Program Profile: Rockford Pulling Levers Drug Market Intervention

A problem-oriented policing strategy that aims to combat drug markets and the problems associated with them, in a high- crime neighborhood, through a deterrence-based, pulling levers framework. The program is rated Promising. The program was shown to significantly reduce nonviolent offenses in the target area, but not violent offenses.

A Promising rating implies that implementing the program may result in the intended outcome(s).

Program Goals

The Rockford (Ill.) Pulling Levers Drug Market Intervention is a problem-oriented policing strategy used by the Rockford Police Department (RPD) to combat open-air drug markets and related offending in Delancey Heights, a high-crime neighborhood. The ultimate goal of the intervention is to reduce criminal offending, interrupt open-air drug markets, and make the high-crime community more inhabitable. The RPD uses a focused-deterrence strategy, sometimes referred to as a “pulling levers” approach.

Pulling levers consists of several steps, including diagnosing a specific crime problem, organizing an interagency working group of criminal justice personnel, conducting research to identify the crime patterns of people who repeatedly commit crimes and their criminal networks, responding to law violators with a variety of sanctions as a coercive approach to stop their illegal behavior, providing targeted individuals with social services and community resources, and directly and continuously communicating with them so that they understand they are receiving special attention.

Program Theory

The deterrence theory serves as the foundation for the Rockford Pulling Levers Drug Market Intervention. Deterrence theory holds that humans are rational beings who consider the consequences of their actions and are deterred from engaging in continual patterns of offending as a result of the certainty, severity, and celerity of punishment. In pulling levers initiatives, police officers target high-risk individuals, using specific sanctions as leverage to obtain compliance and reduce the risk of future offending. It is believed that these deterrence-based policing approaches, coupled with proactive policing, have the potential to reduce violence and other disruptive behaviors in an urban environment (Corsaro, Hunt, Hipple, and McGarrell 2012).

Program Components

The Rockford Pulling Levers Drug Market Intervention included three stages: identification, notification, and resource delivery. The identification stage was a data-driven analysis used by the RPD to determine the appropriate neighborhood and individuals to target. The notification stage consisted of a targeted investigation that lasted several months, which resulted in the arrest and prosecution of chronic, violent persons in the target neighborhood. Suspects were also identified during the targeted investigation and were invited to a “call-in” meeting along with their families, key criminal- justice personnel, and community members. During this meeting, community members spoke of the harm caused by drug dealing, and individuals were informed that their actions would no longer be tolerated.

Finally, the resource delivery stage included support mechanisms for the person and community improvements for the Delancey Heights neighborhood. During this stage, an offender-needs assessment was conducted by social support services, which was followed by a more detailed assessment in subsequent weeks. All participants were provided positive support mechanisms that were specific to their situations. Furthermore, in an effort to improve the quality of life in the neighborhood, RPD and housing inspectors seized houses where drug dealing was known to occur. Those who did not participate in the drug dealing were moved to new homes. Additionally, to indicate a change in the neighborhood, routine patrols were conducted by the RPD, streets were cleaned by a street sweeper, and citations were given for lawn, trash, and poor fencing violators. Overall, community source officers and community leaders worked together to ensure everyone was informed of community issues (Corsaro, Brunson, and McGarrell 2009).

Study

Corsaro and colleagues (2009) used a time-series analysis to measure the impact of the Rockford (Ill.) Pulling Levers Drug Market Intervention on violent and nonviolent offenses. The target neighborhood, Delancey Heights, was compared with the larger city of Rockford, once the target area was subtracted from the city total for comparison purposes. Offense data was gathered from the Rockford Police Department (RPD), and included all crimes reported over a 2-year period (June 2006 through June 2008). The crime data measured violent and nonviolent offenses that occurred during each month. Violent offenses included murder, nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, kidnapping, abduction, unlawful restraint, robbery, and simple and aggravated assaults. Nonviolent offenses included stolen property, destruction of property, vandalism, drug/narcotic violations, drug equipment violations, prostitution, violation of curfew, vagrancy and loitering, and disorderly conduct.

Given that the RPD implemented the intervention during the month of May 2007 (i.e., arrested a number of violent persons involved in open-air drug trafficking, conducted the pulling levers notification meetings, and worked with community development officers to improve neighborhood conditions), this month was used as the postintervention date. As a result, the preintervention data included 11 months and the postintervention data included 14 months.

Due to the differences in pre- and postintervention periods, the average percent change in the number of offenses per month across the city was calculated. These percentage differences were then examined for violent and nonviolent offenses for the target neighborhood (Delancey Heights) compared with the remainder of Rockford.

Additional Outcomes

To investigate residents’ perceptions of and experiences with crime and disorder in Delancey Heights prior to and following the initiative, the study authors conducted qualitative, in-depth interviews with 34 adults living in the area. Overall, the majority of study participants reported being very pleased with the intervention, noting reductions in crime and incivilities following the intervention.

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

Following are CrimeSolutions-rated programs that are related to this practice:

Street-Level Drug Law Enforcement

This practice includes targeted-policing approaches for reducing drug and drug-related offenses. This practice is rated Promising in reducing reported, drug-related calls for services and offenses against persons. This practice is rated Ineffective in reducing reported property offenses, public order calls for service, and total offenses.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

	Crime & Delinquency - Drug and alcohol offenses
	Crime & Delinquency - Violent offenses
	Crime & Delinquency - Property offenses
	Crime & Delinquency - Public order offenses
	Crime & Delinquency - Multiple crime/offense types

Why might a practice's outcome ratings differ from the ratings of specific programs encompassed by that practice?