Novel approaches can chip away at gun violence, make a big difference

Many of Chicago’s big problems — corruption, pension debts, population decline —might seem virtually impossible to solve. But perhaps the city’s biggest problem — gun violence — only feels that way.

Why?

Take gun control. There are 400 million guns in the United States, and all it takes to thwart a local gun law is to drive across a city or state line. (Just look at where all of Chicago’s crime guns come from — not Chicago).

Those looking to Washington to take the lead are out of luck; between the U.S. Supreme Court’s new interpretation of the Second Amendment and the Trump administration’s priorities, we’re more likely to get less, not more, gun control.

The earnest hope for solving “root causes” looks similarly grim, particularly with the new federal administration’s emphasis on cutting government spending. The politics don’t look much better here in Chicago. Local voters seem to be in no mood for tax hikes.

So why are things not as bleak as they seem?

For starters, gun violence itself is not what we’ve long thought. From the news and TV shows, we tend to think of shootings as premeditated and driven by economic considerations (gang wars over drug turf, robberies, etc.) That’s led us to rely heavily on incentives as the cure — depending on your politics, either bigger carrots (more social programs) or bigger sticks (more incarceration).

But as I argue in my just released book, "Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence," most shootings aren’t premeditated and don’t have economic motives. Most shootings stem from arguments or retaliation for past arguments.

Anyone who’s been in a heated argument knows: Whatever you’re doing at that moment, it’s not a premeditated weighing of pros and cons. You often regret it immediately. Whatever the cure for such moments might be, incentives aren’t it.

The good news: It’s easier to prevent fatal mistakes in difficult situations than it is to change the fundamentals of the criminal justice system, the economy or the social safety net. There are helpful things to do that don’t require lots of money or a big political fight.

For starters, we can make our neighborhoods more forgiving of universal human frailties by operationalizing the wisdom Jane Jacobs had 60 years ago in the "Death and Life of Great American Cities." Noting that low-income areas vary widely in rates of crime and violence, Jacobs identified one critical factor: the presence of “eyes on the street” who can help defuse conflict before it escalates.

So how do we get lots more eyes on the street? It helps that human conflict is concentrated in time and place (the bar at 3 am, Friday night at the movies, etc.), which can allow for focusing existing resources more efficiently. Los Angeles has shown that using data to target first responder attention can double the amount of crime prevented.

But of course, eyes on the street are about much more than the police.

When Forrest Claypool took over the Chicago Park District under Mayor Richard M. Daley, he asked the police superintendent how many more officers would be needed to make the parks safe; as recounted in Claypool's "The Daley Show," the superintendent said “None. You just have to get people back in the parks. The drug dealers and gangbangers don’t want to be around people.”

A large experiment from Philadelphia shows the impact can be enormous: When Philly turned vacant lots into pocket parks, more people came out in public, and shootings declined by 30%. In Chicago, with its abundance of parks and 50,000 vacant lots, a strong parks department and the Cook County land bank (which helps fix up empty lots) could make a real difference.

Other data from Los Angeles shows that getting more foot traffic from more commercial establishments in an area can reduce violent crimes by nearly 20%. This highlights another cost of having so few grocery stores on the South and West sides

We also need to help people learn new lessons from behavioral economics about what to anticipate and do in these difficult situations to avoid escalation to tragedy. We could start with people who’ve already gotten tripped up by such mistakes: Training the guards at the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center to work with teens reduced recidivism by 20% (plus, cost almost nothing).

Under conventional wisdom, all these things are just distractions from the "real solutions." But add up 30% here, 20% here and another 20% there, and these pragmatic, cheap, nonpolitical efforts accumulate into transformative change.

There is even a double dividend here. The data shows gun violence is a key reason people and businesses flee impacted neighborhoods, so creating public safety is itself an important part of addressing larger “root causes.”

Perhaps it's as simple as this: Unlike corruption, municipal debt or long-term population loss, gun violence feels unsolvable primarily because we’ve been focused on the wrong solutions.

Jens Ludwig is the Edwin A. and Betty L. Bergman Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, Pritzker Director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and author of the just published book Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence  

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