Events

UPCOMING EVENTS

No events are currently scheduled. Please check back often. 

PAST EVENTS

March 22, 2013
Webinar: Talking Back to Violence - Custom Notifications of Impact Players
The Group Violence Reduction Strategy's no-violence message is typically delivered by law enforcement and community speakers at a traditional call-in to group members mandated to attend under the terms of their probation and parole. However, National Network sites have also started to communicate directly with group members not on paper and who are known to drive violence in their communities. Such "custom notifications" with "impact players" are proving to be an effective crime prevention tool. Carried out by community partners and/or law enforcement representatives, and tailored to the group members' personal circumstances and criminal history, they are particularly suited to stop retaliatory or simmering violence in between regular call-ins.

This webinar sets out the steps involved in conducting both community and law enforcement-led custom notifications, including

  • How to identify the individuals most likely to commit or instigate violence (“impact players”)
  • How to identify people with positive influence in their lives (“influentials”)
  • How to conduct custom legal assessments of impact players
  • How to leverage community support
  • Methods & timing of notifications
  • Tracking outcomes

Leading practitioners from High Point, NC and Cincinnati, OH report on their experiences with custom notifications.

Click here for the PowerPoint presentation.

 

January 29-30, 2013
Custom Notifications: Applied Workshop (by invitation) 
This Workshop provided participants with the tools needed to communicate directly and effectively with impact players, and/or people with positive influence in their lives, as a way of reinforcing the no-violence message delivered in traditional call-ins under the National Network’s group violence reduction strategies.

December 19, 2012
Webinar: GVRS Call-In Preparation and Execution
The central and traditional tool to transmit the no-violence messages of the group violence reduction strategy (GVRS) is a call-in—a face-to-face meeting between GVRS partners and members of violent groups. A call-in follows a specific design and script that are crucial to overall strategy success. This webinar, presented by Christopher Mallette, Executive Director of Chicago’s Violence Reduction Strategy, introduces law enforcement, community, and social services partners to the key concepts, design elements, core messages, and speaker scripts of a call-in. It provides essential information both for cities that are getting ready to host their first call-in as well as for sites that have already staged call-ins but seek additional guidance on the overall process or on specific elements.

Click here for the webinar's PowerPoint.

October 26, 2012
Preventing Lethal Violence in New Orleans
As New Orleans became the latest major city to embrace the National Network's group violence reduction strategy, National Network Co-Chair David Kennedy presented on "Stopping the Killing in New Orleans: Focus, Legitimacy, and Common Ground" at this Public Symposium on effective community-based solutions. The event was hosted by Loyala University New Orleans.

 

 June 28, 2012
Webinar: Introduction to the Group Violence Reduction Strategy (“Operation Ceasefire”)
A growing number of cities struggling with high levels of violent crime—typically concentrated among street groups and driven by just a small number of highly active individuals—are turning to the National Network for Safe Communities’ Group Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS) for a well-proven, highly focused and resource-neutral approach that produces a large and rapid impact. This webinar offers an introduction to the strategy and to learn how your community can benefit from this unusual but common-sense approach. It sets out:

  • GVRS Principles and Logic
  • Basic Implementation Steps
  • Direct Communication with Offenders: Core Messages and the Call-In
  • Roles of Key Stakeholders (Law Enforcement, Community, Social Services)
  • Overcoming Historic Police-Community Conflict
  • Outcomes

Click here for the accompanying PowerPoint presentation.

 

 June 15, 2012
Webinar: Police-Clergy Partnerships in Crime Prevention 
The Department of Justice's Center for Faith-based & Neighborhood Partnerships produced this webinar on the importance in building police-clergy partnerships for violent crime prevention.  The webinar presents and discusses police and faith-based strategies aimed at increasing public safety and community mobilization. Panelists Reverend Jeffrey Brown of Boston's TenPoint Coalition, Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld, and National Network Co-Chair David Kennedy provide an overview of the impact and successes of several evidence-based crime reduction models. Faith and community based organizations will learn how to partner with their local law enforcement agency to build a collaborative crime reduction strategy.

 

 May 3-4, 2012, Oakland, CA
Police Legitimacy: Changing the Interaction of Law Enforcement and Young Men of Color (by invitation)
Teams of community representatives and police executives from a range of California Safety Partnership and National Network cities will be participating in this workshop on police legitimacy, led by Professor Tracey Meares, Walton Hale Hamilton Professor of Law at Yale Law School. The goal is to deepen the understanding of and operationalize police-community reconciliation and legitimacy work as part of implementing the National Network's group violence reduction strategy.  

 

February 8, 2012
Webinar: Doing More With Less--The Role of Strategic Law Enforcement in the Group Violence Reduction Strategy
As recession-hit police departments around the country struggle to remain effective despite reduced funding, the National Network's Group Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS) offers a proven solution for increasing the impact of law enforcement actions on citywide violence without the need for additional resources. This webinar presentation, by National Network Co-Chair David Kennedy, demonstrates how GVRS is designed to meet the very challenges most police departments currently face and how they can keep the strategy's promise of swift and meaningful responses to violence. Specifically, it discusses: the key operational requirements of GVRS for law enforcement agencies and executives to implement the strategy successfully; examples of how of how traditional legal and enforcement tools can be applied in unusual and resource-neutral ways; and How GVRS' success relies on commitment, management and accountability, not resources.

Click here for the webinar PowerPoint or view a recording of the webinar by clicking on the title above.

January 11-12, 2012 
Police Legitimacy and Racial Reconciliation (by invitation)
Hosted by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) in Washington, DC, day one of this meeting introduced police chiefs and community leaders from leading U.S. cities to the National Network's "Police Legitimacy and Racial Reconciliation" framework. Leadership Group representatives met on the second day of the conference to set a working agenda for advancing this framework in their cities. Click on the title link to read more and watch videos of presentations by Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, COPS Director Bernard Melekian, National Network Co-Chair David Kennedy, and Yale Law School Professor Tracey Meares.

September 27-28, 2011
Advancing Community Moral Engagement (by invitation)
Leadershiph Group representatives met to set a working agenda for designing and advancing the Community Moral Engagement/Voice framework for the group violence reduction strategy.

July 12-14, 2011
Peer Exchange II -- High Point, North Carolina (by invitation)
The High Point Police Department and High Point Community Against Violence (HP-CAV) hosted the National Network's second Peer Exchange, welcoming twenty-eight law enforcement, community and research partners from eight National Network Leadership Group cities. The exchange showcased High Point's innovative applications of the National Network Strategies to a variety of violent crimes and drug market problems including its groundbreaking work around law enforcement institutionalization, community moral engagement, and racial reconciliation between law enforcement and affected communities.

June 20, 2011
Webinar: Employing Streetworkers to Address Group Violence
The Institute of the Study & Practice of Nonviolence in Providence is a national pioneer in training and employing professional street outreach workers to address and prevent violence. It has also forged a highly effective partnership with the Providence Police Department that the National Network for Safe Communities believes can serve as a model for other jurisdictions seeking to utilize street outreach workers as part of implementing the group violence reduction strategy.

In this webinar, the Institute's Executive Director Teny Gross and Streetworker Program Manager Ajay Benton discussed the following key issues:

  • Principles and Practice of Nonviolence
  • Training
  • Hiring & Firing
  • Partnering With Police, Schools, and Hospitals
  • Selecting Target Clients
  • Managing Risks
  • Managing Public Relations
  • Measuring Success

To download the webinar's PowerPoint click here or view the whole webinar by clicking on the title above.

May 23, 2011
Webinar: Using Social Network Analysis in Crime Prevention
Social network analysis— the scientific tool behind social media like Facebook and Twitter—is used widely in the private sector to understand markets and organizations and in the health sector to understand the spread of disease. It can be used just as effectively to devise new ways to reduce violent crime. National Network Leadership Group jurisdictions Chicago and Cincinnati have been at the forefront of applying social network analysis in crime prevention. In this webinar, Andrew Papachristos, Ph.D., a national expert and the research partner of the Chicago Police Department, and Captain Daniel Gerard of the Cincinnati Police Department demonstrate how social network analysis is applied in the context of the National Network's group violence reduction strategy.

Key issues addressed include:

• Mapping of group, gang and faction structures and relationships
• Designing surgically precise enforcement actions
• Expanding knowledge of group membership using commonly available administrative data
• Identifying the most influential group members for taking antiviolence messages back to affiliates

To download the webinar's PowerPoint, click here or view a recording of the webinar by clicking on the title above.

May 16-17, 2011
Peer Exchange I-- Providence, Rhode Island (by invitation)
Street Outreach and Police Partnership-Building

February 15-17, 2011
Second Leadership Group Meeting (by invitation)

January 10-12, 2011
Working Session: Community Moral Engagement (by invitation)

November 22, 2010
Webinar: Communicating with Offenders—Innovative Notification Strategies *
This webinar focuses on innovative techniques for communicating key messages to offenders, potential offenders and affected communities as part of the National Network's group violence reduction and drug market strategies.

Key issues addressed include:

  • Best practices in the "classic" call-in format
  • Voluntary call-ins for gang members
  • Home visits with impact players
  • Custom legal assessments
  • Prison call-ins
  • The use of "influentials" in both strategies
  • Emphasizing legitimacy in the call-in
  • Use of social network analysis

To download the webinar's PowerPoint, click here or view a recording of the webinar by clicking on the title above.

October 12-14, 2010
Working Session: Law Enforcement (by invitation)

September 20, 2010
Webinar: Engaging the Community Moral Voice
The presentation, by National Network Co-Chair David Kennedy and experienced National Network practitioners, focused on identifying and engaging the community's moral voice as part of the National Network's group violence reduction and drug market strategies.

Key issues addressed include:

  • Community norms and narratives and how to they affect crime and crime control
  • Race, truth-telling, and legitimacy and why these matter
  • Promoting informal social control in the community
  • The role of the community's moral voice in strategy implementation

To download this webinar's PowerPoint, click here.

July 19-21, 2010
First Leadership Group Meeting: Executive Session (by invitation)

April 26, 2010
Occasional Series Symposium (open to public)
Beyond Reentry? The Council of Thought and Action and its Role in the Drug Market Intervention Strategy of Hempstead, NY

March 8-9, 2010
Working Session: Research (by invitation)

December 2-3, 2010
First Annual Conference (open to public) Bernard Melekian, Director of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), delivered the keynote address to the conference. To view a selection of conference sessions and other speeches, click here.

December 1, 2010
Executive Board Meeting

October 13-14, 2009
Working Session: Project Management (by invitation).

October 13, 2009
Managing Community Interventions
An introduction to the work of the National Network for Safe Communities by David Kennedy, with project managers from leading National Network jurisdictions around the country reporting on their progress to date in implementing the group violence and overt drug market strategies in their states and cities.

March 24, 2009
Putting the Action in Action Research
Dr. Robin Engel and Jessica Dunham of the University of Cincinnati and Captain Daniel Gerard of the Cincinnati Police Department presented on a unique police-researchers partnership that won the CPD the 2009 International Association of Chiefs of Police West Award for Excellence in Criminal Investigations.