KCPD adopts crime program from the past to reduce homicides

By Max Goodwin 

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters-Baker was one of the key architects of a focused deterrence program to stop violence over a decade ago. In 2014, a year after the program KC No Violence Alliance started, there was a record low of 82 homicides in Kansas City.

In 2015, homicides increased to 100 and have continued to climb ever since. Last year was the most homicides ever in Kansas City, when 182 people were murdered.

KCPD Deputy Police Chief Joe Mabin also worked on KC NoVA, as it was known. At the recent South Kansas City Alliance meeting, Mabin and Peters-Baker discussed a new effort called SAFE KC, modeled after KC NoVA. 

On May 8, three people were shot in a house in the 11700th block of Corrington Avenue just east of the Longview Shopping Center in the Hickman Mills area. A teenager was taken into custody in connection with the shooting that left two injured and one dead. 

A man was found dead by officers after a shooting at night at the America’s Best Value Inn at Blue Ridge Boulevard just east of I-49.

Can a new focused deterrence plan reduce the number of shootings like these?

SAFE KC is made up of a board that includes Peters-Baker, KCPD Chief Stacey Graves, Mayor Quinton Lucas, Missouri Probation & Parole, Jackson County Family Court, Gwendolyn Grant of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City (who serves a community role on the board) and City Councilman Crispin Rea, among others. 

One method SAFE KC will use to address violence is holding intervention meetings. They will rely on information that police officers track, such as individuals’ social networks, what they post on social media, and their police records. 

These interventions are initiated when a triggering event occurs between two groups or gangs, such as a shooting. A homicide often is followed by retaliation, sparking a cycle of violence between groups. These interventions are referred to as “call-ins.” A call-in is meant to diffuse that retaliatory violence.

“We will invite representatives of each of these groups to the call-in, which is basically a meeting at a church or community center,” Mabin said. 

“We tell them the rules. We give them the opportunity to change. We offer services. We say the next individual member of a group who does whatever violent act, whether that’s shoot someone, or maybe you’re a member of the worst group at that time, we’re going to enforce on that group. It might be eight, 12, 15 people. We’re going to have all the resources, all of our state and federal partners, focused on those individuals for a limited time.”

Those who attend these call-ins are guaranteed by police not to be arrested at the meeting. If the groups commit violent acts after the call-in, law enforcement will go after the entire group.

Peters-Baker says there’s more to SAFE KC than what existed with KC NoVA. There are more social services included this time. She said SAFE KC will work with KC 360 and other programs and groups also working to reduce violence. 

 “It’s not just another program,” Peters-Baker said. “It is an ethic of how we go about doing business. It is the two of us among all the others on the list focusing on the right people and hopefully in the right way.”

There’s hope that with these efforts, Kansas City’s homicides can one day fall under a total of 100 in a year

, as it did in 2014. But there’s reason to be skeptical. When KC NoVA went unfunded in 2019, it was after the National Institute of Justice rated the program as having no effect at achieving its objective based on a study by two researchers from UMKC who had been involved in creating it. 

Andrew Fox and Ken Novak studied the evidence behind KC NoVA. Their analysis indicated that focused deterrence can immediately reduce violence, but over time, the effects diminish. 

Some cities like Omaha and Boston have significantly reduced their violent crime through focused deterrence models. SAFE KC will be the next iteration of the model in Kansas City to see if it can be a lasting approach.