David M. Kennedy (criminologist)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

David M. Kennedy (born 1958) is a criminologist, professor, action researcher, and author specializing in crime prevention among
inner city The term ''inner city'' has been used, especially in the United States, as a euphemism for majority-minority lower-income residential districts that often refer to rundown neighborhoods, in a downtown or city centre area. Sociologists some ...
gangs, especially in the prevention of violent acts among street gangs. Kennedy developed the Operation Ceasefire group violence intervention in
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
in the 1990s and the High Point Model drug market intervention in
High Point, North Carolina High Point is a city in the Piedmont Triad region of the U.S. state of North Carolina. Most of the city is in Guilford County, with parts extending into Randolph, Davidson, and Forsyth counties. High Point is North Carolina's only city that ...
, in 2003, which have proven to reduce violence and eliminate overt drug markets in jurisdictions around the United States. He founded the National Network for Safe Communities in 2009 to support cities using these and related strategies. He is the author of two books, ''Don't Shoot: One Man, A Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America'' (2011), a popular treatment of his violence reduction work with street gangs, and ''Deterrence and Crime Prevention: Reconsidering the Prospect of Sanction'' (2008), a theoretical publication. He is the coauthor of ''Beyond 911: A New Era for Policing'', a book on
community policing Community policing, or community-oriented policing (COP), is a strategy of policing that focuses on developing relationships with community members. It is a philosophy of full-service policing that is highly personal, where an officer patrols ...
.


Biography


Education

David M. Kennedy graduated from Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania in 1980 with a
Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...
and high honors in philosophy and history. In 2011, his alma mater awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.


Career

During the 1980s Kennedy worked as a case writer in the Case Program of the
John F. Kennedy School of Government The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, public ...
at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
, in
Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...
. While visiting the Nickerson Gardens neighborhood of
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
on an assignment, he became acutely aware of ravages of the
crack epidemic The crack epidemic was a surge of crack cocaine use in major cities across the United States throughout the entirety of the 1980s and the early 1990s. This resulted in a number of social consequences, such as increasing crime and violence in Amer ...
and gang-related violence on poor communities of color in the United States. This initial experience inspired his lifelong commitment to combating these problems. In the mid-1990s, as part of the Boston Gun Project, Kennedy and colleagues Anthony A. Braga and Anne M. Piehl from Harvard worked in
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
to apply new
problem-oriented policing Problem-oriented policing (POP), coined by University of Wisconsin–Madison professor Herman Goldstein, is a policing strategy that involves the identification and analysis of specific crime and disorder problems, in order to develop effective res ...
ideas to Boston's violence epidemic. Through working with the
Boston Police Department The Boston Police Department (BPD), dating back to 1854, holds the primary responsibility for law enforcement and investigation within the city of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest municipal police department in the United States. The ...
gang unit, Kennedy and his colleagues came to understand that gangs were at the heart of the problem and that an extremely small number of highly active offenders was responsible for a majority of the city's serious crime problem, a principle that has informed his interventions ever since. Together with Boston law enforcement, city officials, community and faith leaders, and street outreach workers, Kennedy and his colleagues developed the “call-in,” a face-to-face meeting with gang members in a forum setting, during which this partnership of city stakeholders "clearly communicates (1) a credible, moral message against violence; (2) a credible law enforcement message about the group consequences of further violence; and (3) a genuine offer of help for those who want it." The immediate result of Operation Ceasefire was a 63 percent reduction in youth homicide and a 30 percent reduction in homicide citywide, what has been called the " Boston Miracle." The call-in and other forms of direct communication with active offenders remain the central features of the Group Violence Intervention and Kennedy's overall approach to reducing violence and community disorder. One important element of the call-in message is that it provides what Kennedy calls an "honorable exit" from violence and the street code that promotes it, "a way to step back without losing face." After the initial success in Boston, Kennedy found stakeholders in
Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
willing to replicate his research and he led another successful implementation of the still developing strategy. Next, he assisted Stockton, California, and
Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
, among other cities. The Baltimore intervention, begun in 1998, proved to be a particular challenge and highlighted some of the difficulties of implementation, especially in working with rival political officials and sustaining the strategy. After an initial decline in violence, the project faced political resistance and came to a halt. In Baltimore, Kennedy also began to refine the terminology used within the strategy: Kennedy uses the term "group" rather than "gang" because all gangs are groups, but not all groups are gangs. His research has found that many high-rate offenders associate in groups - such as neighborhood cliques, sets, or drug crews - that do not fit the statutory definition of a gang or share such characteristics as a name, common symbols, signs or tags, an identifiable hierarchy, or other identifiers. Using the principles developed in his previous research, Kennedy began to craft an approach to eliminating overt drug markets, a problem poisoning America's most troubled communities and driving violence. "It's not about the drugs," writes Kennedy, "it's about the drug ''market.'' Drug ''use'' doesn't cause much violence, much public chaos. It can be very bad...But the community can handle that. It's the street scene that tears the community apart." He theorized an approach to eliminating drug markets that would combine formal and informal social control, using call-ins to communicate an antidealing message from community leaders and a promise of swift, certain sanctions from law enforcement. High Point, North Carolina, a city already using Kennedy's approach to reduce violence, was the first to pilot the new strategy for eliminating its overt drug markets. As in the Group Violence Intervention, Kennedy designed a strategy for High Point to focus on the core population driving the problem. High Point law enforcement arrested the small number of dangerous drug dealers, those with a history of violent offenses. Law enforcement built prosecutable cases on the dozen or so remaining dealers and "banked" the cases, or held them unless the dealer continued dealing. At call-ins, the banked case allowed law enforcement to put the dealer on notice that any known future dealing would result in immediate arrest and prosecution and community representatives communicated clear standards against overt dealing and violence. The Drug Market Intervention in High Point closed the city's overt markets with no sign of displacement. The city saw a 44 to 56 percent reduction in Part 1
Uniform Crime Reports The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program compiles official data on crime in the United States, published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). UCR is "a nationwide, cooperative statistical effort of nearly 18,000 city, university and co ...
data in three out of four neighborhoods that implemented the strategy and a four to 74 percent reduction in drug offenses in all four neighborhoods. The strategy has now been widely and successfully replicated throughout the U.S. Within the Drug Market Intervention, Kennedy also developed the concept of "racial reconciliation" necessary to heal relations between law enforcement and communities of color before their collaborative work could proceed. "The real issue was the way the relationship between the police and community was being poisoned by toxic racial narrative,” Kennedy has written. In his work, Kennedy points out that law enforcement and communities have fundamental misunderstandings about one another. He notes that many in communities of color, especially poor black communities, have experienced state-sanctioned police oppression within living memory, and that they believe current enforcement practices such as street stops, drug arrests, and mass incarceration to be a deliberate conspiracy against black communities and an extension of this history. Law enforcement, on the other hand, does not hear the community objecting to violence and drug markets and often believes that the community likes what's going on, is living off drug money, has lost its morality, or does not care enough to work for change. While both viewpoints are incorrect, says Kennedy, they make collaboration impossible. However, Kennedy believes that law enforcement and communities share important aims and common ground and that when they can meet and both acknowledge past harms and the ineffectiveness of their current positions, they can make progress toward eliminating not only violence and overt drug markets, but intrusive and damaging law enforcement practices, as well. High Point was the first site of formalized meetings to put the racial reconciliation process into practice and these powerful meetings laid the groundwork for the effective intervention. The process of racial reconciliation was also the subject of a national
U.S. Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...
working session in 2012 and has been a topic of increasing interest for communities and law enforcement agencies nationwide. Kennedy currently directs a research center at the
John Jay College of Criminal Justice The John Jay College of Criminal Justice (John Jay) is a public college focused on criminal justice and located in New York City. It is a senior college of the City University of New York (CUNY). John Jay was founded as the only liberal arts ...
in New York City, a position he has held since 2005. In 2009, Kennedy and John Jay College President
Jeremy Travis Jeremy Travis (born July 31, 1948) is an American academic administrator who served as the fourth president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a senior college of the City University of New York, starting on August 16, 2004. On October 25, ...
founded the National Network for Safe Communities to link cities using Kennedy's strategies to reduce violence, minimize arrest and incarceration, improve
legitimacy Legitimacy, from the Latin ''legitimare'' meaning "to make lawful", may refer to: * Legitimacy (criminal law) * Legitimacy (family law) * Legitimacy (political) See also * Bastard (law of England and Wales) * Illegitimacy in fiction * Legit (d ...
, and strengthen relationships between law enforcement and distressed communities. Through the National Network for Safe Communities, Kennedy is currently assisting numerous cities to implement the Group Violence Intervention, including Chicago, IL; Detroit, MI; Baltimore, MD; New Orleans, LA; Baton Rouge, LA; South Bend, IN; Chattanooga, TN; and three cities in the state of Connecticut. Kennedy also remains a professor of criminal justice in the Criminal Justice Department of
John Jay College The John Jay College of Criminal Justice (John Jay) is a public college focused on criminal justice and located in New York City. It is a senior college of the City University of New York (CUNY). John Jay was founded as the only liberal arts ...
. Kennedy and his work have been profiled in ''
New Yorker New Yorker or ''variant'' primarily refers to: * A resident of the State of New York ** Demographics of New York (state) * A resident of New York City ** List of people from New York City * ''The New Yorker'', a magazine founded in 1925 * '' The ...
'',
National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
, 60 Minutes, and the Dylan Ratigan Show. His distinctions include receiving two Webber Seavey awards from the
International Association of Chiefs of Police International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) is a nonprofit organization based in Alexandria, Virginia (United States). It is the world's largest professional association for police The police are a Law enforcement organization, c ...
, two Innovations in American Government awards from the
Kennedy School of Government The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, public ...
, and a Herman Goldstein Problem-Oriented Policing Award. Over his years of practice, Kennedy has influenced the approaches to drug enforcement by the administrations of presidents
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
and
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
. He has spoken to many organizations, including the
United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
, Scotland Yard, the National District Attorneys' Association, and the
United States Conference of Mayors The United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) is the official non-partisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. The cities are each represented by their mayors or other chief elected officials. The organization was founded i ...
.


Personal life

Kennedy lives in
Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
.


Author


''Don't Shoot: One Man, a Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America''

Published 2011, Kennedy's ''Don't Shoot: One Man, a Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America'' describes the development of Operation Ceasefire, also commonly known as the Group Violence Intervention, which he and colleagues introduced in Boston, Massachusetts to combat gang-related violence in poor, predominantly black neighborhoods. The program has three components. Recognized gang members would be brought in under probation or parole authority, and given an opportunity to listen to concerned members of their own community express their desire for the violence to stop. Social workers would offer services to help them detach from the cycle of violence, and the police would assure them that each gang that continued to engage in violence, starting with the most violent, would be effectively targeted and removed from the streets. They were asked to relay this threefold message to their fellow gang members. Recognizing that the gang members were arming themselves because of the escalating violence and the fears they had for their safety, the police pledged to react strongly to any threats against those cooperating with the effort. The success of the program has been acknowledged. Kennedy's principles are being applied in other cities suffering from highly violent gang activity among their youngsters. Other cities are studying the program and devising ways to implement it in their communities. The book has been reviewed in ''
The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hu ...
'', where it was characterized as a "page-turner" despite being an essentially academic publication.


''Deterrence and Crime Prevention: Reconsidering the Prospect of Sanction''

Published in 2008, Kennedy's ''Deterrence and Crime Prevention: Reconsidering the Prospect of Sanction'' is a theoretical work that provides an overview of deterrence approaches to preventing crime and forwards a new deterrence framework based on Kennedy's work reducing gang violence and eliminating overt drug markets. On traditional deterrence models, Kennedy writes, "Deterrence is at the heart of the preventive aspiration of criminal justice. Deterrence, whether through preventive patrol by police officers or stiff prison sentences for violent offenders, is the principal mechanism through which the central feature of criminal justice, the exercise of state authority, works -- it is hoped -- to diminish offending and enhance public safety. And however well we think deterrence works, it clearly often does not work nearly as well as we would like – and often at very great cost." Kennedy identifies that a small number of high rate offenders commit the vast majority of serious crime in a community and theorizes a new framework for deterrence, through which law enforcement and community leaders engage directly with these offenders to deliver particular deterrence messages to them. Law enforcement is to give the offenders clear information about sanctions and put them on prior notice that specific criminal acts will be met in the future with special law enforcement attention. Community members deliver a credible moral message to the offenders that the community demands an end to the specific criminal act. Kennedy argues that groups rather than individuals should often be the focus of deterrence messaging. This new framework for deterrence, Kennedy argues, will reduce offending by enhancing both formal legal sanctions and informal social control. The book summarizes its arguments as follows: * many of the ways in which we seek to deter crime in fact facilitate offending; * simple steps such as providing clear information to offenders could transform deterrence; * communities may be far more effective than legal authorities in deterring crime; * apparently minor sanctions can deter more effectively than draconian ones; * groups, rather than individual offenders, should often be the focus of deterrence; * existing legal tools can be used in unusual but greatly more effective ways; * even serious offenders can be reached through deliberate moral engagement; * authorities, communities, and offenders - no matter how divided - share and can occupy hidden common ground. The book gives the example of High Point, North Carolina, a city in which this deterrence framework successfully reduced gang-related violence and eliminated overt drug markets. Kennedy further theorizes that this framework has potential to deter the most serious domestic violence offending.


Awards

David M. Kennedy received the 2011 Hatfield Scholar Award for scholarship in the public interest. Kennedy's work has won the following awards and notable commendations: *
Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...
’s Innovation in Government award program (twice) * Webber Seavey Award from the
International Association of Chiefs of Police International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) is a nonprofit organization based in Alexandria, Virginia (United States). It is the world's largest professional association for police The police are a Law enforcement organization, c ...
(twice) * Herman Goldstein International Award for
Problem-Oriented Policing Problem-oriented policing (POP), coined by University of Wisconsin–Madison professor Herman Goldstein, is a policing strategy that involves the identification and analysis of specific crime and disorder problems, in order to develop effective res ...
: first in 1998 for Operation Ceasefire, then again in 2009 for the Intimate Partner Violence Intervention in High Point, North Carolina * Person of the Year Award from Law Enforcement News * Chief's Award, High Point Police Department, High Point, North Carolina * Director's Commendation, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms * Letter of appreciation, Secretary of the Treasury
Lawrence Summers Lawrence Henry Summers (born November 30, 1954) is an American economist who served as the 71st United States secretary of the treasury from 1999 to 2001 and as director of the National Economic Council from 2009 to 2010. He also served as pres ...
* Statement of thanks, Vice President
Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic no ...
, launch of the
Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative The Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative (YCGII) was led by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) during the late-1990s. The program aimed to increase firearm tracing of firearms recovered by law enforcement agency, law ...


See also

* Operation Ceasefire or the Boston Gun Project, based on Kennedy's work. *
Broken windows theory In criminology, the broken windows theory states that visible signs of crime, anti-social behavior and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes. The theory suggests that po ...
, which Kennedy has critiqued as alienating to the communities targeted by it, albeit effective at crime reduction. *
Stop-and-frisk in New York City Frisking (also called a patdown or pat down) is a search of a person's outer clothing wherein a person runs their hands along the outer garments of another to detect any concealed weapons or objects. U.S. Law In the United States, a law enforce ...
, which Kennedy has critiqued as an overly broad method of enforcement and as ultimately irrelevant to the work of reducing violence.


References


External links


''Don't Shoot'' at Bloomsbury USA website

Kennedy at City University New York website

National Network for Safe Communities
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kennedy, David M. American non-fiction writers American criminologists Writers from Brooklyn Non-fiction writers about organized crime in the United States Living people John Jay College of Criminal Justice faculty Swarthmore College alumni 1958 births