Violent crime in American cities is extremely concentrated: roughly 3–5% of a city's geography accounts for about 20% of its violent incidents. But the specific blocks that are "hot" shift from year to year — a phenomenon we call churn. That means static targeting strategies (deploying resources to the same places indefinitely) decay in effectiveness over time.
This whitepaper lays out a practical, data-driven approach to violence reduction that doesn't require new budget, new staff, or more arrests. Instead, it uses environmental interventions — code enforcement, lot cleaning, lighting, removing blight — coordinated across city departments and updated on a regular cadence as the data shifts.
What's in it
- Concentration and churn analysis: How to measure where violence is — and how fast it moves
- Environmental interventions: The evidence base for place-based, non-enforcement strategies
- The Dallas Model: A case study of Dallas's 2024–2025 coordinated implementation across multiple city departments
- A 90-day roadmap: Step-by-step implementation guide for city leaders who want to try this
Who it's for
City managers, police chiefs, council members, and anyone in local government who wants to reduce violence using the resources they already have. Written to be useful, not academic — the goal is that someone could read this on a Monday and start implementing on a Tuesday.
Take it with you
The full whitepaper is free to download (link above). It includes a 90-day implementation roadmap that any city can adapt — no proprietary tools or paid services required. If you're in local government and want to try this approach, everything you need to get started is in the document.
Background
This grew out of 17A's work with several cities on crime data analysis and cross-department coordination. The analytical methods (concentration measurement, churn tracking, adaptive geographic targeting) are things we've built and refined across multiple engagements.