Customer Reviews

Don't Shoot: One Man, A Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you are in law enforcement (I have been for over 16 years), in the criminology field, in the criminal justice system, or just someone with an interest in making your community a better place, then you must read this book. It confirms everything that we already know: most crime, particularly serious crime, is committed by a relatively few people in a relatively few places. And of those relative few, even fewer are what we would consider "hardcore." The police know those people and those places, and as Malcolm Gladwell has noted, "When a problem is that concentrated you can wrap your arms around it and think about solving it." Lately we have been trying to solve it with strategies like repeat offender programs and hot spot policing, but our efforts have generally been centered on law enforcement. In the case of repeat offenders, the call from those like Dr. Jerry Ratcliffe has been not more arrests but the right arrests. Now David Kennedy takes us to place that we didn't know about. What if we could bring down violence and eliminate drug markets without making arrests? We can. And what if it just wasn't us in law enforcement doing it but the whole community that serious crime impacts, including the offenders themselves? In can be. And what if it could work no matter where, as long we stuck to very basic principles? It does. You'll be surprised by the simplicity of the book's premise, and if you are in law enforcement, you may be a little ashamed by its truth- the concept of legitimacy. If you are going to disagree with Kennedy, that's probably where it will be, but that's also why it works.

Ultimately, compelling and groundbreaking are words that do not do this book justice, but it's both. Get it, read it, give it to someone else.

(A minor point but an important one if you are concerned about it being too academic. It reads like a story, which it is, and it must have driven the editor crazy with its almost conversational narrative style.

This is a fantastic and important book. On one level it is the memoir of a powerful idea that has begun to succeed against enormous odds. David Kennedy has been obsessed for more than 20 years with the tragedy of urban violence in the United States. Working at Harvard, he immersed himself in the literature of criminology. With grants of his own, he investigated Boston and listened to and translated the wisdom of street cops, probation officers, street workers, and gang members. He nurtured a focused, concentrated approach in cities across the country that dramatically reduced violent crime. As his thinking deepened and his colleagues broadened, the idea became more powerful, confronting racial mistrust and aligning the hopes of underserved communities and law enforcement. Like Paul Farmer addressed the problem of infectious disease in Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains, David Kennedy addresses urban violence from the perspective of the people affected. No one wants to live amid disease or violence. Both Farmer and Kennedy understand that the problems and the solutions are not merely technical, but profoundly human. Kennedy's book is a revelation for criminal justice, but the implications run deeper still.

Ted Heinrich

Not only is this a terrific read, but it presents a startlingly simple idea for a solution to an intractable criminal justice problem that has long plagued cities and defied resolution. There are many moving parts, all hinging on the necessity of traditionally adversarial constituencies to work together. Over the past twenty five years, David Kennedy, with the collaboration of countess others, has doggedly
pursued what he felt viscerally must happen to rectify the misguided if well intentioned efforts to bring violent crime in inner cities under control.
It required the cooperation of police departments, leaders in the affected communities, the judicial system and the criminals themselves, no easy task but one that David has amazingly managed to achieve,
gradually, painstakingly gaining the trust and willingness of each of these groups. This method has been successfully employed in over seventy cities and counting.
Read this book. You'll be glad you did.

This is a strange and important book, one that is exactly right about policy and practice, but that also succeeds as a work of literature---in fact, succeeds because it is a work of literature. This is not a policy wonk's list of talking points; it is experimental non-fiction of a high order.

"Don't Shoot" might be the "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" of the War On Crime. Like T.E. Lawrence's idiosyncratic masterpiece, "Don't Shoot" deploys a highly intelligent and unorthodox author/protagonist---a renegade intellectual turned man of action---a strong narrative drive, acute and colorful character sketches, bravura descriptive passages, and an entirely original analysis. Like "Seven Pillars," it is a book about a journey to There: in this case to the crime-blighted minority inner city where the average white American never goes, mainly because the average white American feels pretty confident of what he would find if he did go.

But although Kennedy writes as an expert on There, his message home is that There is a socially constructed illusion. Kennedy mobilizes the traditions of the imperial adventure tale to show us what we should have known already: that everyone involved in the inner city crime crisis has more in common with each other than anyone involved has in common with anyone else. He shows that the cops, the shooters, the victims, the families, the communities, all start from the same human place. These are similar people trapped in extreme circumstances, not a radically and permanently different type of person. Kennedy shows how many features of the inner city wasteland of our public discourse---e.g., the "super-predators" who don't fear death and prison and value-free families that rear them--are figments of our public imagination or iatrogenic products of our own ham-handed anti-crime tactics. He shows why our blindness to these things has prevented real changes, and he shows what those changes can be. "Don't Shoot" provides a compelling argument that a carefully targeted anti-crime strategy that rigorously limits collateral damage is not only a moral imperative but a pragmatic necessity. It takes an impressive literary high-wire act to pull this off, but Kennedy pulls it off.

This book is landmark and anyone who cares about gun violence in our cities should read it. It is not only a revolution in thought, it is a riveting read.

Want to change the world? Read this book and give it to your local police chief, mayor, and city council members. Then call them up and ask them when they're going to implement it.

I bought this book after hearing Mr. Kennedy on NPR. I found it fascinating and eye-opening. I don't know if I've ever had a non-fiction book keep me up late because I couldn't put it down! I especially appreciated how the book increased my understanding of the dynamics of the inner city communities. This was very valuable to me personally. I highly recommend this book. It should be required reading by all city officials, social workers and policemen.

If your community depends on you to reduce violence and serious crime, this book is essential reading. If you wonder what your community could be doing differently to reduce violence and serious crime, this book will open your eyes.

Before proceeding, I'd like to offer my perspective on Kennedy's informal, conversational writing style. Some readers find it a significant distraction. I found it brilliant. The style allows the author to highlight his personal perspective on a policing strategy which has not only been controversial, but is often misrepresented both by the media and by law enforcement leaders. He pulls it off successfully because he has already proven his credibility and because the strategy he describes has been affirmed through formal, rigorous academic studies. Kennedy is not a lazy writer; his style is carefully tuned to meet his objectives for the book.

Kennedy's strategy has been proven to cut murder rates in half and to eliminate open drug markets in cities around the US, and is now the centerpiece of the Department of Justice's National Network for Safe Communities. It can be implemented with existing resources--there are no extra costs, other than the personal costs that come with humility and interagency cooperation. Not only does the strategy reduce targeted crimes, it reduces incarceration rates and contributes to the healing of racial divides.

The strategy is based on the value of data-driven decision making, and an unwavering focus on what is actually possible. The two key concepts are legitimacy--doing what you say you will do, and communication--saying what you will do.

In a way, this strategy is too simple--police departments have difficulty implementing it without adding "improvements" which render it ineffective. It's not really innovative; it's based on what Kennedy learned from successful street cops. But it works, it travels (it can be implemented in a wide range of communities), and it is sustainable.

The lessons learned have applications beyond law enforcement. Parents and teachers will find that the principles apply to how they deal with kids. Kennedy's research into the sociology of violent criminal groups bears amazing parallels with the better descriptions of the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, so the strategy may well be adaptable to bring peace to those regions.

The world needs more barrier-busters like Kennedy. He delivers a thorough insider's account of breaking through the ways of thinking that keep murder rates high in cities large and small. Turns out, he says, you don't have to stop racism, cure poverty, or fix the education system to stop killings. Hell, you don't even have to stop drug use to stop drug-related murders. How? Read this book. Told in human-level detail, Don't Shoot walks us through a dozen cities and shows how the hardest job is not stopping people from killing -- it's getting everyone to trust one another. With infectious verve and no-bull attitude, Kennedy shows how it can be done.

I have been a police officer for 10 years in a major city and am excited to finally read what I have seen on the streets first hand. I would recommend this book to all police officers and command staff, and maybe someday we can start getting away from body count policing that is all about the number of arrests.