Have you ever heard of Gary Slotkin? He is an American physician and an epidemiologist at the World Health Organization. Around 1995, after many years of fighting infectious diseases in Asia and Africa, he returned to his hometown – Chicago, in the United States of America.
Upon arriving there, he admitted he was shocked by the crime rates he found: “I had seen all the violence that goes on in the United States, and since I had spent so much time abroad, I had no idea. I saw in the newspapers and on television that there were 14-year-old boys shooting 13-year-old boys in the head. Kill yourself. It was kids shooting each other.”
At the time, between 1994 and 1999, 4,663 people were killed in Chicago. Intrigued, the doctor decided to study the problem. He noticed a number of similarities between the violence in Chicago and the epidemics he had fought.
He realized early on that crimes occurred in specific places and times. What's more, they seemed to proliferate like infectious diseases. The logical conclusion was that crime should be addressed in accordance with public health strategies.
The first rule was to treat violence not as a “bad guy problem”—but as a contagious disease, to be prevented and ultimately mitigated.
In Uganda, for example, while fighting AIDS, he learned that people would not listen to advice about safe sex unless it came from someone in a similar situation to their own. So in Chicago, he recruited ex-cons to talk to gangs, identify high-risk situations and individuals, and intervene in conflicts before they turned into cycles of violence. “These guys won’t listen to the police,” one said, “but we have a reputation and credibility on the street. We speak their language.”
Let's look at the results: In areas where these “violent districts” were in place, shootings dropped by as much as 40%. Other cities, including Los Angeles, New York, and Baltimore, followed suit.
In Glasgow, UK, we went further: a broader public health strategy was adopted, including education, health and social services. The result: homicides fell by 50% between 2004 and 2017.
I'm still thinking about Brazil. Isn't it time to be more scientific in fighting crime?
“Wannabe internet buff. Future teen idol. Hardcore zombie guru. Gamer. Avid creator. Entrepreneur. Bacon ninja.”