Embedded Criminologists in Police Departments

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Ideas inAmericanPolicing

FOUNDATION Number 1 7

December 2013

Ideas in American Policing presents commentary and insight from leadingcriminologists on issues of interest to scholars, practitioners, and policy makers.The papers published in this series are from the Police Foundation lecture seriesof the same name. Points of view in this document are those of the author and donot necessarily represent the ofcial position of the Police Foundation. The fullseries is available online at http://www.policefoundation.org/docs/library.html.

2014 Police Foundation. All rights reserved.

Anthony A. Braga , Ph.D., is the Don M. Gottfredson Professorof Evidence-Based Criminology in the School of Criminal Justiceat Rutgers University and a Senior Research Fellow in theProgram in Criminal Justice Policy and Management at HarvardUniversity. Dr. Braga is a member of the Police FoundationsResearch Advisory Committee.

POLICE

IntroductionPast partnerships betweenacademics and police practitionershave sometimes beencharacterized by role conicts,such as researchers reporting thebad news that an evaluatedprogram was not effective inpreventing crime (Weisburd1994). For academic researchers,success or failure matteredless than commitment to thedevelopment of knowledge on

what does or does not work inpreventing crime. For the police,this news could be interpretedas their personal failure, and theskepticism of academics may be

viewed as irritating. In recent years, partnerships between policeand academics have becomemuch more collaborative and

focused on working together inaddressing crime (IACP 2004;Rojek et al. 2012). Academicshave much to offer to police

departments. In addition toproviding training in analyticmethods and concepts and

developing a body of policescience literature, academics canconduct problem analyses andhigh-quality research evaluations

in partnership with policedepartments. Police departmentsshould position themselves to

Embedded Criminologistsin Police Departments

Anthony A. Braga, Ph.D.


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support research initiatives with well-functioning internal crimeanalysis and research units, ascollaborations with outsideresearchers can be quite potentand should be encouraged.

In this essay, I describemy experiences working asan embedded criminologist(a term coined by Petersilia2008) in the Boston PoliceDepartment (BPD) between2007 and 2013. In contrastto more traditional academic-practitioner research partnerships,becoming embedded within

a police department involvedtaking the step from externalpartner to internal resource.Embedded criminologistsmaintain their scientic objectivityand independence in carryingout scientic inquires withinpolice departments. However,embedded criminologists alsofunction as an important part

of the police organization bycollaborating on the developmentof programs, through problemanalysis and evaluation researchand by interjecting scienticevidence into policy conversationsto guide police executive decisionmaking. My experiences with theBPD suggest that embeddingcriminologists in police

departments is highly benecialto police and academics alike.In summary: Embedded criminologists

enhance the capacity of policedepartments to understandthe nature of recurringcrime problems throughtheir knowledge of research

and high-powered analyticalmodels and methods.

Embedded criminologistsassist police departmentsin determining whetherimplemented programsare generating the desiredimpacts through theirtraining in rigorous programevaluation methods.

Through their participationin internal strategy meetingsand ad-hoc research projects,embedded criminologistsprovide scientic evidencegermane to problems,

policies, and programs thatcan be considered by policeexecutives as they decide how to address pressing matters.

By working as an internalresearcher, criminologists canmake strong contributionsto research and policy by gaining access to rich dataand powerful insights on the

nature of crime problems andthe strategies pursued by thepolice departments.

When they leave the ivory tower and work withpractitioners, embeddedcriminologists reap theconsiderable personal rewardsof making a difference in thereal world.

Academic-PolicePractitioner ResearchPartnershipsThere is a long history of

working relationships betweenlaw enforcement agencies andacademic researchers in the

United States. Indeed, modernpolice practitioner-academicresearcher partnerships were setin motion by August Vollmer,

who was a criminologistand reform-minded chief inBerkeley, California from 1905to 1932. As part of his effortsto professionalize the police,

Vollmer developed educationalrelationships with faculty at theUniversity of California, Berkeleyto educate police ofcers on anassortment of subjects such aspublic administration, sociology,and criminology (Vollmer and

Schneider 1917). Over the courseof the next several decades, theseeducational relationships evolvedinto research collaborations. AsRojek et al. (2012) describe,police executives began to opentheir doors to academics duringthe 1950s, gave them access todepartment records, and allowedthem to interview, survey, and

ride with police ofcers. Theresulting research became thefoundational literature in thestudy of policing.

As American policedepartments became moreinvested in the idea ofcommunity and problem-solvingpolicing over the course of the1980s and 1990s, they started

to embrace working partnerships with community members and a wide range of other governmentaland non-governmental actors.Police departments slowly beganto engage academic researchers asimportant partners in their effortsto be more effective in addressingcommunity concerns. Federal


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funding initiatives, such as theU.S. Department of JusticesProject Safe Neighborhoods andthe Bureau of Justice AssistancesSmart Policing Initiative,provided support for policepractitioner-academic partnershipsthat could both raise the qualityof police crime preventionprojects and improve the existingknowledge base on effectivecrime prevention practices.

While not yet common featuresof modern police departments,these partnerships have certainlybecome more prevalent. A

recent national survey of policedepartments found that nearlyone third of responding agencieshad participated in a researchpartnership in the past ve years(Rojek et al. 2012).

Police departments havestrong needs for research ona wide variety of complexorganizational and operational

challenges. For the purposes ofproviding a concise framework,I will simplify these needs intotwo broad categories of researchactivities that are relevant to the

work I have performed for theBoston Police Department as aresearch partner and then as anembedded criminologist. Policedepartments need solid scientic

evidence to (1) understandthe nature of the crime anddisorder problems they seekto address and (2) establish aknowledge base on effectivepolice crime prevention andcontrol practices. In laymansterms, police executives needto understand what is going

wrong? and what should we be doing about it? Policedepartments are called upon tohandle a broad array of societal

issues. Indeed, the police are themost visible face of governmentin many neighborhoods, offeringservices 24 hours a day and sevendays a week, and encouragingcitizens to call the cops whenproblems arise. To be effective incontrolling crime and disorder,research suggests that policeresponses need to be focused

and tailored to specic problems(Weisburd and Eck 2004; Braga2008).

Policing scholars and policeexecutives will immediatelyrecognize these two broadcategories as capturing keyaspects of the work pursued bypolice ofcers implementingproblem-oriented policing

strategies: the analysis of crimeproblems to reveal underlyingcriminogenic conditions, andthe assessment of implementedresponses to determine whetherrecurring problems were reduced(Goldstein 1990; Braga, 2008).Others will hone in on theidea of program evaluation as

a central activity of evidence-based policing (Sherman 1998)and the broader move towardsevidence-based crime policy. It

is important to note, however,that the scientic evidence thatpolice executives need to supporttheir decision making includeshigh-quality descriptions of thesituations and dynamics that causeproblems to recur. Evaluatingprograms to establish what

works in policing is clearlyimportant. But it represents only

one type of research product valued by police managers andline-level ofcers alike.

The International Associationof Chiefs of Police (2004) hasestablished the goal of developingpolice practitioner-researchpartnerships for every lawenforcement agency in the UnitedStates. There are a small number

of academics with experience andexpertise in working with policedepartments on research projects,especially when compared to theroughly 18,000 law enforcementagencies regularly counted bythe Bureau of Justice Statistics.Indeed, there is a relatively smallcadre of criminologists who have

To be effective in controllingcrime and disorder, research

suggests that police responses needto be focused and tailored tospecic problems.


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partnered with police departmentsin the past and currently maintainhighly productive researchrelationships. Clearly, morescholars are needed to carry outthis very important work.

Public Criminology andEmbedded Criminologists The eld of criminology seemsto be increasingly more investedin the idea that scienticresearch should be relevant tothe world of practice. Similar tomovements in other academicdisciplines, most notablysociology (Buroway 2005),public criminology refersto the call for criminologiststo write and conduct policy-relevant research studies. Thisensures that those who makecrime policy, those whoimplement crime and justiceprograms, and those who areaffected by those policies andprograms are engaged in theproduction and interpretation ofthe work (Uggen and Inderbitzin2010; Loader and Sparks 2010).

Policing has a long history ofpublic criminology with scholarssuch as James Q. Wilson (1968)and Herman Goldstein (1977)conducting seminal studies onpolice behavior and the problemsof policing, by directly engagingpolice organizations and themanagers and line-level staff thatcomprise them. Indeed, since itsinception, the Police Foundationhas played a key role in a series ofimportant eld experiments thathave led to profound changes inthe way police departments dotheir core business (e.g. Kelling

et al. 1974; Police Foundation1981). And, as described above,academic-police practitionerresearch partnerships have nowbecome much more common inpolice departments throughoutthe United States.

While there have beenconcerted efforts in criminologyin general and policing in

particular to bridge the gapbetween research and practice,these relationships are usually

project-based with social scientistsfocused on collecting data,completing analytical work, andpresenting results. Criminologistsare typically not embedded incriminal justice organizations nortasked with the responsibilityof working with practitionersto transform organizations bydeveloping, implementing, andtesting innovative programsand policies. Criminal justiceexecutives have historicallynot valued research enough toinvite criminologists to observeand contribute to the inner

workings of their agencies. Onenoteworthy exception is ProfessorJoan Petersilia of Stanford LawSchool, who served as the Special

Advisor for Policy and Researchin the California Departmentof Corrections (CDC) as wellas Chair of the GovernorsRehabilitation Strike Forceunder then-Governor Arnold

Schwarzenegger between 2004and 2008. In this role, Petersilia(2008) participated in Californiashistoric attempt to reformits prisons and ensured thatresearch ndings were central todecision-making and to shiftingthe departments focus towardsprisoner reintegration.

Like Professor Petersilias

opportunity in California, I was fortunate enough to beinvited to become an embeddedcriminologist in a large urbanpolice department. I hadpreviously enjoyed a long andproductive research partnership

with the Boston PoliceDepartment where we agreed

Becoming an embeddedcriminologist was akin to moving

from talking the talk as aresearch partner to walking thewalk of actually making positivecontributions to the day-to-dayworking of the BPD


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upon projects of mutual interestand, in the tradition of publiccriminology, collaborated on theframing of research questionsand interpretation of results. Assuggested by Petersilia (2008:339), becoming an embeddedcriminologist was akin to movingfrom talking the talk as aresearch partner to walking the

walk of actually making positivecontributions to the day-to-day

work of the BPD. The nextsection describes this evolutionand the work I performed as partof my duties as an embedded

criminologist.

The Evolution of aResearch Partnership

with the Boston PoliceDepartmentI began working with theBoston Police Departmentin late 1994 when employed

as a research associate in theProgram in Criminal JusticePolicy and Management atHarvard University. With thesupport of a grant from the U.S.National Institute of Justice,I was hired to work on TheBoston Gun Project by David M.Kennedy, now a professor atJohn Jay College of Criminal

Justice, and Anne M. Piehl,now a professor of economics atRutgers University. The Project

was a problem-oriented policingenterprise expressly aimed atreducing homicide victimizationamong young people in Bostonin the 1990s. The trajectory ofthe Project, and the resulting

Operation Ceasere intervention,is by now well-known andextensively documented (Bragaet al. 2001; Kennedy 1997,2008; Kennedy et al. 1996).Briey, a working group oflaw enforcement personnel,

youth workers, and Harvardresearchers diagnosed the youth

violence problem in Bostonas one of patterned, largely

vendetta-like hostility amongsta small population of highlycriminally-active, gang-involvedoffenders. The OperationCeasere intervention used a

focused deterrence approach tohalting outbreaks of gun violenceamong feuding street gangsby combining resources fromcriminal justice, social service, andthe community.

Between the late 1990s and2006, I worked closely withthe BPD on a series of action-oriented research initiatives

intended to enhance the qualityof data available from ofcialhomicide reports (Braga et al.1999), to disrupt illegal gunmarkets (Braga and Pierce 2005),and to prevent recidivism byhigh-risk offenders released fromthe local jail to Boston (Bragaet al. 2009) as well as othercrime prevention projects. These

research projects resembled themore traditional collaborativearrangements that characterizethe bulk of academicpolicepractitioner research initiatives.However, these projects allowedme to develop a very strongunderstanding of the internalBPD organizational structure,

their crime control andprevention strategies, and theirexternal operational environment.Most importantly, I was able toform strong working relationships

with BPD command staff, mid-level managers, and street ofcers.Over time, most of the ofcersbecame very comfortable with myoperational questions, requestsfor data, and general presence atstrategy meetings connected tothese projects. In short, I hadbecome a trusted research partnerto the BPD.

Becoming Embedded The evolution of my role fromtrusted research partner toembedded criminologist inthe BPD has its roots in priorresearch projects conducted inLowell, Massachusetts, a smallcity of some 105,000 residentslocated about 30 miles northeastof Boston. In 1997, I formed

a collaborative relationship with Edward F. Davis whenhe was the Superintendent ofthe Lowell Police Department(LPD). Over the next six years,

with colleagues, I worked withthe LPD on a series of analysesof gang violence problems andconducted a quasi-experimentalevaluation of a problem-oriented

intervention to guide their gang violence reduction efforts (Bragaet al. 2006; Braga, Pierce et al.2008). In 2004, Davis expresseda desire to make a substantivecontribution to the policing eldby conducting a more rigoroustest of the effects of problem-oriented policing strategies on


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crime and disorder hot spots(see Braga and Bond 2008).

We collaborated on the designof a randomized controlledexperiment and jointly made asuccessful argument to the Stateof Massachusetts for research

funds.In December 2006,

Davis was sworn-in by MayorThomas M. Menino as the BPDCommissioner. Boston wasfacing a troubling increase inserious violent crime when hetook charge of the BPD. Afterexperiencing dramatic decreasesin violent crime over the course

of the 1990s, Boston experienceda resurgence of serious violenceduring the early- to mid-2000s,peaking at 7,533 violent indexcrimes in 2006 (Figure 1). Mostconcerning was an increasein assaultive street violence,especially assaults committed withguns. The yearly number of fatal

and non-fatal shootings increased133 percent from 162 in 2000 to377 in 2006.

During this time period,Boston residents became moreconcerned about crime and lesscondent in the ability of the

BPD to prevent crime (Bragaet al. 2008). In 1997, 14.2percent of Boston residentsreported crime as their biggestconcern. Crime as the biggestconcern of Boston residentsdropped to only 7.2 percent in1999, remained low in 2001 and2003, and then increased to 15.5percent in 2006. In 1997, only

16.2 percent of Boston residentshad little or no faith in the BPDto prevent crime; by 2006, thislack of faith in the police hadrisen to include nearly one-quarter of Boston residents. Inminority neighborhoods sufferingfrom elevated levels of violentcrime, resident concerns about

crime were much higher and faithin the BPD to prevent crime wasmuch lower than residents inother parts of the city.

Davis was committed totackling Bostons uptick in

violence by analyzing theunderlying conditions thatgave rise to recurring violentcrime problems in the city,implementing violence reductionprograms that drew uponevidence-based practices and

were appropriately tailored tothe nature of Bostons violentcrime problems, and evaluating

the impact of these programson violence. During the rstmonths of his tenure as BPDCommissioner, Davis appointedme his Chief Policy Advisor andused funds from his operatingbudget to acquire half of my timefrom Harvard University to dothis work. With this appointment,I was provided workspace in

the Commissioners Ofce, aBPD email address, and BPDidentication that gave me accessto the departments facilities. Heoffered me this position becauseof my prior experience with anddeep knowledge of the BPD, myexpertise in crime analysis andprogram evaluation, and, mostimportantly, because he trusted

me. I remained in this positionuntil Davis retired from the BPDin November 2013.

The Work of anEmbedded CriminologistBased on his prior workexperiences and exposure to

Figure 1. Violent Index Crimes in Boston, 20002012

Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reports


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criminological insights on thenature of crime problems,Davis decided to pursue a setof strategies that would betterposition the BPD to managethe small number of places andsmall number of people thatgenerated the majority of violencein Boston. As will be describedbelow, the bulk of my work ashis Chief Policy Advisor involved

working with his command staff,line-level ofcers, and civiliananalysts to design and implement

violence reduction programsappropriately tailored to control

these problem places and problempeople. However, I soon becamea key part of the inner circlethat advised Davis on a range ofprogram development and policymatters, personnel decisions, andresource allocations. Althoughmy contract stated that I wassupposed to work only half-time, my deep participation in

command staff work required afull-time effort. Since I neededto honor my traditional academicresponsibilities at Harvard, I didmuch of this additional workon a pro-bono basis during mypersonal time. It is importantto note here that I was nodifferent than anyone else onthe BPD command staff in

terms of the sacrices they madein their personal lives. Thesepolice executives were incrediblydedicated to serving the people ofBoston, often working extensivehours and dealing with chaoticscheduling changes at a momentsnotice to deal with emergencysituations.

Serving as Chief Policy Advisor to the Commissionerrequired my regular presenceat standing BPD meetings. Ofcourse, there were ongoingmeetings connected to thespecic crime control initiativesthat comprised my main workfor Davis. However, I alsoattended weekly Bureau Chiefsmeetings and bi-weekly Compstatmeetings. Bureau Chiefs meetingsinvolved high-level conversationson management issues andchallenges across the bureaus(eld services, investigative

services, professional standardsand training, administration andtechnology, intelligence, and legalservices). Similar to other policedepartments, the BPD policeexecutives attempted to improveorganizational performance byembracing Compstat, using itfor data-based decision making,enhanced problem-solving, and

management accountability(Weisburd et al. 2003). My

work also required a fair amountof time in the eld directlyobserving ofcers implementingprograms. On a weekly basis,I participated in ride alongsand walk alongs with districtofcers and specialized unitofcers. My participation in

standing meetings and eld-workallowed me to become engagedin the day-to-day businessof the department and makecontributions as needed.

Without this constant contact with BPD personnel and liveknowledge of departmentalhappenings, I would not have

been as useful as an embeddedcriminologist. Put simply, if youdo not maintain real-timeknowledge of current events,

whether signicant crimes, arrests,or political maneuvering insideand outside the department, it isdifcult to be credible in strategymeetings that are often verysensitive to emerging situationsand dynamics. Moreover, theline-level ofcers and staffare very close to substantiveproblems that I was called uponto help address. They held veryclear insights on the nature of the

underlying conditions that causedproblems to persist and oftenexpressed very interesting andinnovative thoughts on changesthat could be made to bettermanage these problems. In short,their knowledge often made melook good in meetings with thecommand staff.

Controlling Violent CrimeHot Spots Commissioner Davis implementedthe Safe Street Teams (SST)hot-spots policing strategy inJanuary 2007. Participating inthe development of this program

was the rst major task thatDavis asked me to perform. Indesigning the SST program with

the BPD command staff, Davisand I drew upon our earlierexperiences with implementinga hot-spots policing program inLowell (Braga and Bond 2008)and his experiences in reformingthe Lowell Police Departmentfrom a traditional policedepartment to an organization


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that embraced communitypolicing as its core operationalstrategy. Unlike the trajectoryof the Lowell hot-spots policingrandomized experiment, the SSTprogram was implemented withlittle a priori thought given toevaluation. Commissioner Davis

was new to Boston and simplydid not have the political capital

with the Mayor or with the citysresidents to launch a randomizedexperiment during a disturbing

violent crime increase (Braga2010). However, Davis didmandate that the identication of

violent crime hot spots needed tobe a data-driven process.

Using computerized mappingtechnology and violent indexcrime data for the 2006 calendar

year, I worked with the BPDBoston Regional IntelligenceCenter (BRIC) to identify 13

violent crime hot-spot areas toreceive the SST program. It

is important to note here thatnot all identied violent crimehot spots received a SST. TheBPD only had enough patrolpersonnel to staff 13 teams. Theselection of the treatment areasproceeded in a non-randommanner based on BPD commandstaff perceptions of need. The 13SST hot spots covered 6 percent

of Bostons street geographyand experienced 23 percent ofBostons violent index crimes in2006 (1,743 of 7,533). A deputysuperintendent was assigned tooversee the SST initiative and ateam comprised of a sergeant andsix patrol ofcers were assignedto implement the program in

each of the targeted 13 violentcrime hot spots.

The SST ofcers appliedproblem-oriented policing toidentify recurring violent crimeproblems in their assignedhot-spot area, analyzed theunderlying conditions that causedthese problems to persist, anddeveloped appropriate responses.Commissioner Davis also requiredofcers to engage communitymembers and local merchantsin dening and responding toidentied problems in the hot-spot areas. SST ofcers were

expected to follow communitypolicing ideals in their effortsto reduce violence. Unless there

was an emergency that requiredadditional support outside theirdened areas, SST ofcers wererequired to stay in their assignedhot spot. SST ofcers were alsonot allowed to ride around inpatrol cars; rather, they patrolled

target hot-spot areas on foot oron bicycles.

All SST ofcers were requiredto go through additionalin-service training on therequirements of the program andon the principles and techniquesof community and problem-oriented policing. I workedclosely with BPD Academy Staff

to design an appropriate trainingcurriculum and taught sessions onhot-spots policing and problem-oriented policing. To ensurethat the program was beingimplemented as intended, theBPD had quarterly accountabilitymeetings with the SST teams.Two of these meetings were held

in BPD headquarters, and theother two meetings were heldin the policing district stationsthat covered the SST areas. Inthese meetings, violent crimetrends and patterns in eachSST area were reviewed andcrime problems and appropriateresponses were discussed.I attended these meetings

with then Superintendent-in-Chief Daniel Linskey and thenSuperintendent of Field Services

William Evans and participatedin discussions of problems and inthe design of responses for each

SST violent crime hot spot. As the program was

implemented, the BPD wantedto make certain that the SSTareas were indeed centered onsome of the most persistently

violent places in Boston. SomeBPD command staff ofcers

were concerned that violentcrime spatial concentrations

might not be stable over time.Long-term investments of scarcepolice resources in violent crimehot spots would make littlesense if the location of thesehot spots shifted year to yearirrespective of police activities(see Weisburd 2008). With theassistance of the Boston Regional

1 While shootings and robberies arehighlighted here, the analyses includedtotal violent crime, aggravated assaults,and rape/sexual assaults. The distributionof violent crimes that generated higherlevels of fear, shootings and robberies,

weighed more heavily in the minds ofBPD command staff in making decisionson the actual locations of SST hot spotareas.


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Intelligence Center and someHarvard colleagues, I analyzedthe concentration and stability of

violent crime in specic hot-spotlocations over time in Boston.The purpose of this exercise

was to ensure that the SSTs were appropriately assigned tothose locations that consistentlygenerated repeated violent crimeincidents over a longer timeperiod. The BPD did not want tomake investments of scarce policeofcer resources at locationsthat represented short-term ortemporary problems. Our analysis

drew upon methods developedin a seminal longitudinal study ofcrime at small places conductedby a team of University ofMaryland researchers inpartnership with the SeattlePolice Department (Weisburdet al. 2004).

The analysis began with thecreation of a spatial database that

captured each intersection andstreet segment (the street sectionsin between two intersections)across the city (Braga et al. 2010;Braga et al. 2011a). The researchteam identied 18,155 streetsegments and 10,375 intersectionsin the City of Boston. The teamthen gathered data from BPD onall reported robberies (street and

commercial; 142,213 robberies)and all injurious shooting events(shots were red and a person

was wounded; 7,602) from19802008. 1 These crimes weregeocoded and assigned to theirappropriate street unit (segmentor intersection). The researchteam then used sophisticated

longitudinal analyses to examinethe stability of trends in robberyand serious gun violence over the29-year study period.

The analysis uncoveredremarkable stability in crime

trends within these street units.From 19802008 approximately

1 percent of street segments and8 percent of intersections werethe locations of nearly 50 percentof all commercial robberies and66 percent of all street robberies.Figure 2 demonstrates this

stability in robbery trends in aslightly different way. The steady

Table 1. Distribution of Gun Violence atStreet Units in Boston, 19802008

N ofincidents per

street unitN of

street units% of

street unitsSum of

incidents% of

incidents

0 25,245 88.5% 0 0.0%

1 1,923 6.7% 1,923 26.1%

24 1,037 3.6% 2,674 36.3%

59 269 0.9% 1,730 23.5%

10 or more 65 0.2% 1,032 14.0%

Total 28,530 7,359

Source: Braga, Papachristos, and Hureau (2010)

Source: Braga, Hureau, and Papachristos (2011a)

Figure 2. Robbery Incidents at Street Unitsin Boston, 19802008


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lower line demonstrates thatabout 2 percent of the streetunits experienced 50 percent ofthe robberies during each of the29 years under examination. Thetop line shows the percentage ofstreet units that experienced 100percent of the robberies duringeach year of study. For example,in 1980 all of the robberiesoccurred in just under 12 percentof the street units in Boston.Over time, the concentrationof robberies increased ratherdramatically. By 2008, all of therobberies during occurred in just

6 percent of the street units inBoston.

The story was much thesame for gun violence, asonly 5 percent of street unitsexperienced 74 percent of thegun violence from 19802008.Table 1 shows the distributionof gun violence across each ofthe 28,530 street units, and

from 19802008, 88.5 percentof the street units in the city didnot experience a single shootingevent. Alternatively, 269 streetunits experienced 59 shootingevents, and 65 street unitsexperienced 10 or more shootingevents. Amazingly, the worst 60street units in Boston experiencedmore than 1,000 shootings

between 1980 and 2008.In short, both robberiesand gun violence were highlyconcentrated at a small numberof street corners and intersectionsin Boston, and this concentrationremained remarkably stableover time. While the analysisconrmed that SST ofcers were

allocated to persistently violentlocations, this exercise alsorevealed that there were many

violent places in Boston that werenot covered by the SST. As willbe discussed below, this providedan important opportunity toconduct a rigorous controlledevaluation of the SST initiative.Over the course of the three

years after SST was implemented, violent index crimes in Bostonsteadily decreased (Figure 1).By 2009, violent index crimes inBoston had decreased by nearly18 percent to a decade low of

6,192 incidents from the decadehigh of 7,533 incidents in 2007.Unfortunately, in the absence ofa controlled evaluation design toaccompany program developmentand implementation, it wasunclear whether the SST strategycould claim any credit for theobserved decreases. For instance,the observed Boston violent

crime decreases could havebeen part of a larger nationaltrend; U.S. violent index crimesdecreased by 7.5 percent between2000 and 2009. A simple pre-post analysis of citywide violentcrime trend data obviously doesnot parse out the independenteffects of the SST programrelative to other rival causal

factors.In 2009, the Boston PoliceDepartment received SmartPolicing Initiative funding fromU.S. Bureau of Justice Assistanceto formally evaluate its SSTprogram. I worked closely withthe BPDs Ofce of Researchand Development (ORD) on

the proposal to acquire thesefunds. Given the presence ofother untreated violent crime hotspots in Boston, my colleaguesand I were able to use statisticalmatching techniques to identifyequivalent comparison streetintersections and block facesfor inclusion in a rigorousquasi-experimental researchdesign (Braga et al. 2011b).Panel regression models, withappropriate covariates to helpcontrol for any observabledifferences between the treatmentand control groups, revealed that

the SST program was associated with a statistically signicant17 percent reduction in violentIndex crimes in the treatmentareas relative to the controlareas. Most of this reduction in

violent Index crimes was drivenby a large 19 percent reductionin robbery incidents with asmaller 15 percent reduction

in aggravated assault incidents. A subsequent analysis of streetunits in two-block buffer zonessurrounding the treatment andcontrol street units revealed noevidence of signicant violentcrime displacement. In other

words, violent crime did notsimply move around the cornerdue to focused police attention in

the hot-spot areas.Reducing OngoingGang Violence Despite national acclaim, theBoston Police Departmentdiscontinued its well-knownOperation Ceasere gang

violence reduction strategy as its


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primary response to outbreaks ofgang violence in January 2000(see Braga and Winship 2006).By 2006, fatal and non-fatalshootings had reached levels notseen in Boston since the early1990s.

Soon after his appointment,Davis announced that OperationCeasere would once againbe the BPDs main responseto outbreaks of serious gang

violence. He promoted GaryFrench, who led many ofthe BPDs Ceasere effortsduring the 1990s, to Deputy

Superintendent with oversight ofthe Youth Violence Strike Force(YVSF, known informally asthe gang unit), school policeunit, and the tactical bicycleunit. With the support of Davisand his command staff, Frenchreinstated the Ceasere approachas a citywide, interagency effortto disrupt ongoing cycles of gang

violence. As was the case in the1990s, I became a member of theCeasere working group.

The rst contribution I madeto the working group process

was to complete a fresh problemanalysis of homicides and gang-involved shootings. As shootingsbegan to increase in the early- tomid-2000s, some BPD managers

believed that the gun violenceproblem was very different than it was in the 1990s and was linkedto increasing juvenile populationsand prisoner reentry issues (Bragaet al. 2008). Completed with mythen Harvard colleagues DavidHureau and Andrew Papachristos,the problem analysis research

revealed that the resurgencein gun violence during the2000s was linked to the sameunderlying gang dynamics as the1990s. In 2006, slightly morethan 1 percent of the city youthages 14 to 24 participated in65 street gangs that were activein violence. However, streetgang violence generated morethan half of total homicides andgang members were involved innearly three-fourths of non-fatalshootings as victims. The gun

violence offenders and victims were often very well known to

the criminal justice system withlong criminal histories and many

were under probation and/orparole supervision.

We also used social-networkanalyzed police records tomap the social networks of763 individuals in one Bostoncommunity (Figure 3), byusing non-arrest observationsto create links betweenindividuals (the nodes) who wereobserved hanging out together(Papachristos et al. 2012). Wefound that fully 85 percent ofall shootings in this communityoccur within the observednetwork (less than 3 percent of

total neighborhood population)nearly all of which are driven by

Figure 3. The Social Network of High-Risk Individualsin Cape Verdean Community in Boston, 2008

Source: Papachristos, Braga and Hureau (2012)


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10 different gangs, also observedin the network. Second, theshooting victims occupy uniqueand identiable positions in thenetwork. And, third, the risk of

victimization within the networkspreads outward from othershooting victims to infect theirfriends and associates. In facteach handshake closer one is toa shooting victim increases onesown probability of getting shotby approximately 25 percent.

Focused deterrence strategieshonor core deterrence ideas,such as increasing risks faced

by offenders, while nding newand creative ways of deployingtraditional and nontraditionallaw enforcement tools to doso, such as communicatingincentives and disincentivesdirectly to targeted offenders(Kennedy 2008). Unfortunately,practical experience suggests that

focused deterrence strategiescan be difcult to implementand sustain over extended timeperiods (Braga 2012; Kennedy2011). Research productsthat document these high-risksocial networks and the violentbehaviors of particular groupsover time are very valuable inensuring that these strategiesare sustained in a particular

jurisdiction. Working with theBoston Regional IntelligenceCenter, we developed gangshooting scorecards to helpguide Ceasere implementation.

In the most basic form, shootingscorecards are simply rank-ordered frequencies of thecriminal groups that commit thehighest number of shootings andexperience the greatest numberof shooting victimizations duringa specic time period (Bragaet al. 2014). Shooting scorecards,

especially when supported bya management accountabilitysystem (in this case, the Ceasere

working group meetings andbroader Compstat sessions),can be very helpful in ensuringthat the groups most active ingun violence, and the groupsthat offend after the deterrencemessage has been delivered,receive the enforcement attentionthey merit. Scorecards keep theoperational partners focusedon risky groups over time andmaintain the implementation ofthe focused deterrence strategy as

a whole.Figure 4 presents the gangs

that generated the highestnumbers of fatal and non-fatalshootings in Boston duringcalendar year 2010. The Mozartgang committed 16 shootings,by far the most active shootergroup in Boston that year. Inorder, the next most frequent

shooter groups in Boston werethe Thetford (12 shootings),

Wendover (9 shootings), andCameron (7 shootings) gangs.The key analytical insight is clear.Relative to other gangs in Boston,these top shooter groups shouldbe closely reviewed to determine

whether focused enforcementattention is necessary to halt their

persistent involvement in seriousgun violence. Gang scorecarddata were also used to measureCeasere performance by simplecomparisons of year-to-yearcounts of shootings committedby particular groups or morecomplex analyses of longitudinaldata.

Figure 4. Gangs that Generated the Highest Numbersof Shootings in Boston, 2010

Source: Braga, Hureau, and Grossman (2014)


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Figure 5 presents the numberof shootings committed by the2009 most frequent shootergangs in 2010. The number

of shootings committed by theCVO/Homes Ave, H-Block,Orchard Park, Greenwood,Lenox, Hitfam, Morse, andFranklin Field gangs decreasedbetween 2009 and 2010. Whilemore careful evaluation of anyimplemented violence reductionstrategies is clearly warranted, thissimple year-to-year comparison

suggests that shootingscommitted by these gangs werein short-term decline. In contrast,shootings by the DSP andMission gangs increased between2009 and 2010. This suggestedto the Ceasere working groupthat they needed to reassessexisting violence reduction

strategies focused on thesegroups and implement a strategicresponse immediately.

These gang shooting

scorecard data were then usedto conduct a rigorous quasi-experimental evaluation ofthe impact of the post-2007Ceasere intervention on gang

violence in Boston (see Bragaet al. 2013). Between 2007and 2010, the BPD and itscriminal justice, social service,and community-based partners

conducted Ceasere interventionson 19 violent gangs. TheLucerne Street Doggz was therst group selected for renewedCeasere attention because it

was the most violent gang inBoston at the beginning of thestudy time period. Lucerne wasthe suspect group in 30 gang-

involved shootings and the victimgroup in seven gang-involvedshootings in 2006. BostonRegional Intelligence Centerintelligence suggested that mostof the Lucerne shootings, whichaccounted for nearly 10 percentof all Boston shootings in 2006,

were carried out by no more thansix or seven members of the gang.

As Figure 6 reveals, the impactof the Ceasere intervention ontheir gun violence behavior wasnoteworthy. In 2006 and 2007,Lucerne gang averaged 33.5 totalshootings per year. Their yearly

average plummeted by 87.2%to 4.3 per year between 2008and 2010. The formal quasi-experimental evaluation estimatedthat the re-invigorated Ceaserefocused-deterrence strategygenerated a statistically-signicant31 percent reduction in shootingsinvolving treated gangs relativeto shootings involving matched

comparison gangs.

Translational Criminology Beyond my close involvement intwo key BPD violence reductionprograms, I was regularly calledupon to summarize and explainthe available scientic evidenceon the nature of crime problemsand the impact of evaluated

crime reduction programs. Theseexchanges would occur whenparticipating in ofcial meetingsand during casual conversations.In many ways, this dynamicinterface between research andpractice represents what formerU.S. National Institute of JusticeDirector John Laub (2012)

Figure 5. The Number of Shootings Committed by the2009 Most Frequent Shooter Gangs in 2010

Source: Braga, Hureau, and Grossman (2014)


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would describe as translationalcriminologyacademics andpractitioners working as equalpartners in applying scienticknowledge to develop moreeffective programs and policies.

In these settings, I disseminatedcriminological ndings as generalinformation that BPD commandstaff could consider as they madedecisions on how to proceed indealing with a particular problemor policy dilemma.

Signicant strategy meetings were often scheduled well inadvance of the actual date

and time that they were held.During the interim period, I would be sure to educate myselfon the most recent researchin whatever substantive areathe meeting would focus. Forexample, immediately after he

was appointed, CommissionerDavis decided he wanted to

implement Compstat in theBPD and scheduled a series of

working group meetings to makethe necessary administrativearrangements to launch thisinitiative. In preparation, I closely

read research on Compstat by Weisburd et al. (2003), Silverman(1999), and others. During keymoments of these meetings, Iinterjected factoids from thesestudies for their consideration.Given their desire to advancecommunity problem solvingin the BPD, I made sure tohighlight that Weisburd et al.

(2003) found that Compstat was more likely to generatereactive crime control responses,such as ooding a problem area

with patrol ofcers (puttingcops on the dots), rather thanmore creative problem-solvingresponses designed to addressthe conditions that cause crime

problems to recur. The workinggroup participants started todevelop programmatic elementsto encourage problem-solvingresponses in the BPD versionof Compstat as result of thisinformation.

Sometimes the translation ofcriminological ndings occurredin a much more spontaneousmanner. For instance, during aparticular Compstat session thatinvolved the discussion of a recentuptick in burglary, Davis asked meto give a quick summary of theresearch on repeat victimization

and the strategies used to protect vulnerable victims and detectthe offenders that continueto victimize them. As anotherexample, while getting somecoffee in the cafeteria, formerSuperintendent Bruce Holloway,then the Chief of the Bureau ofInvestigative Services, asked meto provide a quick synopsis of my

past research on the sources ofillegal guns to Boston criminals.

Apparently, he had been recentlyasked by Commissioner Davis tothink about alternative strategiesto reduce the availability of gunson Boston streets. The commandstaff seemed generally to ndthese brief commentaries helpfulin making decisions on how

to approach particular crimeproblems.Occasionally, I would be

called upon to deliver formalpresentations on specic subjectsthat Davis thought the commandstaff would nd germane totheir work. For instance, afterhis participation in a plenary

Figure 6. Shootings Involving the Lucerne Street Doggz,20062010

Source: Braga, Hureau, and Papachristos (2013)


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discussion at the 2011 U.S.National Institute of Justiceannual research and evaluationconference, Davis asked me topresent the available research oncollective efcacy and crime,as well as the problem of legalcynicism when the police try to

work with disadvantaged minoritycommunities suffering from highlevels of violence. Apparently,he was very impressed by thepresentation given by HarvardProfessor Robert Sampson at theplenary session and felt that hiscommand staff should know the

general research in these areas. As such, I prepared a ten-minutepresentation that I delivered atthe next Bureau Chiefs meeting.

While I am far from an expertin these substantive areas, thecommand staff seemed toappreciate the material as a verythoughtful discussion on theimplications of this work for their

community policing strategiesfollowed my presentation.

Ad-Hoc Research Projectsand Other Jobs Over the course of my tenureas Chief Policy Advisor, Iparticipated in a number of ad-hoc research projects. Most ofthese projects were small in scale

and carried out in partnership with the Boston RegionalIntelligence Center and Ofceof Research and Development.For instance, during a Compstatsession, several Captainsraised concerns that the crimeincident data used to hold themaccountable for managing crime

trends in their districts werenot accurate. They suggestedthat the Field Reports Unit,

which is charged with codingincident reports according tothe strict FBI Uniform CrimeReports standards, was notalways properly characterizingthe incidents. Davis asked meto conduct a policy analysis ofthis issue. This project involvedmodest data analysis andinterviewing and took about onemonth to complete. The analysissuggested that the problem

was not with the Field Reports

Unit. Rather, the front-linesupervisors in the districts neededto more closely scrutinize thenarratives of completed crimereports to ensure that the properelements were identied beforesubmission to Field Reportsfor nal coding. Occasionally,I would be asked to lead otherpolicy analysis work that was

much more complex and requiredmultiple years to complete. Forinstance, the American CivilLiberties Union of Massachusettsrequested the BPD analyze theirField Interrogation Observationreports (more commonly calledeld contact cards) for possibleracial disparities. This projectlanded in my lap and required

extensive collaboration withexternal research partners suchas Professor Jeffrey Fagan atColumbia Law School.

Beyond these ad-hoc researchprojects, I helped out withother important tasks as needed.For instance, I was regularlycalled upon to assist in speech

writing for the Commissionerby adding scientic evidenceinto his talking points asappropriate. There were times

when I was asked to par ticipatein media interviews to justify

why particular crime controlstrategies were being pursuedand how these interventionsseemed to be generating desirableimpacts. My participation inthese media sessions basicallyinvolved summarizing theresults of problem analysesand explaining the ndings ofimpact evaluations. I also assisted

the Ofce of Research andDevelopment in writing particularproposals, such as submissions tothe Bureau of Justice Assistanceand the National Institute ofJustice for much-needed funding,and reviewed requests for datasubmitted to the BPD by otheracademic researchers. WhileCommissioner Davis made

the nal decisions on whetherparticular proposed researchprojects would be supportedby the BPD, I provided him

with assessments of whetherthe research methodologyrepresented sound social scienceand whether the research seemed

well positioned to generate valueto the BPD in particular and

broader crime and justice policydiscussions more generally.

ConclusionThe idea of embedding acriminologist inside of a policedepartment to work alongsidepractitioners on particular


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program initiatives and as ageneral resource for a wide rangeof issues represents an evolutionfrom traditional academic-police

research partnerships that areusually limited to very specicprojects and typically last for veryshort time periods. Embeddedcriminologists can enhance thecapacity of police departments tounderstand the nature of ongoingcrime problems and developinnovative programs to preventthese problems from recurring.

Working in close partnership with sworn and civilian staff,embedded criminologistsdevelop important insightson the reality of urban crimeproblems and the complexity ofthe operational environmentsin which police departmentsoperate. These insights magnifythe value of criminologists

scientic knowledge andanalytical expertise in developinginformation products that canimprove practice.

It is important to note herethat embedding a criminologist isnot a silver bullet that, by itself,ameliorates the multifacetedchallenges faced by police

departments. Rather, inviting acriminologist to work on the insideof a police department in a stableposition enhances the capacity

of the agency to understand andaddress these challenges by virtueof adding a skill set not held byother police staff. CommissionerDavis deserves much credit forrecognizing the need for this skillset in his agency and taking thebold step of inviting an outsiderinto his department. Similarly,the willingness of BPD personnel

to share data and insights onproblems allowed me to generate

value for the department. Davisand the BPD staff co-producedthe knowledge that led toimportant policy changes and ledto the implementation of programsthat generated violence reductiongains in Boston. While my research

was a part of this change effort,

the BPD command staff and line-level ofcers and civilians executedthe programmatic work inside thedepartment and on the streets ofBoston.

The Boston experiencesuggests that police departmentsdo benet in tangible ways byadding criminologists to their

staffs. Boston now serves as animportant example of the potentialcrime control efcacy of preventivepolicing strategies that reducethe need to arrest, prosecute, andincarcerate offenders. In responseto an increase in violent crimeduring the early- to mid-2000s,the Boston Police Departmentimplemented two preventivepolicing strategies. The revitalizedOperation Ceasere focused-deterrence program concentratedcriminal justice, social service,and community-based resourceson halting outbreaks of gun

violence among feuding streetgangs. The BPD also launched itsSafe Street Teams initiative thatused community problem-solvingtechniques to control violenthot-spot locations in Boston.Controlled evaluations of bothprograms suggest immediate

violence reduction impacts (Bragaet al. 2011b; Braga et al. 2013).

Inuenced by these programsand other innovations, violentUCR Index crimes in Bostondecreased by 30 percent between2006 (7,512 incidents) and 2012(5,265 incidents) (Figure 1).Equally impressive, total arrestsdecreased by 37 percent duringthe same time period (from24,745 arrests in 2006 to 15,625

arrests in 2012).For criminologists, thepersonal rewards of engaging

work that directly inuencespractice and helps addresslongstanding societal problemsare substantial. Unfortunately,most universities place lessemphasis on public service

For criminologists, the personalrewards of engaging work that

directly inuences practice andhelps address long-standingsocietal problems are substantial.


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and more value on conductingsophisticated research studiesthat generate high-quality journalarticles. For young scholarsseeking tenure, the pressureto produce in a way that ts

with well-established scholarlytraditions may prevent some fromengaging police departments insuch a direct way. However, itis important to recognize thatforming research partnerships

with law enforcement agencies, whether as a research partneror an embedded criminologist,and conducting high-quality

research that will stand up to peerreview are not mutually exclusiveenterprises. Basic problem analysiscan be expanded to a morerigorous examination of largercriminological issues. Innovativecrime prevention programscan be evaluated in ways thatadvance methods and models incriminology. Finally, the trust that

is built between academics andthe criminal justice practitionersthey are serving can result inricher data being made availablefor new analyses.

There are divergent viewson how closely programevaluators, such as external orin this case internal academicresearchers, should be involved

with practitioners in programdevelopment and implementation.To some observers, close-

working relationships betweenpractitioners and academics may

violate the purported scienticnecessity to separate programdeveloper and evaluator roles(Eisner 2009). To others, unless

there is some convincing evidenceof widespread evaluator bias orconict of interest associated

with such arrangements, thesecollaborations seem necessaryto put academics in the positionof being able to conduct highquality evaluations of preventionand intervention programs. AsDavid Olds (2009) argues in hisessay in support of disciplinedpassion, balancing scienticintegrity with the practicalchallenges associated withprogram evaluation in real worldsettings needs to be addressed

through higher standards forreporting trials, better peerreview, improved investigatortraining, and rigorous collegialsupport of those who choose thisline of work.

Welsh, Braga, and Peel(2012) recently examined theimportance of evaluator inuenceon outcomes in police crime

prevention programs. Theirstudy did not nd support forthe cynical view, which holdsthat researchers have a personalstake in the program or arepressured to report positiveresults. Importantly, they foundthat an evaluators involvementin the implementation of theprogram may be a necessary

condition of successfully executedpolice experiments in complexeld settings. My experiences asan embedded criminologist inthe Boston Police Departmentsupport their ndings. By beinginvolved in program design andimplementation, I was muchbetter positioned to conduct

more rigorous controlledevaluations. However, it isimportant to be wary of biasissues and adopt safeguards

when serving as an internalresearcher. To ensure that I

wasnt unintentionally biased inmy approach and interpretation,I invited external colleagues toparticipate in the design andexecution of all problem analysisand program evaluation workcompleted for the BPD. Whilemy colleagues improved the rigorof these studies, their involvementalso increased the transparency

of the research enterprisesdescribed here. Indeed, servingas an objective voice thatpresents unbiased ndings forconsideration by police decisionmakers is the most importantcontribution that an embeddedcriminologist can make.

Authors note: Anyopinions, ndings,

conclusions, orrecommendations in thisdocument are those of theauthor and do not necessarilyreect the views of theBoston Police Department.The author would like tothank former CommissionerEdward F. Davis and theBoston Police Departmentfor giving him theopportunity to work closely

with an incredibly dedicatedgroup of men and womenon improving public safety inBoston.


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