the offense surpasses the benefits. This theory deals with both general and special deterrence. It, therefore, deals with dissuading both the public at large and the criminals from committing crimes. However, the theory being evaluated is the focused deterrence. It aims at changing the behavior of persons indirectly targeted by law enforcement interventions. By developing new and creative ways of spreading out traditional and non-traditional law enforcement tools, it is held that these strategies play a pivotal role in increasing punishment risks faced by violent gangs. For this reason, the effectiveness of the evaluation of deterrence theory lies on the impact of changing the offender’s certainty of the punishment to be imposed, the swiftness or speed it takes law-enforcement interventions against the crime, and the gravity of vengeance or retribution associated with particular offenses. Consequently, where the gang is certain of the penalties or punishments to be imposed for their criminal offenses, albeit the increased swiftness of being sanctioned, then they are highly likely to be deterred from the commission of such heinous acts. The prior knowledge by the gang members, of the incentives and disincentives, to be meted for the offenses they commit, compels them not to engage in the same. But we need to address the question of how the theory guided the authors in the conduct of their evaluation. To do this, then we have to put into the real context how the researchers evaluated the argument. As said there before, we have two theories at disposal: the focused deterrence theory and the deterrence theory. It is worth observing that focused deterrence theory is a subset, or is contained in deterrence theory. The latter preceded the former, and it is by the arguments and perceptions of the deterrence theory that the researchers intend to validate the focused deterrence theory. The goal is to prove the applicability of the focused deterrence strategies. However, findings collected after the evaluation of focused deterrence strategies did not explicitly show the perceived notion; vicariously-treated gangs did not change their behavior on the experience of what happened to directly-treated gangs. These evaluations only merely ascertained a reduction of citywide youth homicide trends or gang member involved homicides. Behavioral changes of vicariously treated gang members were inferred from the net decrease of city-wide outcome measures. Therefore, focused deterrence strategies did not realize ‘spillover’ deterrent effects among vicariously treated groups. This theory was subsequently ruled out. The focused deterrence theory was implemented under the name, Operation Ceasefire strategy. The Boston Police Department led it. This plan, managed by an interagency working group, aimed at preventing violence by directly reaching out to gangs. It spread the message that violence was intolerable, and therefore the Ceasefire strategy ‘pulled every lever’ legally available when violence occurred. Coordinated and comprehensive criminal justice response was meted against gang members and their groups who were involved in chronic violent activities. Low-level street crimes and all other forms of criminal activities of these groups were under the constant surveillance by law enforcement agencies. Investigations on the works of these gangs were conducted at a great focus. Severe measures, including strict probation and parole enforcement, drug proceeds seizure, stiffer plea bargains, and sterner prosecutorial attention, were exercised against gang-related drug and gun activities. Messages of non-acceptance of violent crimes and their punitive consequences were communicated to the gangs. This deterrence message to the gangs was not intended to be a plea to them to stop crimes. Rather it was a promise that violent behavior would attract an immediate and intense law enforcement response. The message was very clear that acts of routine violence would typically be treated, unlike those where violence was involved and therefore attracted sterner measures. Operation Ceasefire, therefore, focused more of its attention on violent gangs in Boston rather than the nonviolent ones.
In their evaluation, the researchers applied the nonrandomized quasi-experimental design. This research design “is used when it is logically not feasible or ethical to conduct a randomized controlled trial” CITATION Ant06 \l 1033 (Harris, 2006). This design uses “multiple groups or multiple waves of measures” CITATION Typ06 \l 1033 (Types of Designs, 2006) in the assessment of the cause and effects among the variables. Analyses of the observations were then done using growth curve regression models. While using these methods, problems arose in the analysis of the multivariate unit of analysis.
This evaluation can evidently be said to have achieved its intended outcomes, according to the author’s conclusion. The conclusions were that directly treated gangs experienced
a significant reduction in their shooting behaviors relative to matched untreated comparison gangs. Further findings also found that vicariously treated non-Ceasefire gangs were also deterred by the treatment experiences of their rivals and allies. The study only achieved its intended goals partially. The primary aim of the study was to check whether violent crimes could be deterred. While deterrence might not have been highly no...