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.
What if gang violence in America could be reduced just by talking? Professor and activist David Kennedy talks with Ben Crair about his new book, Don’t Shoot, criticism of his plan, and the economics of gangs.
This Op-Ed argues that the National Network strategies, which grew out of the success of “Operation Ceasefire” in Boston in the mid-1990s, are “how we, as a nation, can and must finally back out of the rolling destruction, by death and mass incarceration, of our cities, our society, and our moral character.”
By 2009, Wilmington, Delaware ranked third-highest in violent crime for U.S. cities its size. The News Journal highlights Providence's successful model of dealing with chronic violence, transforming once-corroded neighborhoods through community policing and social services strategy. UCLA Luskin School of Public Policy Professor Mark Kleiman argues that poverty and racism cannot be fixed until the crime problem is under control. During the same decade, several other cities including Cincinnati; Nashville, Tennessee; Rockford, Illinois; and Raleigh and High Point, North Carolina have used the new ideas about deterring crime to effectively wipe out their most infamous drug markets. The ideas also are being applied to gang crime, domestic violence and probation.
The National Network For Safe Communities is helping law enforcement agencies effectively combat crime related to overt drug trafficking. David Kennedy shares the how you can incorporate these tactics and make your community a safer place to live on this COPS Beat podcast.
Peer-reviewed, published, quasi-experimental evaluations show homicide reductions of around 40 percent to 50 percent, with larger impacts in hard-hit neighborhoods and demographics. Project Safe Neighborhood’s meeting strategy in its Chicago neighborhoods between 2003 and 2005 led to a 37 percent reduction in homicides.
Law professor Jeffrey Rosen sets out how new deterrence approaches, including those underlying the National Network’s strategies, hold real promise for addressing the criminal justice system’s legitimacy crisis.
High Point’s success in closing down its drug market with a minimum of arrests and incarceration demonstrates that there is a real alternative to traditional drug law enforcement, this report argues, and there is a growing consensus among experts that crime can be prevented in a more cost-effective and less damaging way.
Scottish Violence Reduction Unit policewoman Karyn McCluskey imported National Network's GVI strategy to reduce gang violence in Strathclyde.
The idea behind the new approach, called "swift, certain and fair," is that a minor violation triggers an immediate but moderate punishment, such as a couple of days in jail for failing a drug test. UCLA public policy professor Mark Kleiman says the immediacy and consistency of the approach gets ex-offenders to change their behavior without derailing people’s reentry into society.
A profile of Seattle’s drug market intervention and its plans to also to put the group violence reduction strategy into place as part of a larger $8 million youth violence prevention program. The report includes an interview with National Network co-chair David Kennedy.
Fighting violence with clarity, not severity
Even though a bad economy plays a strong role in determining crime rates, recent research has teased out some links between the overall economy and crime. David Kennedy argues that a bad economy doesn't necessarily mean we're heading for Armageddon.
National Network's research shows that shockingly small numbers of people—dozens, not hundreds—cause the violence plaguing cities' worst areas. Most people just want a safe place to live, but feel anger toward heavy-handed police. The most effective cops are not the ones who make buy-busts, but who can find a dealer, show him photos of him committing a crime and give him a genuine choice: get straight or go to jail.
Graduates of Howard court program are moving beyond drug and alcohol dependency.
Nassau County successfully replicated the drug market intervention strategy in a Hempstead neighborhood that previously had been home to more arrests, shootings, and deaths than just about anywhere else in the state of New York. Watch the summary report below on how police and community joined forces to eliminate drug-related crime or click on the title for the full-length program.
