6 proven policies for reducing crime and violence without gun control Vox

particularly in a tough environment haven't had enough of a chance to practice."
It works: Randomized control trials by the Crime Lab 
found
it reduced violent
crime arrests by 30 to 50 percent during the time of the intervention.
"IT HELPS KIDS UNDERSTAND AND SLOW DOWN
THE SCRIPTS THAT THEY USE TO GET BY"
One example of the exercises the program uses: One kid is told to get a golf ball
from another kid. Typically, they get in a physical fight within seconds, because
they simply don't know any better. But when they're walked through the
situation, they learn to resolve it much more peacefully.
"So many of the confrontations that kids get into are almost over nothing in one
sense," Pollack said. "But in another sense, kids are in a situation where they've
learned over a period of time a set of reactions that are pretty important for
them so that everybody knows not to mess with them."
The problem, Pollack said, is that many of these kids simply haven't learned the
right behaviors over time — and they've actually learned to resort to violence
quite quickly. Pollack gave an example:
For example, I'm walking down the hallway and somebody steps on my foot in school. If
Harold Pollack is doing that, walking around the University of Chicago, I figure that it's just
another colleague that was playing with his iPhone and stepped on my foot — and I ignore
it and move on.
If I'm a 17-year-old kid in Fenger High School, I can't afford to have people punk me. I got
to get home. And I got a nice jacket, and my mom has told me that if somebody comes
and takes my jacket, she can't get me another one. So when somebody does something
like that, I might respond in a way that to the middle-aged white professor seems really
05/08/22, 10
:
57
Page 12 of 15

---

excessive, but in the life of that kid is really human — there's an incentive to reacting really
harshly.
Pollack emphasized that these kids are not in any way bad or evil. They have
rational incentives for behaving in the way they do: In the tough environments
they grow up in, sometimes it 
is
important to fight.
But, Pollack explained, "What we want to tell them is, 'You may have to fight as a
last resort. But you got to have other things in the toolkit that you go to first.
And many of the situations where you might jump to escalate, you have more
options, and the long-term consequences for you if you can avoid that
confrontation are much better than if you react instinctively.'"
6) Eliminate blighted housing
One of the more unexpected ideas I heard from policy experts: Clean up and
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
05/08/22, 10
:
57
Page 13 of 15

---

repair blighted buildings.
But it seems to work: A 2015 
study
from Branas, who's part of the 
Urban
Health Lab
, and other researchers found fixing up abandoned and vacant
buildings in Philadelphia led to significant drops in overall crimes, total assaults,
gun assaults, and nuisance crimes. There was no evidence that crime shifted to
other areas, although there were signs that drug dealing, drug possession, and
property crimes went up around remediated buildings. Still, net gains overall.
Branas characterized the findings as proof of a big gain for a pretty small
investment.
"IT MAKES THE SPACE APPEAR CARED FOR, AND
SUDDENLY CRIMINAL ACTIVITY DOESN'T WANT TO
HAPPEN THERE"
So what explains this? "It makes the space appear cared for, and suddenly
criminal activity doesn't want to happen there," Branas said. "Also, the
neighbors get more invested in the space and look after it — more of an
informal policing mechanism."
Another potential explanation, according to Branas: Some would-be shooters
may stash guns in vacant or abandoned spaces, since they want to avoid
getting caught with illegal firearms. So when those vacant or abandoned spaces
go away, they may decide to forego at least some guns — and may not be able
to carry out some violence.
It's certainly one of the more exotic ideas I heard from researchers. But
combined with the other proposals I heard from experts, it helps show that
there are many varied policies lawmakers could embrace to combat crime and
gun violence in the US — yet perhaps haven't to the extent that the evidence
suggests they should.
05/08/22, 10
:
57
Page 14 of 15

---

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?
Millions turn to Vox to understand what’s happening in the news. Our
mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower
through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a
critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep
our journalism free for all. 
Please consider making a contribution to Vox
today.
Yes, I'll give
05/08/22, 10
:
57
Page 15 of 15