Investigating the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Violence Interruption

尽管美国大多数主要城市的犯罪率有所下降，但暴力犯罪在许多城市环境中仍然是一个突出的问题。受这种过度暴力困扰的社区对社会和经济发展造成负面影响。尽管有几种解决枪支暴力的方法，但减少暴力的一种成功的公共卫生方法侧重于暴力干预，这是一种社区层面的模式，受过培训的干预人员通过这种模式识别潜在的暴力事件，并提供直接替代方案来扰乱他们社区的暴力事件。这个项目调查了手机应用程序的潜力，以帮助干预人员预测和中断犯罪和暴力事件中的暴力行为。暴力中断工作人员还提供长期外展服务，试图永久改变暴力行为，包括提供获得精神健康服务、社会服务、教育机会和工作培训等资源的机会。该奖项还将支持移动应用程序的设计和开发，该应用程序使用预测性分析技术，根据十多年前干预的数据为暴力中断工作者提供最有效的干预策略。该项目与一家领先的暴力中断组织合作，研究移动应用程序如何通过提供解决暴力冲突的最有效策略的建议来改善暴力中断结果。PI和她的学生将在夏季，通常是一年中最暴力的时期，在芝加哥进行为期3个月的移动应用程序部署评估。除了支持减少暴力外，该项目的成果将使人们更深入地了解如何设计技术，以推广有效的暴力干预技术，使其符合公共卫生原则。此外，使用计算分析技术为暴力中断工作者提供最有效的中断技术不仅将促进我们对技术在暴力中断中的作用的了解，还将扩展先前关于技术在预防犯罪中的社会和行为影响的文献，以及那些受暴力犯罪影响最大的人的暴力。这项工作将支持改进扩大参与的科学，因为重点将放在低收入、高犯罪率社区的居民和试图减少和减轻社区暴力的当地非营利组织上。

Although crime has decreased across most major US cities, violent crime is still a prominent issue in many urban environments. Neighborhoods that are plagued by such excessive violence endure negative effects on social and economic development. Though there are several approaches to addressing gun violence, one successful public health approach to reducing violence focuses on violence interruption, a neighborhood-level model whereby trained intervention workers identify potential violent events and provide immediate alternatives to disrupt violent incidents in their communities. This project investigates the potential of a mobile phone application to help intervention workers predict and interrupt violence during crimes and violent incidents. Violence interruption workers also provide long-term outreach in an attempt to permanently change violent behavior, including providing access to resources such as mental health services, social services, educational opportunities, and work training. This award will also support the design and development of a mobile application that uses predictive analytic techniques to provide violence interruption workers with the most effective intervention strategies based on data from over a decade of prior interventions. Working with a leading violence interruption organization, this project examines how a mobile application can improve violence interruption outcomes by providing recommendations for the most effective strategies for resolving violent conflicts. The PI and her students will evaluate the mobile application in a 3-month deployment in Chicago during the summer, typically the most violent period of the year. In addition to supporting the reduction of violence, results from this project will lead to a deeper understanding of how to design technology to scale effective violence interruption techniques informed by public health principles. Furthermore, using computational analysis techniques to provide the most effective interruption techniques to violence interruption workers will not only advance our knowledge of the role of technology in violence interruption, but also extend prior literature pertaining to the social and behavioral impact of technology use in crime prevention and violence for those most affected by violent crime. This work will support improvements in the science of broadening participation, in that the focus will be on residents in low income, high crime neighborhoods and local, nonprofit organizations attempting to reduce and mitigate violence in their communities.