Published -
August 20, 2024 We asked OC&C Strategy Consultants to conduct a scoping exercise to help us understand which force areas are delivering focused deterrence and, importantly, how they’re delivering it.
The insights collected as part of this project will be used to inform the development of practice guidance on focused deterrence.
Summary
Focused deterrence involves identifying the people involved in violence and supporting them to desist. It combines several core strategies:
- Support – Help for people involved in violence to access positive support and social services.
- Community engagement – Engaging the wider community to communicate that they want violence to stop and those involved to be safe, provide support, and encourage reintegration in the community. Projects will often arrange engagement between the people who are the focus of the intervention and victims’ family members, reformed former group members, and faith leaders.
- Deterrence – Clear communication of the consequences of violence and swift and certain enforcement if violence occurs.
Research suggests that the average impact of focused deterrence on violent crime is likely to be high. Our estimate is based on a review of 24 studies which suggests that, on average, focused deterrence strategies reduced crime by 33%.
Although we have high confidence in our estimate of the impact of focused deterrence on violent crime, we know that it can be difficult to implement. This is why we commissioned OC&C Strategy Consultants to find out:
- how focused deterrence is adopted across the UK and, when it is adopted, how closely it follows our guidelines on best practice;
- the main barriers to the adoption of best practice Focused Deterrence; and
- what we could do to help local areas overcome these barriers.
This report provides a summary of the findings from this scoping exercised.