Inter-American Development Bank
facebook
twitter
youtube
linkedin
instagram
Abierto al públicoBeyond BordersCaribbean Development TrendsCiudades SosteniblesEnergía para el FuturoEnfoque EducaciónFactor TrabajoGente SaludableGestión fiscalGobernarteIdeas MatterIdeas que CuentanIdeaçãoImpactoIndustrias CreativasLa Maleta AbiertaMoviliblogMás Allá de las FronterasNegocios SosteniblesPrimeros PasosPuntos sobre la iSeguridad CiudadanaSostenibilidadVolvamos a la fuente¿Y si hablamos de igualdad?Home
Citizen Security and Justice Creative Industries Development Effectiveness Early Childhood Development Education Energy Envirnment. Climate Change and Safeguards Fiscal policy and management Gender and Diversity Health Labor and pensions Open Knowledge Public management Science, Technology and Innovation  Trade and Regional Integration Urban Development and Housing Water and Sanitation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Seguridad Ciudadana

  • HOME
  • CATEGORIES
    • Gender Violence
    • Reform of justice
    • Penitentiary Systems
    • Police
    • Crime prevention
    • Statistics and crime data
  • Authors
  • English
    • Español

Four steps to use the public health model to curb crime

November 7, 2013 by Autor invitado Leave a Comment


By John Carnochan

The first of two blog posts

In 2004-2005, we had 132 homicides in Scotland and violence, by Western European standards, was high. What did we do?

In 2004 we established the Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), a police unit that uses the public health model to develop and apply effective violence reduction tactics, working with education, health, government, housing, social services, charities and communities.

Arthurs_seat_edinburgh2Violence is preventable, but criminal justice solutions alone cannot achieve this. Violence is situated within a complicated and complex landscape of causes, societal conditions, personal circumstances, individual characteristics, attitudes and cultures.

The principal of prevention is gaining increasing currency and the application of a public health model provides a framework of understanding, a clear identification of the components of violence, a means to articulate solutions to a complex multi-sectorial problem and a methodology founded in a robust science based process of evaluation.

Different agencies are already dealing directly with the same people, as victims, offenders, patients, clients, students and tenants; already we can identify the shared agenda. The effective coordination of services that are appropriate, proportionate and timely and focused on positive outcomes is the most viable response. Primary prevention, just as in health interventions, must be at the heart of all our collaborative efforts. Preventing violence through the development of safe, stable and nurturing relationships between children and their caregivers must become a key component of all national strategies.

Thinking about violence as a public health issue provides a more reliable basis with which to frame the problem. There are four components to the public health models that can be applied to violence:

  1. Understand the scale of the problem.

Violence that is reported to the Police does not reflect the true scale or complexity of the violence that occurs in homes and communities. Violence is vastly under-reported. The under-reporting is usually because victims are too afraid to report it or will seek their own revenge or they do not think the Police are capable of dealing with it. All of these reasons confirm the corrosive nature of interpersonal violence.

  1. Identify risk and protective factors.

When we are able to understand a clearer picture of violence it is far easier to identify those circumstances that impact on violence and which in turn will allow the development and application of protective factors. Many of the causal factors of violence are common to communities around the world; they include inequality, alcohol, alienation, drugs and domestic violence.

  1. Develop and evaluate interventions that work.

Interventions that prevent violence are not always delivered by Police or Criminal Justice resources and understanding the causes will help identify those best placed to intervene. Good education will help prevent violence, quality early years experience for children will prevent violence as will robust legislation on the access to alcohol and the access to lethal means. The key is to apply interventions that have been evidenced to work and then evaluate the outcome.

  1. Scale up those programmes and interventions that have been proven to work.

Programmes that can be scaled up to a national level are best. There is always a danger that local communities think the problems they face are unique to them and therefore the solutions must also be unique to them. It is true that there will always be a local relevance but the causes and the solutions are common, no matter where.

Governments around the world rely on the criminal justice model to solve the problem of violence. Despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary some stubbornly persist with the notion that what is needed to reduce or prevent violence is more Police officers, more prisons and harsher punishments.

It will not work.

Violence prevention is a shared agenda and therefore we must develop and work collaboratively to deliver sustainable reductions. No matter the challenge we must apply a process of understanding, diagnosis and evaluation. This offers the best chance to at least make things better. I think too there is room in this for compassion.

Whatever we do we must take action that is informed by evidence and designed to deliver clear meaningful outcomes, our research must be informed by and connected to practice and there must be a clear, consistent, collaborative policy that hits the pavement.

The VRU worked in this collaborative manner and the results were dramatic. In 2012-2013 we had 62 murders and violence in Scotland is at its lowest level in 37 years. In the next blog post I will go into greater detail on how we implemented the health model in Scottland.

John Carnochan is the former Detective Chief Superintendent at the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit. He is currently part of the Public Health Medicine team at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and continues to work with the VRU.


Filed Under: Police, Uncategorized Tagged With: Brazil, community police, insecurity, Instituto Igarape, police, prevención, Rio de Janeiro, UPPs, violence

Autor invitado

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Follow Us

Subscribe

SIN MIEDOS

Space for ideas and solutions about citizen security and justice in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Search

Similar post

  • How Scotland beat the knives
  • Reducing Community Violence Starts at Home
  • Why crime journalism has to change
  • Lessons from New York and Tel Aviv: policing hotspots
  • Whither Rio de Janeiro’s Police Pacification Units?

Footer

Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo
facebook
twitter
youtube
youtube
youtube

    Blog posts written by Bank employees:

    Copyright © Inter-American Development Bank ("IDB"). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons IGO 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives. (CC-IGO 3.0 BY-NC-ND) license and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any non-commercial purpose. No derivative work is allowed. Any dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC- IGO license. Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license.


    For blogs written by external parties:

    For questions concerning copyright for authors that are not IADB employees please complete the contact form for this blog.

    The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDB, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent.

    Attribution: in addition to giving attribution to the respective author and copyright owner, as appropriate, we would appreciate if you could include a link that remits back the IDB Blogs website.



    Privacy Policy

    Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

    Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo

    Aviso Legal

    Las opiniones expresadas en estos blogs son las de los autores y no necesariamente reflejan las opiniones del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, sus directivas, la Asamblea de Gobernadores o sus países miembros.

    facebook
    twitter
    youtube
    This site uses cookies to optimize functionality and give you the best possible experience. If you continue to navigate this website beyond this page, cookies will be placed on your browser.
    To learn more about cookies, click here
    X
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT