Every day in America, about 31 people are killed in gun homicides. It's a grisly death toll — one that no other developed nation has to deal with.

The political response to this violence has focused on gun control. But while the research shows gun control is truly effective, federal legislation curtailing access to guns seems unlikely to happen anytime soon.

So what can America do to stop gun violence? A new, major report from Harvard University researchers Thomas Abt and Christopher Winship reviewed the evidence, putting together the big take from 43 reviews of the research that covered more than 1,400 individual studies, while following up with on-the-ground fieldwork across the US and Latin America.

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



The big conclusion: Cities, states, and the federal government could make significant strides in fighting crime if policing resources were primarily dedicated to the most problematic neighborhoods, blocks, and even people — the ones communities know are causing trouble but don't get enough specific attention from the criminal justice system. And coupled with behavioral intervention programs for at-risk youth and adults, these types of policies could greatly reduce violence not just in the US but around the world.

But the findings aren't exactly new or shocking. We've had many of these studies and reviews for a while. Yet very often, all this evidence is glossed over as people instead resort to partisan debates about criminal justice reform, the disproportionate policing of black neighborhoods, and gun policy. And while these are all conversations America needs to have, they seem unlikely to produce results in the short and medium term.

I reached out to Abt earlier this year to get his views on these issues, how to frame the debate around fighting crime, and what the evidence shows the solutions should be. Our conversation, based on email and phone correspondences, follows, edited for length and clarity.

The "oversimplification" of America's criminal justice debate

German Lopez: What do you think is wrong with how we talk about criminal justice policy in the US today?

Thomas Abt: My biggest problem with the national conversation is that we've created a false dichotomy between legitimacy and safety.

If you criticize police, you're causing a "Ferguson effect" and driving up homicides. If you care about black-on-black crime — a misleading but popular term — you're trying to undermine reform and preserve the status quo.

We'll only make true progress when we realize that we must focus on reducing crime and improving the criminal justice system at the same time, because they're inextricably intertwined with one another. If you only care about one side of the coin, you're doing a disservice to the people most impacted by both of these issues, which is usually people of color living in poor neighborhoods.

GL: Covering this issue, it does seem like people quickly fall into their partisan sides as soon as something goes wrong, and a lot of policies get neglected in the process. Is that what you mean?

TA: Right.

Mass incarceration is a form of social injustice. Excessive use of police force is an injustice. Racial profiling is an injustice.

"Crime is also an injustice. And … it has a disproportionate impact on poor people of color."

But crime is also an injustice. And like those three forms of injustice that I just described, it has a disproportionate impact on poor people of color. So if you claim to represent poor people of color, I think you really need to take a broader perspective on what social justice means. And I think that when you talk to people who live in these communities, as I have for many years, they have this balanced view.

For instance, it's very unusual to meet people who live in neighborhoods with high rates of violent crime who say, "We want the police out of our neighborhoods." They want bad police out of their neighborhoods, but they don't want all police out of their neighborhoods.

Yet there's a kind of oversimplification and distortion that we get into.

GL: How do we move past this hurdle, politically?

TA: It requires people on both sides of the political divide — you know, conservatives and progressives — to reexamine their talking points.

When I talk to either side about the evidence, I could never say to them that I can confirm everything they already thought. You're challenging both sides at the same time. The evidence, while it shows a real and viable solution to the problem, doesn't fit into a preestablished political narrative. That makes it hard.

How to reduce gun violence in the US

GL: You did this big report. What is your big takeaway on reducing violence not just in Latin America but in other parts of the world?

TA: Based on my understanding of the evidence, I'm increasingly convinced that in order to address violence in the US and around the globe, we have to account for it directly.

That may sound obvious, but it isn't. People are looking for alternatives to the tough-on-crime, enforcement-only approaches of the past. This is good, but opinion among policymakers, particularly progressive ones, is coalescing around addressing violence by attempting to treat its "root causes" — inequality, lack of opportunity, racism, etc. — despite the fact that there isn't strong evidence of a causal connection between these factors and violence.

A better way forward is to realize that overgeneralizing — either in terms of enforcement or prevention — is unlikely to succeed, because violence is "sticky," meaning it concentrates among a small number of identifiable places, people, and behaviors. Focusing our attention and efforts where it matters most will get us better results and is more feasible as a matter of politics and budgets.

GL: What were some of the most promising programs? What about the worst?

TA: The best programs share a number of elements — specificity, proactivity, legitimacy — that Christopher Winship and I outline in our paper. Focused deterrence, also known as the Group Violence Intervention, has a strong track record of success around the country, especially in places like Boston, Cincinnati, and Stockton, California. Cognitive behavioral therapy has also repeatedly demonstrated strong results, especially in Boston with ROCA Inc. and in Chicago with the Becoming a Man program.

The worst strategies generally emphasize punitive scare and control tactics with youth. Scared Straight is best example of a strategy that actually increases crime among those kids who participate in the program, but there are others, such as youth boot camps and curfews. In a different area, gun buybacks are enormously popular but don't do much to reduce gun violence.

GL: You said in the report that we should dedicate police resources to certain places. What do you mean by that?

TA: A better understanding of what we mean by "place" is very helpful. In this area it's really important to get specific. At least in the US and likely in most of the rest of the world, crime and violence are sticky; they're hyperconcentrated in a small number of places, people, and behaviors.

When I say hyperconcentrated, I don't mean that crime and violence concentrate in a bad or violent neighborhood. They concentrate on a specific street corner, a specific nightclub on a certain night, or a specific liquor store. So when we look at a dangerous neighborhood, generally what we're seeing is not a whole neighborhood but two or three hot spots. That's very important to understand.

"These communities want all of us, especially the police, to recognize that those people don't define the entire community"

The same is true when we look at people. So 1 percent of the young men are responsible for 70 to 80 percent of shootings and homicides. That means that when you look in that dangerous neighborhood and you look at the young men in that neighborhood, a very small number of them are driving that problem. And in fact even when you look at gangs, three or four of those gang members are going to be what we call the shooters.

It's very important to realize this: These communities want all of us, especially the police, to recognize that those people don't define the entire community — just like those hot spots don't define the entire community.

So being very specific [is] actually a key to legitimacy. So if you get very specific, you are better at fighting crime and reducing violence. But you also improve legitimacy by showing the community that you're not occupying them like a military, but that you're serving them by trying to help them address a small number of people in places that really are hurting the community.

GL: With gun buyback programs, I know you found they generally didn't reduce gun violence in the US. But there's research in Australia showing that its mandatory gun buyback program had a solid effect on reducing deaths. Is the difference that Australia's gun buyback program was mandatory while the ones you studied weren't?

TA: Yeah. I'm really using "gun buyback" in the US context. It's not just that they're voluntary, but they're on a much, much smaller scale.

I do think the Australia example clearly did contribute to decreased gun violence. But because it's not currently a political possibility in the United States, I generally focus on the gun buyback programs that are being used here.

I support gun control. I think we should have more restrictions on gun use. But I don't want all of our public policy bandwidth or all of our political energy spent on that. I want there to be energy and attention left over in order to do some good work in the short and middle run.

The evidence on reducing gun violence is good. It's just not implemented.

GL: How would you describe the state of the evidence on crime control?

TA: In the US, we are producing more and better evidence concerning crime and violence than ever before, but we don't do enough to summarize that evidence so people can access it more easily. Reporters often cite this study or that study, but they don't know about or have access to the systematic reviews and meta-analyses that synthesize multiple studies in a rigorous way.

GL: How big of a problem do you think that is to furthering the conversation?

TA: We're producing a lot of great information right now. But policymakers need to be told what parts of that evidence are most important. And they need to be told how all this evidence fits together.

I increasingly believe that a key part of this contribution is these systematic reviews. So instead of saying you know this one study — even if it was a very good study with a randomized controlled trial design — says this, we should focus on systematic reviews that look at multiple studies, and take into account all of these studies instead of just one.

Mass shootings are a small part of America's gun violence problem

GL: As someone who covers this issue, I'm often surprised by how many empirically supported ideas just get little coverage on a national scale.

TA: Even with all we know, when the temperature really gets turned up on an issue, we go right back to our preconceived notions and talking points. Just look at the debate on gun violence, which focuses on mass shootings that account for less than 1 percent of all gun homicides, and on gun control legislation that is either lionized or demonized, depending on what side you're on.

We can reduce gun violence today with strategies that are effective and feasible, but they don't have a ready-made political constituency. Focused deterrence and cognitive behavioral therapy don't fit the either/or, all-or-nothing conversation we're having today. And that's a real shame, because it's the victims who will suffer, not the politicians or the advocates.

GL: You mentioned how we focus so much on mass shootings when they represent less than 1 percent of all gun homicides. That's definitely something I see in my coverage: People don't seem to give as much attention to the acts that make up the bulk of gun violence — meaning domestic violence and inner-city violence.

TA: There's an element of self-interest there. Most of the public doesn't have personal experience with deadly domestic violence. And most of the public doesn't have personal experience with the violence that impacts the most neighborhoods and the most concentrated disadvantaged people.

But they do have this sense that lightning could strike somewhere, somehow, and they could be impacted by a mass shooting. There's not enough reporting on how unlikely that is.

But I do really feel that the story of gun violence in the United States is often a story of young men without many choices doing terrible things to one another. And we need to increase our sense of empathy for these young men. I think that's really critical.

I would love for people to understand that black lives matter, and that black lives matter no matter who threatens them.