PROVEN STRATEGY FOR CURTAILING STREET KILLINGS WORKS IN ROCHESTER

ROCHESTER, N.Y. - A community policing strategy that
sharply curtailed street killings in over a dozen
cities from Indianapolis to Winston-Salem, N.C., took
root most recently in Rochester: Slayings of young
black men plunged by more than two-thirds in 2004.

Operation Ceasefire, devised by a Harvard University criminologist a
decade ago, targets drug-dealing groups committing the bulk of
homicides in a city by setting down a vigorously enforced standard:
Harm anyone, and your entire crew will be punished.

In Rochester, New York's third-largest city with 220,000 residents,
murders soared in 2003 to 57 _ and 31 victims were black males ages 15
to 30. In the past 12 months, nine people in that high-risk category
have been slain.

"So far, the results have been phenomenal," police Chief Robert Duffy
said. "Success is going to be five years in a row of dramatic drops.
We believe if we can show long-term change with the deaths of these
young men, that is the key to long-term homicide reduction."

The city's stubbornly high murder toll, however, reached 38 in 2004,
driven by an unusual spate of domestic-dispute deaths and a doubling
of killings of men ages 31 to 45. But while some neighborhoods remain
magnets for violent drug dealers, others have witnessed a clearing
out.

"I'm feeling safer, I have friends who are feeling safer," said Karyn
Herman, who lives in a west-side neighborhood where a dozen houses
were drug hangouts at one time or another over the last 10 years.
There's no open drug-trafficking now, killings have dissipated,
landlords are employing "safer rental practices" and more people are
sprucing up their homes, she said.

"I know some families connected to some of these young men, and
they're starting to feel hopeful," said Herman, a community worker.
"It's not just Ceasefire that went into that. There's a lot of
community development work."

The northeast section remains a hot spot.

"There's still a few problem corners _ nothing of the volume there was
_ but there have been incidents and, in those areas, there still is
fear," said Joan Roby-Davison, who runs a neighborhood
association.

Following a national pattern, killings here declined from a peak of 68
in 1993 to a 17-year low of 29 in 1999 before climbing again to 41 in
both 2001 and 2002.

Until now, around half of those killed each year over the last decade
were young black men. More than 80 percent of homicides occurred in
the Crescent, a bleak ring of black and Latino neighborhoods
stretching from the city's northeast to southwest sections.

Operation Ceasefire's architect, David Kennedy, predicted a year ago
that Rochester could expect the same startling falloff in killings of
young men that the program has achieved in places like Stockton,
Calif., High Point, N.C., and Lowell, Mass.

The concept is straightforward: Identify street groups implicated in
one or more killings, then use every possible tactic _ undercover drug
buys, saturation patrols, old warrants _ to methodically dismantle
them.

Four such groups in Rochester have already been broken
up and 27 people imprisoned. The latest target was
nicknamed Murder Unit: Nine suspects were hit in
October with federal drug and gun charges that carry
sentences of at least 10 years to life in prison.

At the same time, chronic offenders on probation or parole are put on
notice. Every two or three months, a few dozen are rounded up and
brought to a courtroom for face-to-face meetings with social workers,
community leaders and law enforcement officials.

"It's very civil, it's very businesslike, in its way quite
respectful," Kennedy said. "But the message is really
uncompromising."

"Whether they like it or not, they're taking heed," echoed Monroe
County prosecutor Mike Green. In creating "reverse peer pressure" by
going after not only killers but violent groups they belong to,
"Ceasefire has been the most promising thing we've done in years," he
said.

Besides painstaking investigations, and noticeably stiffened
prosecutions for gun crimes, the strategy relies on a coalition of
community activists knowledgeable about street activity.

"Anyone is salvageable if that's what they want," said Keenan Allen,
director of Pathways to Peace, an outreach agency. "We work on getting
them into legitimate activities, changing where they go and what they
do. We have helped hundreds of people refrain from violent behavior."

Nationwide, murders dropped 5.7 percent in the first half of 2004
after rising for four straight years. But in Boston, where Operation
Ceasefire was launched in 1996 and the murder rate sank by more than
two-thirds, killings of young men jumped from 24 to 43 in 2004.

Boston dropped the Ceasefire model a few years ago.

"A number of jurisdictions that have been very successful have not
stayed with it, and Boston is having its worst homicide year in a
decade," Kennedy said.

In contrast, Rochester's success is drawing national interest. Among
recent visitors were the police chief and the U.S. attorney for
Washington, D.C.

In the last decade, while the national homicide rate for young black
men was 147 per 100,000, it ballooned to 520 in the Crescent _ and
most victims were linked to street groups.

"Less than 5 percent of the population accounted for 45 percent of
murders," said John Klofas, a criminal justice professor at Rochester
Institute of Technology.

During Duffy's six-year tenure as police chief, city officials have
shown willingness to experiment. A state-funded program called
Operation Impact paid for state troopers to help patrol high-crime
precincts this year and "incredible partnerships" have been forged
between city, county, state and federal agencies, Duffy said.

"Being involved in a drug trade or a gang" brings "incredible
pressure," he said. "These kids live in a world where they know that
day could be their last. We care about those kids, we don't want them
to die. ... I'm not saying they're all going back to school and
getting jobs at Kodak but I do believe they're making some different
decisions.

"I think next year is going to be the key. That is where we hope to
see homicides go into a much more precipitous drop."