 | |
| Founded | 2000 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Dr. Gary Slutkin |
| Focus | Health Approach to Violence Prevention |
| Location |
|
Area served
| US/International |
| Method | Detecting & Interrupting Conflicts, Identifying & Treating High Risk Individuals and Changing Social Norms |
Key people
| Brent Decker, Chief Program Officer; Charles Ransford, Director of Science and Policy |
| Website | http://www.cvg.org |
Cure Violence, founded by Epidemiologist Gary Slutkin, M.D. and ranked one of the top ten NGOs by NGO Advisor in 2019, is a public health anti-violence program. It aims to stop the spread of violence in communities by using the methods and strategies associated with disease control – detecting and interrupting conflicts, identifying and treating the highest risk individuals, and changing social norms.
History
Originally developed under the name "CeaseFire" in 2000, Slutkin launched the model in West Garfield, the most violent community in Chicago at the time. CeaseFire produced a 67 percent reduction in shootings in its first year. CeaseFire received additional funding from the State of Illinois in 2004 to immediately expand from 5 to 15 communities and from 20 to 80 Outreach Workers. That year, homicides declined in Chicago by 25 percent, to a total of 448, a rate of 15.5 homicides per 100,000 residents.
A three-year evaluation of the Chicago implementation by the U.S.
Department of Justice in 2009 found shootings and killings were reduced
by 41 percent to 73 percent [DJS -- ?], shooting hot spots were reduced in size
and intensity, and retaliatory murders were eliminated. "A striking
finding was how important CeaseFire loomed in their lives," the
researchers stated in the report. "Clients noted the importance of being
able to reach their outreach worker at critical moments — when they
were tempted to resume taking drugs, were involved in illegal
activities, or when they felt that violence was imminent." The lead evaluator commented that, "I found the statistical results to be as strong as you could hope for."
In response to the Chicago results, federal funding for the
approach was made available in 2008 and new programs were started in
Baltimore and New York City, which were also evaluated and found to be
effective.
The US State Department also funded a pilot program in Basr and Sadr
City, Iraq, which was operational from 2008 to 2013 and conducted nearly
1,000 conflict mediations.
CeaseFire was reorganized and changed its name to Cure Violence in September 2012.
Cure Violence now refers to the larger organization and overall health
approach, while local program partner sites often operate under other
names. In December, 2015, Cure Violence has 23 cities implementing the
Cure Violence health approach in over 50 sites in the U.S.
International program partner sites are operating in Trinidad, Honduras,
Mexico, South Africa, Canada and Colombia.
Model
Cure
Violence's founder and executive director, Gary Slutkin, is an
epidemiologist and a physician who for ten years battled infectious
diseases in Africa. He says that violence directly mimics infections like tuberculosis and AIDS,
thus the treatment ought to follow the regimen applied to these
diseases: go after the most infected, and stop the infection at its
source.
Cure Violence approaches violence in an entirely new way: as a
contagious disease that can be stopped using the same health strategies
employed to fight epidemics. The Cure Violence model trains and deploys
outreach workers and violence interrupters to mitigate conflict on the
street before it turns violent.
These interrupters are credible messengers, trusted members of the
communities served, who use their street credibility to model and teach
community members better ways of communicating with each other and how
to resolve conflicts peacefully.
Cure Violence follows a three-pronged health approach to violence
prevention : detection and interruption of planned violent activity,
behavior change of high-risk individuals, and changing community norms.
Members of the community with credibility among the target
population are hired and trained in the methods of mediation and
behavior change and work to stop retribution from occurring or violence
being created due to lack of communication and tense situations. One
volunteer was interviewed for a BBC article and stated she defused
situations by arranging funerals, bringing food, talking to and
distracting the los due los japan (the leaders), bringing in community leaders, and stepping in at hospitals and rental complexes.
The Cure Violence method was developed using World Health
Organization derived strategies and has won multiple awards. It has
been promoted by the Institute of Medicine, the National League of
Cities, U.S. Conference of Mayors, Department of Justice and was
described in the Economist as "....the approach that will come to prominence." The program is currently being implemented by local partners with great success throughout the world.
Funding
Original
funding for CeaseFire came from contributions from federal and state
grants, and from local foundations and corporations, providing a $6.2
million budget for 2005 and $9.4 million for 2006.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation awarded CeaseFire a grant for the period 2007 to 2012.
Today the organization is funded by fee-for-service for trainings and
technical assistance as well as grants from governments and foundations.
Evaluation
In May 2008, Professor Wesley G. Skogan, an expert on crime and policing at Northwestern University, completed a three-year, independent, Department of Justice-funded report on CeaseFire, which found that the program successfully reduced shootings and killings by 41% to 73%. Retaliatory shootings were reduced 100% in five of the seven communities examined in the report.
In an independent evaluation of the Cure Violence model at the
Baltimore partner program site commissioned by the Centers for Disease
Control and conducted by Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore's Safe
Streets program, the Cure Violence partner site, is credited with
reducing shootings and killings by up to 34-56%. Community norm changes
occurred, even with non-clients and reductions spread to surrounding
communities.
Daniel Webster, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research,
advocates for such an interventionist approach to violent crime,
believing the benefits of Ceasefire's intercession are many. On CNN.com, Webster said, ""Violence is reciprocal. Stopping one homicide through mediation could buy you peace for months down the road."
The US Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance
contracted with the Center for Court Innovation to evaluate the Cure
Violence New York City program partner site and found the gun violence
rate in the program site to be 20% lower than what it would have been
had its change mirrored the average change in comparison precincts.
John Jay College was contracted by several funders to conduct
an extensive, independent evaluation on the Cure Violence approach in
New York City, which found a reduction in violence, a shift in norms,
and an improvement in police-community relations. The evaluation found a
37% to 50% reduction in gun injuries in the two communities examined.
Additionally, the study found a 14% reduction in attitudes supporting
violence (with no change in controls) and an increased confidence in
police and increased willingness to contact police.
A 2015 report found that the average homicide rate in NYC program
neighborhoods fell by 18% while increasing an average 69% in comparison
neighborhoods.
An evaluation of the program in Port of Spain, Trinidad conducted
by Arizona State University and funded by the InterAmerican Development
Bank found a 45% reduction in violent crime in the service area.
Cure Violence, however, has not been free of criticism. Dr. Malte
Riemann cautioned that the model displays a neoliberal logic that runs
the risk of ‘replacing political solutions with medical diagnosis and
treatment models.
This has depoliticizing effects as ‘violence becomes disentangled from
socio-economic inequalities and explained by reference to individual
pathology alone’.
The possible limitations of the model’s extension to conflict
resolution have also been discussed, especially the ‘risk of undermining
the establishment of positive peace in a post-conflict environment‘.
Partners
National Sites:
- Baltimore Safe Streets in Baltimore, Maryland
- Aim 4 Peace in Kansas City, Missouri
- Cure for Camden, Camden, New Jersey
- CeaseFire Illinois, Chicago
- CeaseFire New Orleans, Louisiana
- Operation SNUG in New York City
- Brooklyn/Crown Heights, New York City
- Operation SNUG in New York
- Cure Violence/NYC Mission Society, Harlem, New York City
- 49 Strong Saving Lives, Staten island
- Save our Streets, Bronx, New York City
- Cure Violence, South Jamaica, New York City
- CYO, Inc. in Oakland, California
- Philadelphia CeaseFire
- City of San Antonio- Stand Up SA
- Cease Violence, Wilmington, Delaware
International Sites:
- The Chaos Theory (The Safety Box) in London, UK
- CeaseFire Hanover Park (2 sites), in Hanover Park, Cape Town, South Africa
- The Citizen Security Program in Trinidad & Tobago
- Taller de Salud, Inc., Loiza Puerto Rico
- Cristo de la Roca in San Pedro Sula, Honduras
- Cure Violence plus PeaceTXT messaging to reduce election violence, Sisi Ni Amani-Kenya
- American Islamic Congress, 3 sites in Basrah and 2 sites in Sadr City-Baghdad, Iraq
- Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
- Barrio Positivo, Honduras
- CeaseFire Halifax, Canada
The Interrupters (2011 documentary)
The Interrupters
is a film, produced in 2011 by Kartemquin Films, that documents the
story of three CeaseFire outreach workers. It was directed and produced
by Steve James, director of "Hoop Dreams" and also produced by Alex
Kotlowitz, an author who first wrote about the organization for the New
York Times Magazine in 2009.
The film emphasizes the notion that much of the violence on the streets
results from interpersonal conflict, rather than from gang-related
disputes.
The film follows three interrupters—Ameena Matthews, Cobe
Williams and Eddie Bocanegra. Ameena, the daughter of Jeff Fort—a major
gang leader in the 1970s—spent time as a teen involved in a gang, and
now takes to the streets to keep youths from doing the same.
Ricardo "Cobe" Williams did three stints in jail for attempted murder
and drug-related charges, and Eddie Bocanegra served 14 years in jail
for a murder he committed at age 17.
The film premiered at 2011 Sundance. It aired as a PBS Frontline broadcast in February 2012.
Featured In
- A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity; Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
- Violence as a Public Health Problem: A Most Violent Year by Dr. Lloyd Sederer, Huffington Post, 12/9/2014
- Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla; David Kilcullen
- Beyond Suppression: Global Perspectives on Youth Violence; Joan Serra Hoffman, Lyndee Knox, and Robert Cohen
- Epidemiological Criminology: Theory to Practice; edited by Eve Waltermaurer, Timothy A. Akers
- “Violence Is a Contagious Disease“– by Dr. Gary Slutkin
- “Contagion of Violence“ – 2012 Institute of Medicine report
- “Cure Violence: A Disease Control Approach to Reduce Violence and Change Behavior” – by Charles Ransford, Candice Kane, and Gary Slutkin
