Justice reflections: some real solutions for gun violence and crime

Holistic responses, not harsh punishment, work better to reduce gun violence

The mass shooting in Buffalo, NY this past weekend led to a predictable round of public officials saying more money should go to police efforts to reduce the number of guns on the streets – while this was a planned, racist attack, most policing of guns takes place in the day to day street crime context. The problem here is that this type of gun interdiction – laying harsh punishments on people found carrying illegal guns – does not work to reduce gun violence, discussed by John Pfaff in a recent article (see also this CCI report, with information on why young people are carrying guns to keep themselves safe). Moreover, prosecuting young people harshly causes a lot of harm. With this in mind, check out Youth and Congregations in Partnership, a diversion program in Brooklyn for young people aged 13-22 charged with gun possession. By linking defendants with social workers and schooling, the program appears to both reduce harm and improve other life outcomes in ways that address the deeper root causes of violence. See also research showing that NYC’s summer youth employment program works to reduce crime. 

Adding money to schools reduces crime

I was very interested to read research on a ‘natural experiment’ in Michigan, where 30 years ago the state eliminated the relationship between property taxes and public schools, instead relying on sales and other taxes. This led to low-income schools having increased access to funding. Now, researchers have looked at the long term effects of this change on crime rates. Here’s an excerpt from a thorough and useful article on the study: 

The [study] found that spending more money on school staff and school infrastructure reduced the likelihood young students attending those schools would be arrested as adults.

After the [law changed], some schools — especially those in low-income neighborhoods — had more money at their disposal for operating expenditures such as boosting teacher salaries or hiring more administrators. This created a natural experiment for examining the impact of those changes.

Additionally, the researchers looked at districts where proposals to spend new money on improving the physical infrastructure of schools (by raising local taxes), known as capital bonds, either narrowly passed or failed.

What they found: a 10% increase in operating expenditures led to a 15% reduction in the likelihood that a child in kindergarten through third grade would get arrested as an adult.

Meanwhile, kids who were kindergartners when their school district narrowly won a capital election, allowing for physical improvements to be made to school infrastructure, were 20% less likely to be arrested as an adult.

Pretty interesting stuff! I didn’t know that Michigan had moved to a different school funding model, which seems like a healthy approach given the inequities in education. Also, while it seems obvious that supporting children with better school environments would set them up for better outcomes in life, it’s quite striking here how that practice is reduced to some very specific numbers. The underlying study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, is here.