Page 30 - Violence Prevention Through the Engagement of Violence Producers

BACKGROUND

Table 4: Initial Batch of VIP Communities

The homicides in the target areas were mostly gang related; in the case of St. Catherine,
there were two main gangs – One Order and Clansman – but it was infighting between two

factions of the Clansman gang that accounted for most of the homicides. With respect to
St. James, the violence-producing environment was more complex with traditional, well-

established gangs along with unstructured groups operating mostly in the lotto-scamming
field. While PMI West had experience working in the participating communities, PMI East

had some, but limited, experience working in St Catherine.

The Cure Violence model embraces the public health approach to violence prevention
and though this approach has been labelled a sector-specific approach , this designation
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does not fully account for the breadth of the public health approach. Addressing risk
factors by treating young persons at highest risk as well as changing community norms

require integrated cross-sector interventions. It follows that the public health approach is a
cross-sector/multi-agency approach and that recognition of this will enhance the design,

implementation and evaluation of Violence Interruption programmes. The debate as to
the relationship between the public health approach and the criminological/criminal

justice system approach continues and there has been even an attempt to bridge these
two approaches by way of what has been seen as an enhanced public health approach

in the form of the epidemiological-criminological approach, shortened as EpiCrim.
(Akers, Potter and Hill 2013). And, as we shall see later, the benefits of the public health
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26 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Latin American and Caribbean Region of the World Bank 2007
27 Akers, Potter and Hill 2013
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