Retaliatory Violence Insight Project
The Retaliatory Violence Insight Project (RVIP) is an innovative demonstration project funded by the US Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) to help police departments nationwide address the problem of retaliatory violence in the communities they serve.
RVIP does this by looking at retaliatory crime through a conflict lens.
RVIP does this by looking at retaliatory crime through a conflict lens.
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Did You Know?
FBI homicide data for 2011 reveals that a person who murdered another knew precisely who they were murdering 79% of the time. |
Did You Know?
FBI homicide data from 2011 also shows that 75% of homicides were precipitated by arguments or gang activity. |
Taken together, these statistics demonstrate that most of the lethal violence in the United States is not a consequence of random aggression, but of violent, tit-for-tat, retaliatory responses to interpersonal conflicts.
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Retaliatory Violence as Conflict and Crime
Retaliatory violence happens when someone feels that he or she has been wronged and decides to get even, to take justice into their own hands, to settle the score.
Retaliatory violence happens when a conflict escalates to the point of harm.
When retaliatory violence happens, someone has committed a crime-- aggravated assault, homicide, and while lives often end as a consequence of retaliatory violence, the conflict persists.
This presents a 2-tiered problem for law enforcement:
First, in fulfilling their duty to serve and protect, police officers are typically placed in a reactive mode when confronted with retaliatory violence. They are left to manage the after-effects of violent crime, rather than effectively positioned to help mitigate the conflict before it erupts in violent retaliation.
Second, the very fact of retaliatory violence underscores a troubling breakdown in police legitimacy that has emerged within high-conflict communities in recent decades. Research shows that citizens in communities with high levels of retaliatory violence feel that they cannot trust the police to protect them or to help them resolve the arguments and conflicts that lead to violent retaliation. This leaves residents with the sense that they have no alternative but to take justice into their own hands and retaliate on their own behalf. This lack of legitimacy leads to a lack of cooperation, which severely hinders the ability of police officers to investigate and close these cases, let alone predict and prevent them.
Retaliatory violence happens when a conflict escalates to the point of harm.
When retaliatory violence happens, someone has committed a crime-- aggravated assault, homicide, and while lives often end as a consequence of retaliatory violence, the conflict persists.
This presents a 2-tiered problem for law enforcement:
First, in fulfilling their duty to serve and protect, police officers are typically placed in a reactive mode when confronted with retaliatory violence. They are left to manage the after-effects of violent crime, rather than effectively positioned to help mitigate the conflict before it erupts in violent retaliation.
Second, the very fact of retaliatory violence underscores a troubling breakdown in police legitimacy that has emerged within high-conflict communities in recent decades. Research shows that citizens in communities with high levels of retaliatory violence feel that they cannot trust the police to protect them or to help them resolve the arguments and conflicts that lead to violent retaliation. This leaves residents with the sense that they have no alternative but to take justice into their own hands and retaliate on their own behalf. This lack of legitimacy leads to a lack of cooperation, which severely hinders the ability of police officers to investigate and close these cases, let alone predict and prevent them.
Our Mission
RVIP's mission is to help police departments predict and prevent retaliatory violence by opening an avenue for understanding retaliatory crime as conflict.
Through an intensive series of hands-on, experiential trainings, police officers learn the fundamental theory and skills of Insight Policing, where through analytical and investigative techniques they apply the Insight approach to situations of crime nested in conflict.
Through an intensive series of hands-on, experiential trainings, police officers learn the fundamental theory and skills of Insight Policing, where through analytical and investigative techniques they apply the Insight approach to situations of crime nested in conflict.
"We got a call for a shooting. We arrived at the address, and when we went around back there was a crowd of young men. Normally we would have arrested everyone of them on a gang related charge, but this time we used the loop. We started asking them Insight questions, and rather than processing a handful of arrests without any leads, we got the information we needed to catch the shooter."
- Officer Boyce, South Memphis COP
RVIP City Partners
Memphis, TN
--March 27, 2013. We are incredibly sad for the loss of our partner, Peggie Russel, Project Manager of Gun Violence Prevention for the Memphis Mayors Innovation Team. Her spirit of justice and dedication to service and community will be greatly missed.
--March 27, 2013. We are incredibly sad for the loss of our partner, Peggie Russel, Project Manager of Gun Violence Prevention for the Memphis Mayors Innovation Team. Her spirit of justice and dedication to service and community will be greatly missed.
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RVIP, in collaboration with the Memphis Mayor's Innovation Team and the Memphis Police Department, is training Community Outreach Police (COP) officers who serve in two of Memphis' target area for youth gun violence: Frayser and South Memphis. |
Lowell, MA
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In collaboration with the Lowell Police Department, RVIP is training Lowell police officers from School Resource, Criminal Investigation, Community Response, and Family Services. |
Are you interested in having Insight Policing in your community? Let us know.
3434 N. Washington Boulevard, 5th Floor, Arlington, VA 22201 | (202) 618 0990 I insight@gmu.edu
This web site is funded in part through a grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Neither the U.S. Department of Justice nor any of its components operate, control, are responsible for, or necessarily endorse, this web site (including, without limitation, its content, technical infrastructure, and policies, and an services or tools provided.