Richmond Comprehensive Homicide Initiative

The Richmond (Calif.) Comprehensive Homicide Initiative is a problem-oriented policing program composed of a broad collection of enforcement and nonenforcement strategies designed to reduce homicide. The initiative departed from the traditional police definition of homicide as a unique offense in which the appropriate police role is largely limited to after-the-fact investigation, instead recognizing that homicide prevention is a critical police responsibility that can best be accomplished by identifying the paths that frequently lead to homicide and closing them by intervening early. With this new definition in mind, the initiative members developed a plan concentrated on specific problem areas, including targeting domestic violence, enhancing investigative capabilities, intervening in the lives of at-risk youths, and targeting outdoor- gun-, drug-, and gang-related violence.

The goal of this strategy is to reduce homicide in Richmond, California.

The Comprehensive Homicide Initiative was evaluated in three ways. The first looked at victim-, offender-, and incident-related characteristics of all homicides in Richmond from 1985 to 1998. Data was obtained from Richmond Police Department homicide reports and interviews with detectives from homicide and gang units. The second was a quasi-experimental design using an interrupted time series analysis to determine if the problem-oriented policing philosophy caused changes in frequency of homicides in Richmond. The third compared the nature and frequency of homicides in Richmond with other California cities with populations of 75,000 or more (n=75).

During the evaluation performed on the Comprehensive Homicide Initiative as a whole, data was grouped into three periods according to homicide patterns: 1985-89 was a period of stability; 1990-94 was a period of great increases; 1995-98 was the "posttreatment" phase after the initiative was implemented. The researchers found that in Richmond the rates of homicides decreased by more than 1 homicide per month after the initiative. The changes occurred particularly in the areas targeted by the new problem-oriented policing strategy. In comparison with the other cities in California with a population over 75,000, this drop was not unique to Richmond but was rare. The other cities with similar reductions also work off of a problem-oriented policing philosophy. The evaluation showed a decrease in nonlethal violent crime in Richmond after 1994 as well.