Operation Cease fire offers Youngstown citizens hope

Even though a small minority of the city of Youngstown’s population is responsible for the seemingly intractable crime wave, the impact on the community has been devastating. There are neighborhoods where gun battles between gangbangers is common place, while Youngstown’s national reputation continues to be defined by the comparatively high homicide rate.

But there is hope today — in the form of a crime-fighting initiative that has shown great success in cities such as Boston and Cincinnati. At the heart of the approach is the admission that “traditional law enforcement techniques aren’t working,” as city Prosecutor Jay Macejko said during a recent seminar on Operation Cease Fire. “We can’t arrest our way out of it, and we can’t incarcerate our way out of it.”

Or as Mayor Jay Williams told the gathering of 70 law enforcement personnel, neighborhood leaders and community activists, “It is painfully apparent that there are no quick and easy solutions to crime and violence.”

Which is why city government has turned to Dr. David M. Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City and one of the founders of the crime-fighting program that was launched in Boston 15 years ago.

The bottom line of Kennedy’s presentation: If you give people a sane way out, a majority of the hardcore population will take it.

How does a community do that with individuals who live by the gun? The answer can be found in the approach developed by Kennedy and others that has three components: the role of law enforcement; involvement of social-service professionals; and the participation of community leaders.

Face-to-face interaction

The strategy involves face-to-face interaction with offenders. The key is to let them know that individuals and services are available to help them change their behavior, while emphasizing that their actions have consequences.

One of the most attractive aspects of Operation Cease Fire is the way law enforcement deals with criminal situations. If a member of a street group or gang shoots someone, police not only pick up the shooter, but every member of the group who may be wanted on warrants, nonsupport of children or other charges.

“This is not negotiable,” Kennedy said. “Law enforcement needs to say, ‘You’re going to put your guns down. When a body goes down, go after the entire group from which the shooter came.”

In Youngstown, there are about 28 street groups with a total of 500 members.

The city hopes to launch Operation Cease Fire — the formal name is Community Initiative to Reduce Violence — in the spring.

Along with this initiative, the city needs some help from Washington.

We believe the community-oriented policing program, which was in effect during the Clinton presidency, should be resurrected by Barack Obama next year.

Indeed, Vice President-elect Joe Biden was the architect of the COPS program which put 100,000 police officers on the streets of cities such as Youngstown.

The program was dismantled by President Bush, but come January, President Obama should move quickly to restore funding.