Gun violence down in Baltimore, but Mayor Scott can’t credibly take credit | GUEST COMMENTARY

Gun violence is down in Baltimore — and falling.

Not only was 2023’s tally (262) the fewest number of homicides since 2014 (211), but Baltimore is on pace to record well under 200 homicides this year. That is truly astounding.

The question is: Why, and who gets the credit? Running for reelection, Mayor Brandon Scott frequently credits his own Gun Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS). The problem is Scott’s evidence of success is shaky.

Scott’s ambitious goal to reduce homicides and shootings by 15% every year of his tenure was a welcome rejection of the normalization of Baltimore’s endemic violence. But it was magical thinking— both murders and shootings actually rose in his first year, and they remained flat in his second year.

Undeniably, homicides dropped 22% last year, in Scott’s third year. That achievement coincided with the installation of a new tough-on-crime city prosecutor, Ivan Bates, and increasing cooperation with the new federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Erek Barron, who notably is using COVID-19 fraud prosecution as a pretext for locking up killers.

Homicides dropped 10.4% last year in the country’s largest cities according to the Major Cities Chiefs Association. And they fell significantly in similar-sized cities to Baltimore — falling 33% in New Orleans, 18.4% in Detroit, and 20% in St. Louis.

While Baltimore is not alone in its progress, it’s still notable given that the city frequently ranks among America’s most dangerous.

But Scott credits himself and GVRS, which was launched in the city’s Western District in 2022, specifically. The program uses a carrot-and-stick approach to tackling gun violence. It works like this: Officials figure out who is likely doing the shooting and getting shot, then contact them via “community-based partners.” They’re offered support services and referrals if needed and warned that if they don’t straighten up, authorities will bring the hammer down.

Criminologically, the first part (make a list of “trigger pullers”) and the third part (impose consequences) are on sound footing. The effectiveness of that middle part — deploying “violence interrupters” and offering wrap-around services — remains subject to dispute. Decades of academic studies have found mixed results with many concluding that such strategies overall don’t work or have a negligible impact on violence.

But Scott can point to his own study — by the University of Pennsylvania — that “proves” GVRS is an astounding success. That review found that the pilot program in the Western District resulted in a 25% reduction in shootings and murders in its first 18 months compared to what would have occurred otherwise. It also found that violence was not being displaced (i.e. simply moving elsewhere).

The study has been variously touted, including by Scott, as “independent” and “external” — supposedly offering an unbiased view of GVRS’s effectiveness.

Yet, the agency overseeing the GVRS initiative, the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE), paid the University of Pennsylvania research team more than $600,000 in 2022 to design and implement the program, as well as “evaluate” it. The city approved another $2.2 million last September for the researchers’ work. The ostensibly independent evaluators even hired a former MONSE aide.

So, it is unsurprising that the people paid by the mayor’s office fully endorse the mayor’s program — that they designed and oversee.

Now GVRS is expanding. Last year, the program entered the Southwestern and Central Districts, and it just spread to the Eastern District a few weeks ago. That’s despite continued hiccups with turnover among MONSE’s leadership and a contract dispute with one of the program’s two service providers, Roca. Meanwhile, another violence interrupter program funded by MONSE, Safe Streets, which is not part of GVRS, continues to be plagued by problems.

And MONSE is not audited by the city — so its vendor spending is not subject to oversight, despite documented cases where funds were used questionably.

So what exactly drove Baltimore’s success is not exactly clear. It’s difficult to disentangle the law enforcement impact of GVRS from its social services model, and GVRS’s promised consequences from Bates’ and Barron’s prosecution strategies.

The truth is that Baltimore’s one-year drop in gun violence is a success, and success, as they say, has many fathers. Certainly, Bates, Barron, Police Commissioner Richard Worley and the overstretched rank-and-file of Baltimore’s finest share in that parentage.

Without a truly independent assessment of GVRS’s impact, however, Scott’s attempts to take credit ring hollow.

Sean Kennedy (seandavidkennedy@gmail.com) is a visiting fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank based in Rockville, Md.