stop - actiononviolence.org

1 StopGlasgow s Community Initiative to Reduce ViolenceSecond Year ReportthestopCIRV was introduced to tacklehead-on the territorial gang violencethat has blighted communities inGlasgow for decades; violence thathas damaged the city s CIRV programme has in two yearsdemonstrated our ability to work incollaboration towards better outcomesfor some of the most disadvantagedindividuals and communities in theUK. It has evolved to fit with theGlasgow experience of street gangsand, as the ongoing independentevaluation is beginning todemonstrate, has had additional widersocial advantages of violencereduction which are also beginning tobe felt in these communities: CIRVnow attracts positive comment frommembers of the community,commentators and the agencies andgroups delivering the the outset, we said that eachagency and group doing what theyhad always done in response to gangviolence was not good enough: I am delighted to present the second year report for glasgow sCommunity Initiative to Reduce Violence (CIRV), the ViolenceReduction Unit s gang intervention programme.

2 CIRV wasestablished in the east end of glasgow in October 2008, to test forthe first time in the UK the concept of a model already usedsuccessfully in several cities in the USA. Such was the project ssuccess, we extended it into the north of the city in 2009. Theevidenced and documented success of the initiative to date hasresulted in a consensus among partners to establish the interventionon a mainstream, citywide simply wasn t working. CIRV istherefore not simply an initiative but amethod of changing the way each andevery organisation involved in theprevention of gang violence doesbusiness, individually andcollaboratively. By being brave andpragmatic, CIRV has establishedunique ways of information sharingbetween partners to ensure that themost appropriate client-basedinterventions are put in place.

3 Strongenforcement is backed up bycommunity based engagement andpersonal development programmes ina co-ordinated, focused way ratherthan in the previous piecemealmanner. Such co-ordination is noteasy: years of working in thesometimes narrow confines of ourindividual organisations means that attimes the territorialism betweenstatutory partners has become asdamaging to long term violencereduction as the territorialismbetween gangs themselves. The CIRV approach eliminates bureaucratic divisions and gives way to a fresh,truly multi-disciplined approachfocused on clear outcomes that are inkeeping with the priorities forGlasgow s for the expansion of CIRV across the city is at an advancedstage. This journey will be a long oneand will require our collectivecommitment to ensure the successeswe have earned so far are notsquandered.

4 I commend this report toall stakeholders across the CIRV network and I would like to thank youall for your continued support. I askonly that you maintain your energyand commitment to embed thisprogramme into our daily business. Detective Chief Superintendent John Carnochan, QPM FFPHHead, Violence Reduction UnitForeword12 Evaluating initiatives such as CIRV is a real challenge. They are notneat, randomised trials undertaken in a controlled environment,rather they are real world responses to a complicated, challengingand ever evolving problem. Young men engage at differing pointsand to varying degrees, other initiatives inevitably impact and thelocal, national, organisational and political environments swirl withcomplexity. But such complexities add interest and intellectualchallenge and that is why my colleagues and I at St AndrewsUniversity were delighted to respond positively to John Carnochan sinvitation to undertake an independent evaluation of the CIRV project.

5 We are doing so with enthusiasm and rigour. We will submitour main scientific paper for peer review by the end of 2011. In themeantime I fully understand the need for the CIRV team to publishin this two year report some emergent and preliminary seem very promising and once refined and tested throughdefinitive analysis, peer review and publication they seem likely toadd weight to World Health Organisation s belief that Violence ispreventable, not inevitable .Peter Donnelly MD MPH MBA FRCP FFPHP rofessor of Public Health MedicineUniversity of St AndrewsForeword from independent evaluator3 Testing the CIRV concept of gangintervention in glasgow across twoyears has brought some considerablechallenges to everyone involved: notonly has it challenged statutoryservice providers to inwardly questiontheir own processes and capacities fordealing with the chronic historicalissue of gang violence in the city, but,more crucially, it has tested the youngpeople s own personal values andattitudes to violence, questioningthem at every turn and challengingthem to engage in a very different, yetfar more positive, lifestyle.

6 On 24 October 2008, 129 street gang members from the east end ofGlasgow accepted an invitation to attend glasgow Sheriff Court tohear a very strong and clear message from their community: theviolence must stop . Since this first gang call-in nine further suchsessions have taken place, with almost 400 young people having sofar given a written pledge that they would put down their weaponsand engage positively with the CIRV programme. To that end, the process of movingCIRV onwards from a concept to betested in the east end of glasgow to amainstream citywide intervention iscurrently ongoing. Police, social work,education, housing, community andvoluntary groups, community safetyservices, a wide variety of partneragencies and, more importantly, theCIRV clients themselves, havedemonstrated considerablewillingness to move on.

7 But we arereally only at the beginning. This willtake time and considerable effort fromus you for your supportChief Inspector Robert StevensonProject Manager- CIRVI ntroductionThe commitment to the CIRV philosophy, not only by partneragencies but particularly those younggang members who have engaged,has made many of us with a statutoryrole recognise that a largelyun-coordinated response, historicallybased entirely on enforcement only, isno longer an option: it has failed. Thisnew approach is already working, butsuch is the deep rooted nature of aproblem which we have allowed tobecome normal on our streets thatwe must continue that which CIRVhas demonstrated can be done acrossthe entire city for many years to initiative is a focused deterrencestrategy modelled on the BostonCeasefire project and the CincinnatiInitiative to Reduce Violence.

8 TheCIRV model* establishes a partnershipamong police, social services,education, housing and communitysafety services along with the localcommunity and delivers a clearmessage to established street gangs:the violence must the success of suchstrategies internationally, Scotland snational Violence Reduction Unit,together with the ScottishGovernment, has been testing theconcept in glasgow s east end sinceOctober 2008, extending the project tothe north of the city during 2009. The CIRV model is comprised of threebasic components:1. Enforcement2. Services and programmes3. The moral voice of the communityEnforcementThe intent of the enforcement elementof the CIRV model is to disrupt thedynamics within those street gangswhose members are frequentlyinvolved in violent activity. A clearmessage is communicated to thegroup - stop the violence.

9 If anindividual within a gang commits anact of violence, enforcement is focusedon that group as a whole. Three keyactivities are essential in delivering onthis promise: Intelligence Gathering Gang Violence Analysis Group Targeted EnforcementStreet gang enforcement activity withinthe CIRV project area has been co-ordinated and delivered principally bythe Strathclyde Police Gangs Taskforceand local divisional & ProgrammesAlongside the message to stop theviolence is a positive message of makes a range of services andprogrammes available to violent streetgang members who agree to changetheir lives and move to anemployment based lifestyle. Theintent is to offer a constructivealternative to those who have beencaught up in violent gang activity andwho themselves recognise a real andurgent need to change.

10 glasgow s CIRV utilises both anexisting network of services in the citytogether with some new programmeswhich have been specifically tailoredto meet the needs of gang members. glasgow s Community Initiative to Reduce Violence (CIRV) is a multi-agency and community-centred project designed to reduceviolent behaviour amongst gang members. 1. Background*Source: University of Cincinnati Policing Institute5 This full-time, four week personaldevelopment programme was designedexclusively for those CIRV clients whohave been identified during the casemanagement process as being involvedat the highest level of street gangviolence. Each course is delivered tomembers of various different gangswho have traditionally engaged inviolence against one another, makingthe early days of each courseparticularly by Kan-do Sports byinstructors who themselves have hadprevious personal involvement in ganglife, the course engages clientsclosely with CIRV and enables them to discuss and reflect on their ownexperiences.