the most noteworthy example of the policy of deterrence was

Several strategies were used to perform an exhaustive search for literature fitting the eligibility criteria. The units of analysis had to be people or places. SELECTION CRITERIAĮligible studies had to meet three criteria: (1) the program had to have the core elements of a pulling levers focused deterrence strategy present (2) a comparison group was included (3) at least one crime outcome was reported. To synthesize the extant evaluation literature and assess the effects of pulling levers focused deterrence strategies on crime. These new strategic approaches have been applied to a range of crime problems, such as overt drug markets and individual repeat offenders, and have shown promising results in the reduction of crime. In its simplest form, the approach consists of selecting a particular crime problem, such as gang homicide convening an interagency working group of law enforcement, social-service, and community-based practitioners conducting research to identify key offenders, groups, and behavior patterns framing a response to offenders and groups of offenders that uses a varied menu of sanctions (”pulling levers”) to stop them from continuing their violent behavior focusing social services and community resources on targeted offenders and groups to match law enforcement prevention efforts and directly and repeatedly communicating with offenders to make them understand why they are receiving this special attention. Pioneered in Boston to halt serious gang violence, the focused deterrence framework has been applied in many American cities through federally sponsored violence prevention programs. Focused deterrence strategies honor core deterrence ideas, such as increasing risks faced by offenders, while finding new and creative ways of deploying traditional and non-traditional law enforcement tools to do so, such as directly communicating incentives and disincentives to targeted offenders.

Abstract BACKGROUNDĪ number of American police departments have been experimenting with new problem-oriented policing frameworks to prevent gang and group-involved violence generally known as the “pulling levers” focused deterrence strategies. However, the effect size is large enough to have reasonable confidence in the effectiveness of these programs. Gang or group intervention programs had the largest effect, followed by the drug market intervention programs, with the smallest but still statistically significant effect for the high-risk individuals programs.Īll included studies use non-randomized experimental designs, which have a risk of over-stating impact. There is a strongly significant medium size effect average effect across all studies. Nine out of 10 studies reported a statistically significant positive effect. Pulling levers focused deterrence strategies are associated with a medium-sized crime reduction effect. The review summarises findings from 10 studies, all of which report evidence from programmes in the US. This Campbell systematic review assesses the effectiveness of focused deterrence strategies known as “pulling levels” in reducing crime.

The most noteworthy example of the policy of deterrence was