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问题。受到这种过度暴力困扰的社区对社会和经济发展产生了负面影响。虽然解决枪支暴力的方法有几种，但减少暴力的一种成功的公共卫生方法侧重于中断暴力，这是一种社区一级的模式，训练有素的干预工作人员通过这种模式识别潜在的暴力事件，并提供立即的替代方案，以中断社区中的暴力事件。这个项目调查了手机应用程序的潜力，以帮助干预工作者预测和中断犯罪和暴力事件中的暴力行为。暴力中断工作者还提供长期外联服务，试图永久改变暴力行为，包括提供获得精神卫生服务、社会服务、教育机会和工作培训等资源的途径。该奖项还将支持设计和开发一个移动应用程序，该应用程序使用预测分析技术，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，通过为解决暴力冲突提供最有效的策略建议，研究移动应用程序如何改善暴力中断结果。PI和她的学生将在芝加哥进行为期3个月的移动应用程序评估，夏季通常是一年中最暴力的时期。除了支持减少暴力之外，该项目的成果还将使人们更深入地了解如何设计技术，以便根据公共卫生原则扩大有效的暴力中断技术。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，不仅可以提高我们对技术在暴力中断中的作用的认识，而且还可以扩展先前关于技术在预防犯罪和暴力中使用对受暴力犯罪影响最大的人的社会和行为影响的文献。这项工作将支持扩大参与的科学进步，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身上。

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.