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Cure Violence: Treating Violence As a Contagious Disease

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Envisioning Criminology

Abstract

The Cure Violence Health Model is a health approach for reducing violence. This model is based on established methods that have been shown to control other epidemic diseases. It is derived from a synthesis of the fields of epidemiology, infectious diseases, behavioral science, social psychology, and neuroscience.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Other elements are also important including environmental control.

  2. 2.

    Overall reductions in shootings in the seven program sites were between 41 and 73%. When comparing to control communities to control for other factors such as law enforcement, statistically significant reductions that were specifically attributable to the CeaseFire program were found to be between 16 and 28% in four communities by time series analysis. Hot spot analysis found reductions of shooting density between 15 and 40% in four partially overlapping communities. Six of the seven communities examined had reductions due to the program as determined by either time series analysis or hot spot analysis. The seventh community had 100% drop in retaliation homicides and large reductions in shootings, but the neighboring comparison community had similar reductions.

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Correspondence to Gary Slutkin .

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Slutkin, G., Ransford, C., Decker, R.B. (2015). Cure Violence: Treating Violence As a Contagious Disease. In: Maltz, M., Rice, S. (eds) Envisioning Criminology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15868-6_5

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