Fighting crime as a network problem

See also this article on treating violence as an epidemic.

A historic drop in shootings and homicides has largely been thanks to the department’s Operation Ceasefire program.

Operation Ceasefire is an expansive strategy that requires cooperation between law enforcement, prosecutors, human services, community groups, faith-based organizations and, crucially, people who are involved in violent crime. Law-enforcement investigators gather intelligence about groups of people who may be involved in violent crime or are at risk of committing a violent crime. Those people are called to a meeting, where they’re offered social services and support.

If they don’t take the help and do commit a violent crime, they’re told that police are watching, and they’ll be swiftly arrested and prosecuted.

Operation Ceasefire relies on the theory that only a few groups of people are driving most of the violence in cities as they become entrenched in turf wars or petty disputes escalate into sprawling retaliatory violence. By directly intervening with the people most at risk for committing violent acts, community groups and law enforcement hope to break the cycle of violence, both by providing people willing to make a life change with the opportunity to do so and by taking people who refuse to off the streets.

It’s the second iteration of the program in Oakland. “The first time we did it, we fell on our faces drastically,” Joyner said in an interview with the Bold Italic in his East Oakland office. “It was kind of a boutique-shop thing—it was more words than substance.”

The relevant figure is reproduced below :

The program started in 2012. While there's not much to go on, it's interesting to see that when the officer numbers increased modestly in 2009, the level of violence drops. It appears to rise again as the officer numbers fall, and only starts dropping when the program is initiated. Until 2014 there is essentially no change in officer numbers but a marked decrease in shootings. Beyond that, violence continues to decrease (though much more slowly) but officer numbers steadily rise.

If we take this at face value, it suggests that sheer officer numbers are indeed important as well as how they're used. That the shootings appear to plateau after 2014 could be due to a number of different reasons. The program might have reached the maximum number of people it's able to, preventing revenge attacks but not able to locate the imitators or address the root cause of the violence. Or of course there could be other causes in the city which are working against the positive effects of the program - it's just not possible to tell from one graph. Also note that the officer numbers also reach a plateau.

All in all, this does seem like a success, but we should be very careful about drawing too much information from one graph. It's also possible that this limited information is disguising just how successful the program really is.

How Oakland Has Seen a Big Drop in Crime - Without More Police

During the past few years, Oakland has seen a historic drop in shootings and murders, all without increasing the number of officers they have. Our writer Scott Morris looks into what has led to this decrease, discovering that it largely has to do with the police department's Operation Ceasefire program.