Numerous studies have researched public perception of police, and, with some exceptions (Cram, 2023), these have focused on “one-off” interactions between the police and the general public (Sahin et al., 2017; Skogan, 2006). Focused deterrence programmes are currently being evaluated in five English sites, and two of these present a unique scenario: a cohort of people involved in violent crime, likely to be averse to police due to said criminal involvement and prior negative experiences with police (Jackson & Bradford, 2010; Skogan, 2006), participating in a program that requires of them to work with police officers. These officers are in an unorthodox role of the ‘Navigator’, supporting the participant throughout the programme while simultaneously representing a threat of enforcement.

Such an intervention presents the opportunity to address a gap in the literature and better understand this unorthodox approach to working with justice-involved individuals. This research will utilise navigator interviews, originally undertaken to gather initial programme feedback, to provide insight into this new perspective on policing. Transcripts will be analysed to explore the relationship between the navigators and programme participants and the techniques employed by police officers when working with individuals in focused deterrence interventions. This paper opens up opportunities for future research around this unique role of police officers and contributes new knowledge to better understand the relationship between police officers and justice-involved individuals in such an environment.

The “hurt people, hurt people” narrative has been extensively explored in prior research (Reavis et al 2013; CMNCP, 2021), with many criminological and sociological theories supporting the notion that trauma may increase the probability of offending. This raises the question of the extent to which individuals rejecting their “victim” identity and prior traumatization would accept trauma-informed practices and be susceptible to deterrence interventions. On the other hand, responsivity as a concept refers to both personal (e.g. personality, background) and environmental (e.g. delivery methods) factors that encourage or obstruct someone in committing to an intervention. Thus, understanding and identifying factors, such as individual trauma, that may keep someone from progressing in the program, is essential in developing effective and individual-focused interventions.

This paper examines how adverse childhood experiences, the cycle of abuse, and intergenerational trauma theories may explain responsivity differences toward focused deterrence initiatives. Results stem from a theoretical literature examination prompted by both existing theories and preliminary findings of a wider focused deterrence program evaluation. Discussion from this paper might be relevant in bridging the knowledge gap regarding responsivity to focused deterrence programs and support additional research to better inform policymakers on successful violence prevention interventions or relevant program adaptations.

The dramatic increase in response policing, over the past few years, has been regarded by criminologists as misplaced, since there is little evidence that it has any effect on crime rates or likely to impact the detection of crime (Martin, 2022). In contrast, community policing is viewed, as providing not only a visible presence to deter crime, as well as reassurance for the community, but is also able to diffuse potential volatile situations and develop community knowledge to identify individuals and locations at risk of crime. Community policing is especially effective when police efforts to increase informal contact with young people and marginalised groups positively impacts on their willingness to engage in a dialogue around violence within their neighbourhoods (Colover & Quinton, 2018). This paper documents community perceptions to response policing violent crimes in five cities in the UK. It utilises a mixed methods approach of quantitative police and localised crime data, alongside semi-structured interviews from community stakeholders. It forms part of a pilot report into the effectiveness of focused deterrence in reducing violent crime. Preliminary findings indicate that communities are highly critical of response teams providing frontline policing and cite this as one of the main reasons why the reporting of crime has declined. It concludes that redeploying response teams as high-visibility neighbourhood police officers, will not only help police-neighbourhood partnerships to develop, but will also reassure communities that they have some ownership over engagement processes. A partnership that can be broadly representative, and pro-active in developing crime prevention measures, building links with community leaders, and gathering vital intelligence from within the community.

Focused Deterrence (FD) interventions are deemed as promising in reducing violence among young people in the community (YEF toolkit, 2023) through three main pillars: (1) provision of support in desisting from violence; (2) threat of severe, certain, and swift punishment for continued offending; and (3) vocalization of anti-violence agenda and pro-social norms through community involvement. However, the existing evidence on the effectiveness of these interventions is predominantly based on weak and under-powered study designs, targeting groups committing extreme levels of serious firearm violence in urban centers in the US (e.g., Braga et al., 2014).

This paper presents the study design for the largest, and first ever, randomized controlled trial of an FD program in the United Kingdom. Through its summative and formative components, the aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of FD interventions in five English cities and provide further insight into whether this type of program works in the UK context, for whom, and under what circumstances. Given that this is a multi-year, multi-site project, and its pre-implementation phase and early stages have been discussed elsewhere (Brennan et al., 2023), this paper focuses on the qualitative data gathered to understand the pre-intervention context of violence and business as usual strategies to addressing violence in each city during summer 2023. This was done through baseline interviews with program delivery team and community stakeholders. Data was analyzed inductively, using thematic analysis.

The preliminary findings indicate a lack of proactive, preventative policing in target cities, a normalization of violence in the communities, and strained relationships between the communities and the police. This provides another layer of understanding of some of the challenges around FD implementation and demonstrates the need for multiagency approach to violence prevention in these cities.