The National Network's approach has attracted significant media attention over twenty years. This page features the most recent coverage of our work and a searchable archive of media about the National Network's projects around the nation and abroad.
The National Network convenes regular conferences, working sessions and webinars to discuss and promote developments in its core areas of operation, showcase innovations, and set research and development priorities.
This year started off with three homicides on Jan 1.
The shootings and killings have not abated more than two months later. Three people were slain in the first week of March.
In total, there have been 15 homicides so far in 2017, the deadliest start of a new year in at least a decade. But police say the spike does not necessarily mean 2017 will end as one of the deadliest years.
Police Commissioner Daniel Derenda cited gang violence, often propelled by drug disputes, and other arguments between rival gangs as the primary causes of the violence. Several killings are believed to be the result of a single dispute.
"Homicides run in cycles with spikes due to circumstances and different feuds on the streets," Derenda said. "The vast majority of these killings are not random acts but targeted."
"In 2015, the SPD began a process of listening in a new way. When large numbers of people were ready to talk, we listened by holding a series of large town-hall-style events all over the city. When some voices were drowned out by the larger, sometimes raucous settings, we looked for another way to listen. As City Manager and Police Chief, we conducted a listening tour, for anyone at all, individually or in small groups, in their living rooms or our offices, and anywhere in between, to listen to our community."
The most powerful message about gun violence in Jacksonville came without words Saturday morning — just a few shaking hands slowly raised, and a couple of heads nodding by children replying to the question whether they feel safe in their schools or neighborhoods.
That more of the estimated 20 children and teens didn’t indicate they feel safe in places where they should, appeared to illustrate what adults described as the epidemic of gun violence permeating the city.
The youngsters were among about 40 people including parents, grandparents, church and community leaders, and concerned residents who came together for a frank discussion in search of realistic ways to reduce gun violence evidenced by almost daily shootings, and recent incidents of guns found at Duval County Public Schools campuses.
"The survey found that while residents of these neighborhoods are distrustful of police, they nevertheless want to cooperate and partner with police to make their communities safer. A door-to-door survey in high-crime neighborhoods of six cities found that less than a third of residents believe police respect people’s rights, but the vast majority believe laws should be strictly followed and many would volunteer their time to help police solve crimes, find suspects, and discuss crime in their neighborhood."
On Tuesday, February 22, York, CeaseFire York held its first call-in meeting.
For anyone with the faintest acquaintance with Sweden, President Donald Trump’s recent invocation of the country this weekend as a hellhole made unstable by immigration-fueled crime is surreal in the extreme. In the aftermath of a tweet that seemed to suggest that the country had just experienced a terrorist attack (it hasn’t), Sweden’s third city of Malmö in particular fell into the crosshairs when an alt-right editor offered to pay liberal journalists’ expensesto visit what he suggested was a supposedly dangerous war zone.
Elsewhere, former UKIP leader-turned-shock jock Nigel Farage falsely claimed the city was “the rape capital of Europe.” Seeing Scandinavia’s largest country, with its reputation for high living standards, good governance, and low crime, thrust into a sort of police line-up of multicultural Europe’s failures felt a bit like seeing your neighbor’s lovable pet guinea pig being ducked as a witch.
"Prosecutors have the responsibility to recognize the dignity in the person in front of them, and the authority to base their decisions on that humanity rather than on a single moment."
In his new book, "Locked In," Fordham University law professor John Pfaff challenges every element of the popular narrative about the United States' broken criminal justice system.
"Nationwide, 'collateral consequences' for the formerly incarcerated—legal restrictions on whether formerly incarcerated parents can, for example, volunteer in their children’s schools, vote, or get a real estate appraiser’s license—number more than 48,000."
Andrew Papachristos' Policy Lab will be an interdisciplinary social and political science research lab.
Senator Jeff Baron has vowed to continue investing in community outreach programmes and Bermudian talent to tackle the scourge of gang and gun violence.
The Minister for National Security revealed that the counter-gang strategy Operation Ceasefire would be rolled out across the island in the coming weeks and be fully operational by the summer.
The programme, which is modelled on Boston’s successful anti-gang strategy, focuses on engaging with those involved in gangs and helping members find a way out.
“The violence and community disorder is being caused by a remarkably small but active number caught in the dynamics of a gang and drug hierarchy,” Mr Baron said.
In jurisdictions around the country, incoming district attorneys, who campaigned on less-punitive sentences, marijuana decriminalization, opposition to the death penalty, and charging fewer juveniles as adults, are putting some initial reforms into action.
NYPD consultant John Linder is helping develop technology that "will deliver to police and their executives real-time measures of public attitudes — whether trust is going up or down, whether the sense of safety is going up or down, and whether the job approval of the NYPD is going up or down—by neighborhood."
Despite an increase in calls for help in South Bend in 2016, police used force in fewer cases, and citizen complaints against officers decreased significantly. Homicides and gang-related shootings were also down from the previous year's totals.
As noted police accountability expert Samuel Walker writes, "the long-term solution to our police problems lies in electing officials who are committed to professional, respectful and constitutional policing—and are informed about what needs to be done to get there."
"Half of America's gun homicides in 2015 were clustered in just 127 cities and towns, according to a new geographic analysis by the Guardian, even though they contain less than a quarter of the nation’s population."
Andrew Papachristos, study author and professor of sociology: "This information is crucial for pinpointing high-risk individuals who might benefit from intervention. If we have this social map, we can send first responders, trauma specialists, interventionists and police if necessary."
Project Longevity and our partners in New Haven are playing a substantial role in crime reduction.
Our partners with Project Longevity have helped reduce violence, leading to "half as many New Haveners" being shot relative to a decade ago.
What’s the best way to bridge the disconnect that exists between some in our community and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office?
It’s by being willing to address it in honest fashion.
That’s why Florida State College at Jacksonville should be applauded for recently hosting a “Community Conversation” forum that brought together present and former members of JSO’s command structure, FSCJ professors, students and other citizens to discuss the relationship between local law enforcement and Jacksonville’s residents.
National Network partner Andrew Papachristos and his colleague Gary Slutkin "have started to look at gun violence as a public health epidemic, and how to take a holistic approach and reinterpret the problem."
National Network Director David Kennedy comments, “New York City, in many ways, convinced the rest of the country that things like zero tolerance were the way to make communities safe, and now it’s showing the country that you absolutely do not need to do that, you should not do it, and there are much, much better and less damaging ways to work with communities to produce public safety.”
Kevin Hagen for The New York Times
"2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Ken Armstrong brought us this uplifting story of justice, fairness — and an extraordinary, unlikely friendship."
The National Network's Intimate Partner Violence Intervention that was first piloted in High Point, NC helped drive dramatic reductions in the lethal intimate partner violence in the city, nearly eliminating IPV homicides.
Project Longevity in New Haven is continuing to contribute to sustained low-levels of violent crime. Daily intelligence meetings, custom notifications, and other innovations are supporting the vital work being done.
