NCJ Number
156236
Date Published
1995
Length
31 pages
Annotation
Fifty-five practitioners and scholars fashioned a package of proven, promising, and innovative homicide-reduction strategies for consideration and implementation by institutions and individuals directly responsible for the prevention and control of murder in the United States.
Abstract
The recommendations involve police, courts, corrections agencies, health services, schools, other social service agencies, legislatures, and elected and appointed political executives. Recommendations for law enforcement include leadership in the development of communitywide murder-reduction strategies, intervention against all forms of violence as early and decisively as possible, intensification of the use of community policing and murder-specific problemsolving strategies, intensification of the use of tactical teams and task forces to regain control of high-crime and violent environments, and maximization of substance-abuse prevention and enforcement programming. Other recommendations for law enforcement agencies are to use emerging technology to improve homicide clearance rates and to supply responding officers with enhanced domestic- dispute and violent-history information. Recommendations for community and government initiatives include the creation of crime advisory committees to assist law enforcement agencies with murder reduction; involve all segments of the community in violence and murder prevention and control, including the business community; augment detention capacity by adapting existing facilities such as closed military bases; and intensify alcohol-consumption-reduction programs. Other recommendations pertain to legislative initiatives as well as education and training initiatives. 3 tables and 2 figures