The St. Louis Police Partnership: An Individualized Focused Deterrence Implementation Guide

Introduction

Focused deterrence is a particularly promising approach for significantly reducing gang, group, and individual criminal behavior. Focused deterrence programs typically bring criminal justice personnel, community members, and social service providers together with individuals at high risk for violence in face-to-face group interventions, usually called “offender notification meetings” or “call-ins” (Kennedy, 2009). A twofold “carrot and stick” message is delivered: We know who you are, and continued violence will not be tolerated. Services and support are available to anyone who wants to take a different path (Kennedy, 2009; Kennedy et al., 2001). After the meeting, program staff engage in direct and repeated communication with participants, enforcement is enhanced for those who continue to engage in crime, and social services are made available to those who express a desire to change (Braga & Weisburd, 2015; Kennedy, 2009; RAND, 2023).

Focused deterrence has been identified through systematic reviews of prior research as a “very promising” strategy to reduce violence and other forms of offending (Braga & Weisburd, 2012; Braga et al., 2018). However, the absence of randomized controlled study designs “continues to be a key weakness in drawing conclusions about focused deterrence programs” (Braga et al., 2018, p. 239). Prior research is also limited in that it has measured program effects on geographic areas rather than on individuals, and the programs themselves may be limited because they engage with groups rather than with individual offenders. The current randomized controlled study helped to fill this gap by evaluating an individualized focused deterrence program operated by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD) and the St. Louis office of the Missouri Department of Corrections’ Division of Probation and Parole (MODOC): The St. Louis Police Partnership.

This implementation guide summarizes the basic features of the St. Louis Police Partnership, discusses challenges and lessons learned, and details key steps that must be taken to implement similar programs effectively in other jurisdictions.