Justice and public safety strategies to strengthen communities
Justice and public safety strategies can reduce over policing and mass incarceration, strengthen neighborhood social ties, and help communities heal after crimes have been committed.
Supportive and safe communities strengthen family stability, foster strong social networks, and generate access to opportunity, all of which contribute to positive mobility outcomes at every life stage.
How do justice issues impact neighborhoods?
- Safe neighborhoods increase rates of economic mobility. 1
There is a causal relationship between a neighborhood’s level of violent crime and rates of upward economic mobility.
- Growing up without being exposed to violence strengthens healthy child development and academic progress. 2
Experiencing violence has strong negative effects on children, heightening their stress levels, lowering academic achievement, impairing cognitive development, and reducing high school graduation rates.
- Safe neighborhoods have stronger local economies and schools. 3
Neighborhoods with high levels of violence attract less investment, see fewer new business openings, offering fewer jobs, and have more trouble attracting good teaching talent at neighborhood schools.
- Safe communities improve neighborhood social networks. 4
In violent neighborhoods, individuals (and particularly young men) are forced to navigate strategically through public spaces, shifting their schedules, their networks, and their routines in an effort to minimize the threat of victimization. This limits individuals’ capacity to engage with public life, their communities, and their schools.
- Mass incarceration reduces the number of two-parent households in a community. 5
Neighborhoods with higher rates of fathers at home tend to produce better economic mobility outcomes for lower-income Black boys.
- Concentrated poverty is linked to low high school graduation rates
High school students who lived in high-poverty neighborhoods as adolescents are more likely to drop out than those who lived in low-poverty neighborhoods.
Categories of successful interventions
- Neighborhood safety strategies: Strategies that improve neighborhood safety, reduce violence, and increase community quality of life
- Re-entry programs: Programs that help individuals returning from prison find housing, employment, and other support services
- Restorative justice programs: Programs that seek to repair the harm caused to victims of crime and rehabilitate offenders through cooperative meetings with community members
Evidence-based interventions
Intervention | Type | Category | Evidence Level |
---|---|---|---|
Alcohol outlet density restrictions | Policy |
|
Proven (highest tier) |
Center for Employment Opportunities | Program |
|
Proven (highest tier) |
Community policing | Strategy |
|
Proven (highest tier) |
Cross-age youth mentoring | Strategy |
|
Strong (second-highest tier) |
Cure Violence Health Model | Program |
|
Strong (second-highest tier) |
Focused deterrence strategies | Strategy |
|
Strong (second-highest tier) |
Goodwill Good Transitions Program | Program |
|
Promising (Third-highest tier) |
Goodwill Industries | Program |
|
Promising (Third-highest tier) |
Hot spots policing | Strategy |
|
Proven (highest tier) |
Mentoring programs for delinquency | Strategy |
|
Proven (highest tier) |
Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission | Strategy |
|
Proven (highest tier) |
NYC Summer Youth Employment Program | Program |
|
Promising (Third-highest tier) |
Neighborhood watch programs | Strategy |
|
Proven (highest tier) |
Rapid Employment and Development Initiative (READI) | Program |
|
Promising (Third-highest tier) |
Roca | Program |
|
Promising (Third-highest tier) |
Safe Routes to School | Strategy |
|
Proven (highest tier) |
School-based prevention programs for aggressive and disruptive behavior | Strategy |
|
Proven (highest tier) |
School-based violence and bullying prevention programs | Strategy |
|
Proven (highest tier) |
School-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports | Strategy |
|
Proven (highest tier) |
Transitional Jobs | Strategy |
|
Proven (highest tier) |