KC fights violent crime with carrot-stick program

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Despite decades of initiatives to stem violent crime, Kansas City residents continue killing each other at a rate five times higher than the national average, prompting officials in this Midwest city best known for barbecue and jazz to turn to an alternative law enforcement approach that offers incentives to convicted and would-be criminals to change their ways.

Zero-tolerance policies haven't worked, police say, and there's little evidence that public awareness rituals or anti-violence coalitions have had any impact on an annual murder count that has been below 100 only nine times in the last 44 years.

But local leaders think their newest assault on violent crime — patterned after a "focused deterrence" model created in Boston in the mid-1990s and refined over the years by cities like Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Los Angeles — might finally change things.

"It's the first time I've felt this kind of energy when doing something like this," said Darryl Forte, Kansas City's first black police chief and a lifelong resident of the city. "I'm confident this will have an impact."

Kansas City's effort, dubbed the "No Violence Alliance," or NoVA, was created more than a year ago, soon after Forte's promotion to chief. The U.S. attorney's office, county prosecutor and law enforcement authorities are on board, as are the University of Missouri-Kansas City and various social services agencies.

Focused deterrence is a carrot-and-stick approach in which members of a criminal network — even those on the fringes who haven't yet committed serious crimes — are identified and sought out by police who want them to know their actions can have unintended consequences for others in their cliques.

Sometime soon, about 80 criminals on probation or parole will be brought together in groups of 20 to meet with prosecutors and law enforcement agents who will explain the ramifications of the new program.

Those who want to pull away from criminal affiliations will be offered social services to help them do so. Prosecutors will be sending a strong message to the others that authorities know who they are, what they've done, and that they will be held accountable if anyone in their network commits a violent crime.

"For those on the bubble, a lot of them want to do what's right," Forte said.

The focused deterrence approach has been successful in other cities, according to a study released early last year. Researchers with the Campbell Collaboration, an international research network, reported that nine of 10 Ceasefire-like programs they studied experienced "strong and statistically significant crime reductions associated with the approach."

A U.S. Justice Department evaluation of Boston's Ceasefire program found a "63 percent reduction in the monthly count of youth homicides, a 25 percent reduction in the monthly count of citywide gun assault incidents, a 32 percent reduction in the monthly count of citywide shots-fired calls for service, and a 44 percent reduction in the monthly count of youth gun assaults in selected high-risk districts."

David Kennedy, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York who helped develop Boston's program, said interest in focused deterrence has risen sharply in recent years in cities that have found typical arrest-and-detain approaches aren't working.

"It wasn't that long ago when you couldn't get anyone to take this stuff seriously at all," he said.

NoVA flexed its muscles in January when Kansas City police focused on a network of about 360 people, including homicide suspects, known drug dealers, prostitutes and juveniles, all linked to each other through a computer model created by assistant UMKC criminal justice professor Andrew Fox.

Using information officers obtained from people on the streets, during traffic stops, at crime scenes or during what police call "knock and talks" in which an officer makes a cold call to a person's home solely to make contact, Fox is connecting the dots between hard-core criminals, those who associate with them, and even those who associate with the associates.

Using that data, NoVA manager Capt. Joe McHale said officers knocked on about 100 doors over a day-and-a-half, with priority given to those with outstanding warrants. Many of the contacts were made simply to let suspected criminals know they're being watched, he said.

"The whole purpose of that demonstration was to show what our capabilities are," said McHale, a former Police Department SWAT team leader.

The effort resulted in the arrests of 17 people, including suspects in at least two homicides, and cleared 49 outstanding warrants.

Last year, 108 people were victims of homicide in Kansas City, six fewer than the 114 murdered in 2011 when the city's homicide rate of 23 per 100,000 residents was nearly five times higher than the national rate of 4.7 per 100,000.

As of March 20, there were 21 homicides in the city this year, three less than at this time a year ago.

Pat Clarke, an outreach liaison for the police department, said it's critical that NoVA's message is communicated by people who have suffered through the same problems plaguing other inner-city residents.

A frequent speaker at Kansas City schools, Clarke said his own experiences selling drugs and committing other crimes as a young man decades ago — in addition to his stories about being raised by an abusively strict mother and a father who was rarely around — give him credibility with young people who are going through the same things.

"When they finish school, there ain't no dinner," he said. "That's why a lot of kids are out selling drugs. They are trying to take care of the other four, other five kids. A lot of them are out there because they feel like they have to be. I know because I've been there."

He said many young offenders will benefit from the social services aspect of NoVA, while the program will have little impact on others.

"Some of these kids you're just not going to save," he said. "They've got it in their mind they're gonna commit murder, they're going to commit a crime, and that's that."

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Parents of Violent Mental Disorder Patients Share Their Stories to Lawmakers

The father of a young man whose battle with mental illness ended in suicide told a bipartisan group of Congress members today about the sometimes nightmarish struggles he faced trying to help his son.

"I can't tell you the horror it is to have a child, behind you, going down an interstate highway, trying to get him to the place to save him and he tells you, 'If you stop the car, I'll jump out and kill myself with these trucks behind us,'" Pat Milam said, recounting the trauma of care for his young adult son, who had swallowed a bottle of pills in one of several attempts to commit suicide.

That attempt was ultimately unsuccessful. But at the age of 24, Matthew Milam would take his own life, a mere eight days after being discharged from a psychiatric ward where he was treated for bipolar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia.

He used a makeshift explosive device on that final attempt. Police had previously told his father they could not charge Matthew with a crime after he had alerted them to finding materials to construct pipe bombs in his room at home.

Milam was one of three parents who appeared at a mental health and violence forum discussion today on Capitol Hill that was hosted by the oversight subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The body called the meeting due to its bearing over the private health industry.

The event today is latest such panel to be formed as the nation calls for investigations into the causes of a series of mass shootings in recent years.

RELATED: Newtown Shooter Adam Lanza had Sensory Processing Disorder

The guests blamed what they perceived as a failed American mental health system for their family's ordeals, and in the case of Milam, death.

Pete Earley, whose own adult son had been successfully treated for illness, said vigorous and constant outpatient service was required.

"We need to change the commitment process," he said. "But we can't just change that if you don't back it up with services. Because there's no place to go."

According to the Child Mind Institute, 15 million Americans under the age of 24 suffer from a mental disability, but there are only approximately 7,500 certified child psychiatrists.

A national stigma surrounding mental illness, combined with costs, weak health insurance coverage, and a bureaucratic maze of state and local guidelines have resulted in the average patient requiring two years to be identified and seek treatment according to the institute.

RELATED: Medical Bills Bankrupt Families of Mentally Ill Children

Earley, a former Washington Post reporter, documented his son's case in his book, "Crazy." He told the panel a turning point came when the family found a dedicated case worker, who helped the young man adjust into independent living with two roommates also undergoing treatment.

"That took a tremendous job off of me," Earley said. "I could be the parent."

Earley's son is now employed in the state of Virginia as a "peer-to-peer" support specialist, helping incarcerated individuals with mental illness overcome their disability.

"Most people with mental illnesses can get better. You got to give them hope. You've got to give them the tools to do it," he said.

The panel was also joined by Liza Long, whose blog about her own trials with a violently mentally ill 13-year-old went viral after the December shooting deaths of 20 Connecticut first graders and six adults. was named for the gunman.

Long, who said her son is currently taking a "cornucopia of drugs" to control his rage, says sometimes parents' only safe option is to have their children charged with a crime.

"We live in fear of the future," she said. "What will happen when my son turns 18? Will my son harm himself or others? How will I pay for all the services I need to keep my child functioning?"

The mother asked for increased funding for the school counselors, research, and consistent community resources. In addition she asked the lawmakers to consider an expanded budget for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Representative Timothy Murphy, D-Pa., led the forum. In his closing remarks he told the assembled experts and lawmakers that while the discussion helped members "understand the fears, the worries, the love, the frustration," of the issue at hand, the general welfare of the country demanded a thoughtful and deliberate way forward.

"I want to make sure we don't do some knee-jerk reactions and think because we did something, we did the right thing," he said. "The worst thing we can do is lull ourselves into some state of sleep, and say 'Well, we took care of mental illness so we're done for the next decade.'"

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