Managing the Group 

Violence Intervention

Using Shooting Scorecards to Track Group Violence

by Anthony A. Braga, David M. Hureau, and Leigh S. Grossman

Managing the Group

Violence Intervention

Using Shooting Scorecards 

to Track Group Violence
This project was supported by cooperative agreement number 2011-CK-WX-K030 awarded by the 

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions contained 

herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies 

of the U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific agencies, companies, products, or services 

should not be considered an endorsement by the author(s), the U.S. Department of Justice, the 

Boston Police Department, or the Newark Police Department. Rather, the references are illustrations 

to supplement discussion of the issues. 

The Internet references cited in this publication were valid as of the date of this publication. Given 

that URLs and websites are in constant flux, neither the author(s) nor the COPS Office can vouch for 

their current validity. 

Recommended citation: 

Braga, Anthony A., David M. Hureau, and Leigh S. Grossman. 2014. Managing the Group Violence 

Intervention: Using Shooting Scorecards to Track Group Violence. Washington, DC: Office of Community 

Oriented Policing Services.

ISBN: 978-1-932582-92-5 

Published 2014
iii

Contents

Letter from the Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

About This Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

What is a Shooting Scorecard? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Key Steps and Data Quality Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

The Boston Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Persistent gun violence problems as a catalyst for developing shooting 

scorecards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Gangs and gang violence in Boston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Shooting scorecard data collection processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Operational uses of gang shooting scorecards in Boston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Analytical insights and decision making support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Performance Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

About the National Network for Safe Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

About the COPS Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

v

Letter from the Director

Dear colleagues,

If you live in a community where you’ve been hearing gunshots every day, at some point 

you might stop calling the police because you think that nothing changes and that the 

sound of gunshots, unfortunately, is just a part of life. But no one should live like that. 

When I was the chief of police in East Palo Alto, California, the city’s 2010 violent crime 

rate was nearly 80 percent higher than that of the entire state, and there was a large 

disparity between the number of shooting incidents and actual calls to police. To address 

this, our police department used data to identify the areas with the most shootings. Then 

we chose two sites to pilot a project using a public health approach. I worked with my 

officers and community members to reclaim their public spaces. 

Group shooting scorecards are a systematic means of identifying the criminal groups that 

commit the highest number shootings and experience the greatest number of shooting 

victimizations during a specific time period. Developed to support focused deterrence 

strategies, shooting scorecards help ensure that law enforcement agencies focus scarce 

resources on the groups that consistently generate the most gun violence. To be more 

specific, these scorecards help agencies to consider the most violent groups for focused 

interventions by a partnership of community members, law enforcement, and social 

service providers. 

This publication provides an overview of shooting scorecards, its links to problem 

analysis and performance measurement systems in police departments, the importance of 

data quality, and the key steps in using the scorecards. 

Furthermore, this publication is part of an ongoing series by the National Network for 

Safe Communities about its two core crime reduction strategies: the Group Violence 

Intervention and the Drug Market Intervention. We at the COPS Office hope this 

series assists you in implementing these strategies, which help communities to view law 

enforcement as a trusted partner in identifying and addressing the most violent groups to 

create safer communities.

Sincerely,

Ronald L. Davis, Director

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

vii

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis for allowing 

us to report on Boston’s experience with gang shooting scorecards and granting us 

access to the data here. We would also like to thank the Boston Police Department 

Superintendent Paul Fitzgerald, Sergeant Detective Daniel Coleman, David Carabin, 

Clifford Goodband, and Richard Laird for their dedication to continuing the gang 

shooting review processes in Boston. Finally, we would like to thank Newark Police 

Director Samuel DeMaio for allowing us to provide a brief summary of the Newark 

Police Department’s use of gang shooting scorecards. 

ix

About This Series

The National Network for Safe Communities has assembled guides to support 

communities implementing two crime control strategies: the Group Violence 

Intervention (GVI) and the Drug Market Intervention (DMI). GVI reduces violent 

crime when community members join together with law enforcement and social 

service providers to deliver an anti-violence message to 

highly active street groups. DMI eliminates overt drug 

markets by bringing together community leaders, law 

enforcement, and service providers with street-level 

dealers and their families to make it clear that the 

dealing must stop.

Both strategies combine the best of law enforcement 

and community-driven approaches to improve public 

safety, minimize arrests and incarceration, and foster 

police-community reconciliation. The purpose of these guides is to offer comprehensive 

tools to practitioners - whether they are community members, law enforcement, or 

government officials - who seek to bring the strategies to their communities, build a 

partnership of stakeholders, operationalize the strategies, and sustain their results.

Each guide lays out the important elements of a strategy and recommends a general path 

along which communities should proceed. However, the particulars of the strategies are 

adaptable. The National Network recommends that practitioners use these guides to 

ensure that all the elements are in place, tailoring their execution to the local resources 

and personnel available. If communities stay close to the spirit of these approaches and 

remain faithful to the fundamental principles, they will see dramatic improvements.

The particulars of the strategies are 

adaptable. The National Network 

recommends that practitioners use 

these guides to ensure that all the 

elements are in place, tailoring their 

execution to the local resources and 

personnel available.

1

Introduction

Much of the devastating toll of urban gun violence can be linked to dynamics and 

situations generated by a small number of high-rate offenders committing shootings at 

specific places and times. For instance, less than five percent of Boston’s street corners 

and block faces generated 74 percent of fatal and nonfatal shootings between 1980 

and 2008, with the most-active 65 locations experiencing more than 1,000 shootings 

during this time period (Braga et al. 2010). The bulk of Boston shootings take place 

immediately after school dismissal and during the weekend evening hours and tend to 

increase during summer months (Braga 2004). In 2006, roughly one percent of Boston 

youth between the ages of 15 and 24 participated in gangs, but these gang dynamics 

generated more than half of all homicides, and gang members were involved in roughly 

70 percent of fatal and nonfatal shootings as either a perpetrator and/or a victim 

(Braga et al. 2008).

Police departments have become generally well positioned to analyze and respond 

to high-risk places during the times these locations are most criminally active. 

Computerized crime mapping technology to identify and analyze crime hot spots has 

proliferated across U.S. police departments (Weisburd and Lum 2005). Many police 

departments use management accountability processes, such as Compstat, to ensure 

that police resources are appropriately focused on these high-activity crime places 

(Weisburd et al. 2003). 

Unfortunately, there is far less experience developing and maintaining analytical tools 

integrated into police management accountability systems to ensure that police identify 

and address the most violent gangs and criminally active groups. The use of shooting 

scorecards provides a mechanism to analyze gun violence problems and ensure police 

appropriately focus resources on the risky groups that underpin much serious gun 

violence. More important, shooting scorecards can help ensure that practitioners 

properly implement and integrate innovative group violence interventions, such as 

focused deterrence programs (Kennedy 2011), into police department operations. 

In particular, shooting scorecards are useful in supporting the National Network for 

Safe Communities’ Group Violence Intervention, a focused deterrence approach to 

reducing serious violence that “relies on direct communication with violent groups by 

a partnership of law enforcement, social service providers, and community figures” (see 

NNSC 2013).
Managing the Group Violence Intervention

2

It is important to note at the outset that violence problems are concentrated among 

groups of chronic offenders who are often, but not always, gang-involved (Braga et al. 

2002). Other criminally active groups, such as drug-selling organizations and street 

robbery crews, may also account for noteworthy shares of gun violence in particular 

jurisdictions. Determining whether a particular violent group fits some general 

definition of a “gang” can be complex. Research suggests that the character of gangs and 

other criminally active groups can vary considerably within and across cities (see Curry 

et al. 1994). Developing appropriate definitions for gangs, their nature, and behavior 

remain central questions for communities, police, and scholars. 

However, resolving the gang question is not the central concern when designing and 

managing a Group Violence Intervention. Understanding and modifying the violent 

behaviors of criminally active groups, whether or not the groups are gangs, is the 

central concern. As such, shooting scorecards should be customized to local group 

characteristics and remain flexible enough to track the shooting behaviors of a wide 

range of criminally active groups.
3

What is a Shooting Scorecard?

In their most basic form, shooting scorecards create rank-ordered frequencies of 

the criminal groups that commit the highest number of shootings and experience 

the greatest number of shooting victimizations during a specific time period. These 

rankings are similar to scorecards used in many sporting events. For instance, in a 

candlepin bowling tournament, 30 players may complete for first, second, and third 

prizes. After completing 10 frames of bowling, players are ranked according to the 

number of points accrued, and those with the top three scores receive prizes. For 

shooting scorecards, law enforcement sums the shootings committed by and against 

specific groups over the course of days, weeks, months, quarters, or some other sensible 

period.1

 Law enforcement identifies the most violent groups, and rather than win 

anything, these groups receive systematic consideration for focused interventions, such 

as the National Network for Safe Communities’ Group Violence Intervention, in which 

a partnership of community members, law enforcement, and social service providers 

delivers a “no violence” message, information about legal consequences for further 

violence, and an offer of help.

1. It is important to note here that longer time frames are preferable, as short periods, such as days, may not 

provide enough time to collect reliable data on the nature of particular shooting events.

The systematic steps involved in shooting scorecard data collection processes also ensure 

that police departments are maintaining accurate and timely information on the nature 

of gun violence problems in their jurisdictions. Police departments often invest their 

resources in the careful documentation of individuals who comprise street gangs through 

gang member databases (Katz et al. 2000). Police departments should make these same 

investments in acquiring police officer knowledge on the circumstances of shootings, 

ensuring that they are interpreting this information correctly, entering these insights 

into a shooting database, and analyzing these data. Armed with the appropriate data 

and analytical products, police departments can more easily understand the share of 

gun violence generated by ongoing disputes between rival gangs, internal gang conflicts, 

drug market violence, personal disputes, robberies, and other street dynamics. Police 

departments can then track and monitor gun violence trends at the group level over time.

The development of gang scorecards can be viewed as a key element of the problem 

analysis phase in the problem-oriented policing process (Goldstein 1990; Braga 2008). 

Focused deterrence strategies, such as the Group Violence Intervention (see NNSC 
Managing the Group Violence Intervention

4

2013), are rooted in the problem-oriented policing framework (Kennedy et al. 1996; 

Braga et al. 2001) and represent a well-developed and evaluated school of approaches to 

recurring crime problems (Braga and Weisburd 2012). 

However, local variations matter in crafting these interventions. Problem analysis 

facilitates understanding of local criminally active groups and their associated violence 

dynamics so law enforcement representatives and researchers can logically link 

responses to the nature of the problem. As Scott Decker (2003) suggests, one of the 

crucial factors in responding to gangs and other violent groups is how those responding 

understand the problem these groups present. Determining the most violent groups 

in a particular jurisdiction and understanding the nature of their violent conflicts are 

important steps in developing an appropriate Group Violence Intervention.

The uses of shooting scorecards are also consistent with the police performance 

management ideals of Compstat (Heinrich and Braga 2010). While it has many 

features, Compstat can be generally viewed as a combined technical and managerial 

system that embeds the technical system for the collection and distribution of police 

performance data in a broader managerial system (Silverman 1999; McDonald 

2002). This system is designed to focus the organization on specific objectives, usually 

involving crime reduction, by holding a subset of managers accountable for using 

organizational resources appropriately in pursuit of these objectives (Moore 2003; 

Moore and Braga 2003). 

Shooting scorecards can be incorporated into Compstat-like processes to ensure that 

police departments appropriately focus scarce resources on the groups that consistently 

generate the most gun violence. Departments can hold police managers who are 

responsible for group violence prevention accountable for generating the desired 

violence reduction impacts. These departments can reassess ineffective responses and 

launch more appropriate interventions. They can also note successful responses and 

contribute to a body of knowledge on effective Group Violence Interventions.

A growing body of evaluation evidence suggests that “pulling levers” focused deterrence 

strategies generate significant reduction in targeted crime problems, such as gang 

violence (Braga and Weisburd 2012). Focused deterrence strategies honor core 

deterrence ideas, such as increasing risks faced by offenders, while finding new and 

creative ways of deploying traditional and nontraditional law enforcement tools to do 

so, such as communicating incentives and disincentives directly to targeted offenders 

(Kennedy 2008). 
What is a Shooting Scorecard

5

Unfortunately, research also suggests that focused deterrence strategies can be 

difficult to implement and sustain over extended periods (Braga 2012; Kennedy 

2011). Shooting scorecards help avoid this problem, especially when supported by a 

management accountability system, by helping to ensure that the groups most active 

in gun violence, and the groups that offend after law enforcement has delivered the 

deterrence message during a Group Violence Intervention, receive the enforcement 

attention they merit. Scorecards keep the operational partners focused on risky groups 

over time and maintain the implementation of the strategy as a whole.

7

Key Steps and Data Quality Issues

The proper implementation of shooting scorecards involves the adoption of a routine 

series of steps that structure the ongoing data collection process. Shooting scorecard 

data combines standard crime incident information maintained in official police 

databases with qualitative insights held by practitioners who are local experts on the 

people, dynamics, and situations that generate violent gun events. This section describes 

key steps in the data collection process and presents some of the strengths and limits of 

the various data sources that comprise shooting scorecards.

1 . Collect and maintain base database on fatal and nonfatal 

shooting incidents

Official police incident data on fatal and nonfatal shootings (i.e., gun homicides and 

gun assaults with nonfatal injuries to the victims) form the base information to create 

shooting scorecards. Shooting incidents can obviously have multiple victims and 

offenders. Shooting scorecard databases should be designed to account for multiple 

individuals involved in specific incidents. 

Furthermore, this database should always include the date, time, and location of shooting 

victimizations as well as the name, age, sex, and race of the victim. When known, 

information on the firearm used (type, caliber, make, and model) and the name, age, 

sex, and race of arrested suspects should also be included. The database can be further 

customized through the inclusion of additional information, such as the location 

and number of wounds. This database should be updated in real time, adding new 

information as it becomes available.

It is well known that police incident data, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 

Uniform Crime Reports, have shortcomings. For instance, crime incident data are biased 

because of the absence of crimes not reported by citizens to the police and because of the 

decisions of police not to record all crimes reported by citizens (see Black 1970).

Although incident reports have flaws, careful analyses of these data can yield useful 

insights on crime (Schneider and Wiersema 1990). Moreover, police widely use official 

incident data for assessing trends and patterns of gun crime (Blumstein 1995; Cook and 

Laub 2002) and for evaluating gun violence reduction programs (see Sherman and Rogan 

1995; McGarrell et al. 2001; Cohen and Ludwig 2003). Because the commission of 
Managing the Group Violence Intervention

8

homicide generates a cadaver, homicide incident reports, involving guns or other means, 

are generally the most reliable and valid data collected on crime. Similarly, nonfatal gun 

assault incidents that involve injuries are more likely to come to the attention of the police 

via responses to emergency calls for service or reports of gun injuries from hospitals. 

Recent advances in acoustic gunshot monitoring systems, such as Shotspotter technology, 

also increase the likelihood that the police detect fatal and nonfatal shootings.

The inclusion of nonfatal shooting incident data has the significant advantage of allowing 

police departments to monitor and analyze a wider range of group-involved gun violence, 

and this analysis can yield important insights into homicides and their prevention. More 

important, the difference between a gun homicide and a nonfatal shooting event, as a 

Boston Police Department officer once described, “is often only a matter of inches and 

luck—a lot of times a nonfatal shooting is just a failed homicide” (Braga et al. 2013). The 

officer’s sentiment suggests that whether or not an event becomes lethal is contingent on 

several uncontrollable factors—the aim of the shooter, the distance to the target, a rapid 

call to the police, the response time of medical assistance, and so on. 

In fact, Zimring’s (1968, 1972) studies of wounds inflicted in gun and knife assaults 

demonstrate considerable overlap between fatal and nonfatal attacks and suggest that 

the difference between life and death is just a matter of chance. The consideration of 

nonfatal shooting data helps to ensure that groups are being assessed based on the 

risk they pose to neighborhoods rather than the randomness of lethal wounds or the 

impressions of officers.

2 . Add supplemental information on known criminal groups 

from other databases

Many urban police departments maintain intelligence databases on gangs and gang 

members in their jurisdictions. Some police departments also track other types of 

criminally active groups. After shootings occur and the department enters the basic 

characteristics of the event into the shooting database, department personnel should 

consult official gang and other group-oriented data systems to assemble all available 

information on the participants. Matching the names and dates of birth of shooting 

victims and (if known) suspects can provide a quick assessment of the criminally active 

group involved in particular incidents. If the police department tracks gang turf and drug 

market boundaries, the department should map the location of the shooting to determine 

whether it occurred in or adjacent to particular gang and/or drug selling crew turfs. 
Key Steps and Data Quality Issues

9

It is important to note here that these databases will be helpful in determining gang and 

criminal group-involvement in shooting incidents but are limited in determining the 

motives of events (i.e., how and why the shooting happened). Additional data collection, 

described in Step 3, will be necessary to gain further insights on the circumstances of 

events. It is also relevant to note that law enforcement agencies in different cities use 

different definitions for gang-related crime. For example, Maxson and Klein (1990) 

noted that Los Angeles police defined crime as gang-related when gang members 

participate, regardless of motive. Chicago police used a more restrictive definition and 

classify homicides as gang-related only if a gang motive is evident. 

The work of the shooting scorecard approach is rooted in the idea that “involvement” 

matters as much as “motive.” Criminally active groups should be held accountable for 

their overall gun violence behaviors whether generated by group-related motives (such 

as a gang defending its turf from a rival gang or a drug crew using violence to regulate 

sales and purchases) or nongroup-related motives (such as an individual gang member 

shooting a noncompliant robbery victim or a drug dealer shooting an individual during a 

sudden personal dispute). To fully understand the nature of gang violence in a particular 

jurisdiction, it is important to capture both the involvement of gang members in 

shootings and the motives, gang-related or otherwise, that generated the violent event.

Challenging the notion that official police gang data are mired with biases and 

measurement errors, a recent study by Decker and Pyrooz (2010) found that police 

reports of gang homicide in large U.S. cities (1) exhibited strong internal reliability, (2) 

were consistent with the principles of convergent-discriminant validity tests, and (3) 

demonstrated considerable external validity. Furthermore, the validity of police-reported 

gang measures was higher in cities that had specialized policing units directed toward 

gang problems (see also Katz, Webb, and Schaefer 2000). In summary, although policereported data on gangs are not perfect, prior research has found such data to be valid 

and reliable indicators of gang activity and violence.

3 . Hold routine incident review sessions to collect detailed 

data on shooting motives

The central data collection activity is known as the “systematic shooting review” process 

and represents a specific application of the crime incident review qualitative data 

collection methodology. Recurring reviews of shootings supply the detailed information 
Managing the Group Violence Intervention

10

on the individuals involved in the incident, the motives that generated gunfire, and the 

dynamics that preceded the violent event. 

A working group of knowledgeable practitioners assembles to review retrospectively all 

shooting incidents that occurred during a particular time period (e.g., a week, month, 

or quarter-year). The working group typically includes representatives from across 

the criminal justice system—including law enforcement, prosecutors, probation and 

parole officers, and often others—and researchers (Klofas and Hipple 2006). Together 

these practitioners review available official data on each shooting, including date, time, 

location, and individuals involved. A convener, usually a mid-level police manager, 

then asks the group whether anyone knows the participants and what happened in a 

particular shooting incident. Participants share their knowledge, and discussion ensues. 

Researchers and police use the shooting database to record the best available knowledge 

of the circumstances of the shooting event. For gang- and group-involved shootings, they 

also record the affiliations of the victims and suspects (even if no arrest had been made). 

It is important to note here that shooting reviews are not venues where the working 

group updates the statuses of investigations and plans further investigative actions. 

Rather, shooting reviews serve as an opportunity to discuss fatal and nonfatal shooting 

incidents to understand how these events fit in a larger pattern of citywide violence. 

Crime incident reviews are rooted in the idea that some of the richest information for 

describing public safety problems and driving problem-solving efforts is not available 

from any official data systems. 

As Kennedy and colleagues (1997, 226) suggest, the “experiential assets” of practitioners 

and community members can make potentially powerful contributions to identifying 

and understanding crime problems. Research suggests that practitioners, particularly 

police officers, develop rich pictures of their working environment and can provide 

accurate and valid assessments of high-crime places, chronic offenders, and repeat 

victims (Bittner 1970; Braga et al. 1994). Qualitative methods such as ethnography, 

interviews, and focus groups can supply this valuable information. 

Crime incident reviews provide a method for sharing detailed information on specific 

types of crime, usually homicide, in the local criminal justice system and using that 

information to develop strategic approaches to reduce that crime (Klofas and Hipple 

2006). These reviews are usually structured as focus group sessions and rely on input 

from front-line staff with discussions on street-level knowledge of the crimes. The 
Key Steps and Data Quality Issues

11

researchers within the working group record the qualitative insights on the events and 

their participants, analyze these data, and identify patterns or other issues that may be 

useful in responding strategically to the crime problem.

Examples include the Boston Gun Project problem analysis and the resulting Operation 

Ceasefire strategy, both of which used the crime incident review methodology to move 

the problem-solving process forward in a direction not possible by simply analyzing 

official crime data (Kennedy et al. 1997). Analysis of FBI Supplementary Homicide 

Report data, which are notoriously limited in the report’s documentation of the 

circumstances of homicide incidents and the relationships among victims and offenders, 

suggested that Boston youth homicide in the 1990s was largely being committed 

by strangers against strangers for unknown reasons (Braga et al. 1999). Obviously, 

this picture of youth homicide did not lend itself to the development of strategic 

interventions. However, the crime incident review process revealed that Boston youth 

homicide was largely driven by retaliatory gang violence; this key insight helped to 

frame additional data collection efforts to better understand the nature of gang violence 

in Boston (Braga et al. 1999).

4 . Conduct simple statistical analyses of shooting data 

to rank gangs

The final step in developing a gang shooting scorecard involves simple statistical 

analyses of the collected data. The police department and researchers can maintain the 

shooting database as an MS Excel spreadsheet, MS Access data file, or some other data 

format. Simple frequency counts of key variables can rank gangs in order of the most 

prolific shooter gangs, most victimized gangs, and the most active in gang-on-gang 

feuds. Frequency tables can also record other variables, such as shooting circumstances 

and types of relationships between victims and offenders.

13

The Boston Experience

The Boston Police Department (BPD) first developed and implemented the shooting 

scorecard process to understand the contribution of specific gangs to citywide shootings 

during resurgence of gang violence in the mid-2000s. The BPD soon recognized the 

value of these data in supporting management decisions on allocating scarce resources 

to address the most violent gangs and in measuring the impact of implemented violence 

interventions on targeted gangs. This section details the Boston experience with 

shooting scorecards and provides an illustration of the value of shooting scorecard data 

in managing group violence intervention strategies.

Persistent gun violence problems as a catalyst for 

developing shooting scorecards

Like many cities, Boston experienced a serious gun violence epidemic over the course of 

the late 1980s and early 1990s. Ongoing conflicts among street gangs were responsible 

for most of the gun violence during this period (Braga 2003; Kennedy et al. 1997). 

However, during the mid- to late-1990s, gun homicide suddenly plummeted. 

Implemented in 1996, the Operation Ceasefire group violence intervention played 

a central role in Boston’s gun violence decline (Kennedy et al. 1996). The focused 

deterrence strategy behind Operation Ceasefire (the template for the National 

Network’s Group Violence Intervention) required that both law enforcement and 

community figures engage directly with gangs to (1) communicate explicitly that both 

would no longer tolerate violence, (2) offer outreach and social services to gang members, 

and (3) back up the “no violence” message by “pulling every lever” legally available when 

violence occurred (Kennedy 1997, 2011). A U.S. National Institute of Justice-sponsored 

evaluation found that Ceasefire was associated with a 63 percent reduction in the 

number of youth homicides and with noteworthy reductions in other indicators of 

nonfatal serious gun violence in Boston during the 1990s (Braga et al. 2001).

The Ceasefire strategy remained the City of Boston’s primary response to outbreaks 

of gang violence until January 2000, when changes in leadership caused the strategy’s 

discontinuation (see Braga and Winship 2006). After a few years of relatively low levels 

of serious gun violence, yearly counts of gun homicides and nonfatal shootings more 

than doubled from 177 victims in 2004 to 377 victims in 2006. A resurgence of gang 

violence drove the bulk of this increase (Braga et al. 2008). 
Managing the Group Violence Intervention

14

At the beginning of December 2006, Mayor Thomas M. Menino swore in Edward F. 

Davis III as the new commissioner of the BPD and immediately charged Davis with 

reducing gun violence in the city. Reflecting on Boston’s previous success and drawing 

on his past experience with a pulling levers strategy to control gang violence in Lowell 

(Braga, Pierce, et al. 2008), Davis announced that Operation Ceasefire would once 

again be the BPD’s main response to outbreaks of serious gang violence and charged his 

command staff with implementing the strategy. 

During the 1990s, the BPD charged the Youth Violence Strike Force (YVSF, informally 

known as the Gang Unit) almost exclusively with managing the Ceasefire intervention 

and, as needed, called upon other patrol and investigative resources to support the 

strategy. Unlike its predecessor, the post-2007 version of Operation Ceasefire was 

institutionalized within the BPD by directly engaging larger portion of the department 

through the citywide Compstat process and monthly district-level working groups 

known as “Impact Meetings.” While the YVSF remained the key operational unit, BPD 

also held other specialized units accountable for implementing Ceasefire actions, such 

as the Drug Control Unit and Special Investigations Unit, and patrol and detective 

resources from police districts serving high-gun-violence neighborhoods.

The Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC) supported the implementation 

of Ceasefire by developing a more refined understanding of ongoing gang violence 

problems in Boston, ensuring that scarce enforcement resources were centered on the 

most violent gangs, and measuring the performance of implemented interventions in 

reducing gun violence by particular gangs. BRIC crime analysts and detectives worked 

with Harvard University researchers to develop a systematic review process to collect 

detailed information on fatal and nonfatal shootings. This process initially started in 

late-2006 as a retrospective review of 2006 shooting incidents. The BPD command 

staff immediately recognized the value of the enhanced shooting data in supporting 

their decision making. BRIC then adopted shooting reviews as part of its routine crime 

data and intelligence gathering and analysis process. This established the ongoing use of 

shooting scorecards in Boston. Shooting scorecards are included in bi-weekly Compstat 

sessions and Ceasefire working group meetings.
The Boston Experience

15

Gangs and gang violence in Boston

As described in the introduction, shooting scorecards account for the shooting behaviors 

of groups in particular jurisdictions. The criminally active groups responsible for 

shootings will vary within and across cities; thus, scorecard processes should be tailored 

to local conditions. Given the central role of street gangs in Boston gun violence, BPD 

tailored their shooting scorecards to track the gun violence behaviors of particular gangs. 

Overall, Boston gangs tend to be smaller in size, without formal organization, and 

limited in age structure; have a shorter organizational lifespan; and are only peripherally 

involved in group-level drug dealing. In these regards, Boston gangs tend to more closely 

resemble the typical U.S. street gang. In practice, Boston criminal justice practitioners 

use an informal definition of a gang, summarized by Kennedy and colleagues (1997, 

232) as “a self-identified group of youth who act corporately (at least sometimes) and 

violently (at least sometimes).” The BPD uses an official scoring system to identify and 

track gang members in their gang database via point allocation criteria for different gang 

membership indicators.2

2. To be classified as a gang member, a person has to accumulate 10 points based upon the following criteria: 

prior validation by a BRIC-affiliated criminal justice agency that uses the same selection criteria (9 points), 

prior validation by a non-BRIC-affiliated criminal justice agency that uses similar selection criteria (8 points), 

self-admitted gang membership (8 points), use and/or possession of gang paraphernalia or identifiers (4 

points), gang-related photograph (2 points), known gang tattoo or marking (8 points), information from reliable confidential informant (5 points), information from anonymous source or tipster (1 point), crime victim 

associated with rival gang (3 or 8 points depending on incarceration status), possession of gang documents 

such as by-laws (3 or 8 points depending on incarceration status), possession of gang publications (2 points), 

participation in gang publication (8 points), possession of court and/or investigative documents involving 

an identified gang member (9 points), possession of printed or electronic media indicating membership (1 

point), contact with known gang members via Field Interrogation Observation reports (2 points per report), 

named in police incident report involving known gang member (4 points per report), possession of gang 

membership material (9 points), information developed during surveillance and/or surveillance (5 points), 

and other information (1 point).

The BPD considers shootings as motivated by gang activity if (1) the offender or the 

victim (but not necessarily both) was a gang member and (2) the motivation behind the 

violent event was known or believed to be connected to gang activity (Kennedy et al. 

1997). Thus, a gang member killing or assaulting another gang member in a dispute over 

contested turf was considered gang related. Likewise, a gang member killing or assaulting 

a nongang innocent bystander during the same dispute was also considered gang related. 

However, a nongang member killing or assaulting a gang member during a robbery 

attempt or a domestic dispute was not considered gang related. For BPD shooting 
Managing the Group Violence Intervention

16

scorecard purposes, however, the BPD counts all gang-involved shootings, including 

those in which the suspect and/or victim are gang members, regardless of whether the 

event was driven by gang motives.

Shooting scorecard data collection processes

Official crime incident reports represent the base-level 

information for BPD shooting scorecards. BRIC uses 

computerized records of BPD official reports of “Homicide 

by Firearm” and “Assault and Battery by Means of a Deadly 

Weapon—Firearm” (ABDW—Firearm) incidents. In the 

BPD, detectives or police officers generate incident reports after 

an initial response to a request for police service. In the state of 

Massachusetts, ABDW—Firearm incidents represent shooting 

events in which guns were fired and the bullets physically 

wounded the victims.3

 BRIC analysts carefully review the 

narratives of these incident reports to ensure that gunfire 

either fatally or nonfatally wounded victims. BRIC analysts 

also run victim and (if known) suspect names and dates of 

birth through the BPD gang database to collect preliminary 

information on individual gang affiliations.

BRIC collects detailed information on the nature of shooting 

incidents through two complementary mechanisms: (1) ongoing, near real-time reviews 

of recent incidents, and (2) formal quarterly reviews of all shooting incidents that occur 

during that period. Every weekday, BRIC holds a mid-morning conference call to collect 

intelligence on significant crimes from the previous 24 hours. Monday conference 

calls review all significant crime incidents from the previous weekend. Conference call 

participants include patrol and detective supervisors from BPD district stations and 

specialized units; statewide agencies, such as Massachusetts State Police, probation, 

and parole; and representatives from police departments in surrounding towns. The 

participants immediately review fatal and nonfatal shooting incidents, and involved 

supervisors share information on the victims, suspects, and preliminary circumstances 

(gang violence, drug-related violence, personal disputes, etc.) of the event from the 

initial investigation. BRIC records and enters these data into its shooting database.

3. See Massachusetts General Laws, chapter 265, section 15A.
The Boston Experience

17

The intelligence collected during the conference calls represents the best available 

short-term information on the nature of shooting events. While these data are critical 

for monitoring and responding to immediate outbursts of gang violence, the BPD 

recognizes that intelligence can evolve as investigations move forward. For instance, a 

preliminary investigation of a particular shooting may suggest that it was part of an 

ongoing dispute between rival gangs. However, as BPD interviews more witnesses 

and develops a stronger knowledge base, intelligence about the motives and the 

involvement of particular groups in the shooting may change. Upon closer inspection, 

what intelligence initially reported as a retaliatory gang shooting may turn out to be an 

internal gang dispute, a robbery of a gang member by a nongang member, a personal 

argument not related to gang dynamics, or some other motive. As such, intelligence 

gathered on all shootings undergoes a second round of formal review to capture new 

information that might not have been available during the first 24 hours of investigation.

BRIC convenes separate quarterly shooting review meetings for the five policing 

districts (B-2, B-3, C-11, D-4, and E-13) that experience the bulk of gun violence in 

Boston and one quarterly shooting review meeting for the remaining policing districts. 

Harvard researchers attend the meetings and support BRIC in collecting, coding, 

entering, and analyzing the qualitative insights on the nature of each shooting event. 

For each district meeting, detectives and officers with detailed knowledge on gangs 

and gang violence problems attend, including district detectives, plainclothes AntiCrime Unit district officers, Drug Control Unit detectives and officers, Homicide Unit 

detectives, Special Investigations Unit detectives, and YVSF detectives and officers. 

In each quarterly meeting, BRIC detectives and civilian analysts present the objective 

characteristics of each shooting event (date, location, victim information, and the 

available suspect information) and the available gang intelligence on the event based on 

their computerized data systems. 

The meeting participants share their working knowledge on the circumstances of 

the shooting event, the relationships between victims and suspects, and, if the event 

involved gang members, the details on the gangs involved in the shooting. As mentioned 

earlier, the insights shared by the officers represent the best available information on 

the circumstances of the shooting incident. This does not mean that the information is 

necessarily strong enough to meet the probable cause standard for making an arrest in 

an unsolved shooting incident. Rather, the information represents the strongest street 
Managing the Group Violence Intervention

18

intelligence on which group was responsible for the shooting and why it may have 

committed the shooting. BRIC shooting database includes these data and updates them 

when the review meetings reveal new information.4

Operational uses of gang shooting scorecards in Boston

Analytical insights and decision making support 

At their most basic level, the data collected via the shooting incident reviews are highly 

valuable in examining the share of gun violence generated by gangs and gang members. 

For instance, Figure 1 shows that gang-related violence, mostly involving cycles of 

retaliatory violence between two groups, accounted for 57 percent of shootings in 2010. 

Drug-related motives, such as drug-market disputes and drug robberies, accounted for 

16 percent of shootings. Personal disputes, emanating from ongoing conflicts or sudden 

arguments between individuals, represented 13 percent of shootings. 

Beyond generating a high level of shootings from gang-related disputes, gang members 

are also disproportionately involved in gun violence related to other motives. Figure 1 

on page 19 reveals that gang members were involved as victims, offenders, or both in 

22 percent of the drug-motivated, 53 percent of the personal dispute, 33 percent of the 

street robbery, 40 percent of the domestic, and 40 percent of the self-inflicted shooting 

victimizations.5

 These data clearly indicate that gangs are central actors in a varied range 

of shootings in Boston. Thus, prevention, intervention, and enforcement resources 

should center on these groups of high-risk individuals to reduce the citywide level of 

street gun violence.

4. It is important to note that the BPD Homicide Unit and Harvard researchers also collaborate on a yearly review 

of all homicide incidents in Boston. Harvard researchers interview the sergeant detectives and detectives from 

each squad on the circumstances of all homicides they investigated during the past calendar year. The BRIC 

shooting database also includes intelligence on the nature of gun homicides collected from this exercise.

5. “Self-inflicted” shooting victimizations typically do not involve emotionally distraught individuals who were 

not successful in a suicide attempt. Investigators believe most of these shootings to be botched attempts at 

committing a violent crime and/or due to unsafe handling of a firearm. For instance, one of these shooting 

events involved a well-known gang member who was interviewed in a hospital emergency room with a 

bullet hole inside his pant-leg pocket and gunshot residue on his hands. Presumably, this gang member had 

accidently shot himself in the leg when reaching for his gun.
The Boston Experience

19

Figure 1. 2010 Boston shootings: motives and gang member involvement, N=264

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Gang

Source: Data from BPD scorecard

However, the creation of shooting scorecards to support decision making is the key 

analytical use of the shooting incident review data. The BPD uses the data collected 

from the shooting reviews to create simple frequency distributions of the number of 

shootings offending gangs generate and the number of shootings victimized gangs 

experience. For instance, figure 2 on page 20 shows that the Mozart gang committed 

16 shootings, making it by far the most active shooter group in Boston during 2010. 

In order, the next most frequent shooter groups in Boston were the Thetford (12 

shootings), Wendover (nine shootings), and Cameron (seven shootings) gangs. 
Managing the Group Violence Intervention

20

Figure 2. Boston gangs that generated the most shootings in 2010

Gang

Source: Data from BPD scorecard

The key analytical insight is clear. Law enforcement should closely review these top 

shooter groups, relative to other gangs in Boston, to determine whether focused 

enforcement attention is necessary to halt their persistent involvement in serious gun 

violence.6

 While these high counts of shootings suggest an immediate enforcement 

response, law enforcement decision makers should have a multi-stakeholder meeting 

to interpret and discuss these data further. These stakeholders should also tailor 

an appropriate response to a selected group from a growing menu of intervention 

options that could include enforcement, social service and opportunity provision, and 

community moral engagement (see Crandall and Wong 2012).

6. As a result of the Mozart gang’s status as the top shooter group, during late-October and early-November 

2010, the BPD, U.S. Attorney’s Office, and other law enforcement partners launched an immediate short-term 

enforcement response that resulted in the arrest of 11 Mozart gang members on gun possession and drug 

trafficking charges. To curtail retaliatory gun violence, the FBI and BPD spearheaded and launched in early 

2011 a longer term investigation of drug selling by violent gangsters from the Boylston gang. Completed 

on July 9, 2012, some 15 Boylston Street gang members were arrested on federal and state gun and drug 

charges. Ceasefire communications to other gangs included the results of these enforcement actions to 

deter them from engaging in gun violence.
The Boston Experience

21

It is also important to monitor the shooting victimizations suffered by gangs. Because a 

bulk of gang violence in Boston is retaliatory in nature, these victimized gangs represent 

the groups who are highly likely to commit future shootings. In figure 3, the Boylston 

Street gang suffered the largest number of fatal and nonfatal shooting victimizations in 

2010 with nine victims (three fatal and six nonfatal shootings). Most of these shootings 

were generated by the Mozart gang—Boylston’s bitter rival and the number one shooter 

group in 2010. 

Figure 3. Boston gangs that experienced the most fatal and nonfatal shooting 

victimizations in 2010

0 2 4 6 8 10

Gang Rivalries

Source: Data from BPD scorecard 

Another method the BPD uses to understand the concentration of shootings among 

specific gangs involves examining the distribution of shootings associated with ongoing 

rivalries between two gangs. This ensures that gangs on both sides of a violent rivalry 

receive adequate enforcement attention. 
Managing the Group Violence Intervention

22

As figure 4 suggests, the Mozart-Boylston gang conflict was the most violent in 2010 

with 18 shootings between the two groups. It is also important to note that two gangs 

were involved in active rivalries with multiple groups. The Wendover gang was involved 

in ongoing conflicts with the Cameron Street gang and the Hendry Street gang that 

generated five shootings each. In addition to its rivalry with Wendover, Cameron Street 

was also involved in an active dispute with Draper Street that generated four shootings. 

Gangs with multiple active violent disputes make particularly good targets for focused 

enforcement interventions, as they could disrupt several ongoing cycles of retaliatory 

violence at the same time.

Figure 4. Boston gang rivalries that generated the most shootings in 2010

0 2 4 6 8 10

0 5 10 15 20

Gang Rivalries

Source: Data from BPD scorecard
The Boston Experience

23

Performance Measurement

The BPD also uses gang scorecards to determine whether implemented violence 

interventions are producing the desired effects. The department can use gang scorecard 

data to measure either performance by simply comparing year-to-year counts of shootings 

committed by particular groups or more complex analyses of longitudinal data. 

For example, in figure 5 the number of shootings committed by the CVO / Homes 

Ave, H-Block, Orchard Park, Greenwood, Lenox, Hitfam, Morse, and Franklin Field 

gangs decreased between 2009 and 2010. While any implemented violence intervention 

clearly warrants more careful evaluation, this simple year-to-year comparison suggests 

that shootings committed by these gangs were in short-term decline. 

In contrast, shootings by the DSP and Mission gangs increased between 2009 and 

2010. This suggests that BPD needed to reassess existing violence interventions focused 

on these groups; alternatively, if BPD wasn’t focusing violence interventions directly on 

these groups, it needed to implement a strategic response immediately.

Figure 5. Number of shootings the 2009 most frequent shooter gangs committed in 2010

0 3 6 9 12 15

Source: Data from BPD scorecard
Managing the Group Violence Intervention

24

Data collected as part of the BRIC shooting reviews can also measure the performance 

of other problem-oriented policing interventions designed to address high-risk 

situations that generate shootings of gang members and other young people in Boston. 

For instance, shootings at crowded after-hours house parties involving young people 

represent an ongoing challenge for the BPD. Gun violence often stems from personal 

disputes involving intoxicated young men and encounters between rival gang members 

in these disorderly settings. These violent events tend to produce multiple shooting 

victims as bullets fired in a relatively small, densely crowded area are more likely to hit 

both intended and unintended targets. In 2008, data collected from the BRIC shooting 

reviews suggested that shootings at after-hours house parties accounted for 36 victims. 

In response to these high-risk situations, the BRIC analysts and detectives increased 

their monitoring of social media websites on the Internet to identify the times and 

locations of these parties before they happened. The BRIC team then disseminated 

intelligence on identified after-hours house parties to district captains who directed 

their patrol officers to shut down these events before any violence could occur. By 2011, 

BRIC shooting review data revealed that the number of victims shot at after-hours 

house parties decreased by nearly 56 percent to 16 victims.

Law enforcement can also use gang shooting scorecard data to conduct more rigorous 

analyses of the impacts of focused deterrence strategies, or other gang violence 

interventions, on particular gangs over extended time periods. Program evaluators 

can readily use these data to examine shootings by and against particular gangs over 

appropriate time series intervals, such as days, months, quarters, or years. A recent 

evaluation of the post-2007 Operation Ceasefire intervention relied upon gang 

scorecard data to estimate program impacts on the gun violence behaviors of targeted 

street gangs (see Braga et al. 2013). Between 2007 and 2010, the BPD and its criminal 

justice, social service, and community-based partners conducted Ceasefire interventions 

for 19 violent gangs. A rigorous quasi-experimental evaluation estimated that the reinvigorated Ceasefire focused deterrence strategy generated a statistically significant 31 

percent reduction in shootings involving treated gangs relative to shootings involving 

matched comparison gangs.

Figure 6 on page 25 illustrates the use of gang scorecard data to evaluate the impact of 

Ceasefire on a particularly violent Boston street gang. The Lucerne Street Doggz was 

the first group to receive renewed Ceasefire attention because it was the most violent 

gang in Boston at the beginning of the study time period (Braga et al. 2013). The 
The Boston Experience

25

Doggz was a loosely organized gang based in the disadvantaged Lucerne Street area of 

the Mattapan section of Boston (District B-3). In 2006, the Lucerne gang had roughly 

50 members and was involved in violent disputes with eight rival gangs—Big Head 

Boys, Morse Street, Norfolk, Greenwood, Heath Street, Orchard Park, H-Block, and 

Winston Road. Lucerne was the suspect group in 30 gang-involved shootings and the 

victim group in seven gang-involved shootings in 2006. BRIC intelligence suggested 

that no more than six or seven members of the gang carried out most of the Lucerne 

shootings, which accounted for nearly 10 percent of all Boston shootings in 2006. 

Figure 6. Shootings involving the Lucerne Street Doggz, 2006–2010

0 3 6 9 12 15

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Source: Courtesy of Braga, Hureau, and Papachristos 2013, 21.

As described in the first section of this chapter, in December 2006, newly appointed 

Commissioner Davis mandated that Ceasefire be the BPD’s marquee response to 

ongoing gang violence. In January 2007, then Deputy Superintendent Gary French, 

whom Davis charged to coordinate the citywide implementation of Ceasefire, started 

regular meetings of the interagency Operation Ceasefire working group. It was critical 

to establish the credibility of the Ceasefire anti-violence message on the streets of 

Boston again. 
Managing the Group Violence Intervention

26

As Braga and colleagues (2013) describe, the Lucerne gang had been subjected to 

an earlier Group Violence Intervention call-in7

 but continued on its violent path. As 

such, the Ceasefire working group needed to make good on the promise that a strong 

enforcement response would soon follow. With the support of the Drug Control Unit 

and District B-3 personnel, the YVSF worked with the U.S. Attorney’s Office; the 

Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office; the Drug Enforcement Administration; and 

the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in a focused investigation of the 

Lucerne Street Doggz. On May 24, 2007, law enforcement took 25 Lucerne Street gang 

members into custody and charged with federal and state drug and firearms offenses. 

As figure 6 on page 25 reveals, the impact of the Ceasefire intervention on the gang’s 

gun violence behavior was noteworthy. In 2006 and 2007, the Lucerne gang averaged 

33.5 total shootings per year. Their yearly average plummeted by 87.2 percent to 4.3 per 

year between 2008 and 2010.

7. The call-in is a Group Violence Intervention meeting during which a partnership of law enforcement, community members, and social service providers delivers a no-violence message to group members and, through 

them, back to their associates (see NNSC 2013).
27

Conclusion

The Boston experience suggests that jurisdictions implementing the Group Violence 

Intervention can use the shooting scorecard process to good effect in developing a 

deeper understanding of the underlying dynamics associated with urban gun violence 

problems, focusing scarce intervention resources on the groups most central to 

recurring gun violence, and measuring the impacts of the strategy. Shooting scorecards 

aid the Boston Police Department in institutionalizing its Operation Ceasefire 

focused deterrence strategy by providing a mechanism to hold appropriate personnel 

accountable for addressing the most violent gangs in Boston and ensuring that desirable 

gun violence reduction effects are achieved. A growing body of literature suggests that 

it is important to make conscious efforts to sustain, and establish accountability for and 

within, focused deterrence initiatives. 

Jurisdictions interested in implementing focused deterrence strategies need to 

understand how to keep these programs on track for the long term. Beyond the 2000 

cessation of Ceasefire in Boston (see “The Boston Experience” on page 13), replication 

programs in Baltimore and Minneapolis unraveled rapidly after some encouraging 

initial crime control success stories (see Kennedy 2011). The Cincinnati Initiative to 

Reduce Violence, however, has been able to institutionalize and sustain its focused 

deterrence interventions through the establishment of a comprehensive organizational 

structure and a governing board (Engel et al. 2010).

Criminally active groups and group violence problems can be complex and vary 

considerably across cities. As such, police departments need to tailor shooting 

scorecards to local conditions. For example, the Newark (New Jersey) Police 

Department (NPD) recently adopted the shooting scorecard process to guide the 

implementation of its Newark Violence Reduction Initiative (NVRI) focused 

deterrence strategy. Newark has large gangs comprised of multiple sets spread 

throughout the city. While rival gangs do participate in ongoing feuds, Newark gangs 

experience a considerable amount of internal gang violence and are involved in drug 

disputes at particular drug market locations. 

For instance, in 2012, Blood gangs were the victims in 97 fatal and nonfatal shootings 

in Newark. The subsets called “793 Bloods” were the most victimized Blood sets, with 

30 shooting victimizations. However, these victimizations were spread across 793 Blood 

subsets frequenting locations in 11 of the NPD’s 29 shooting sectors. Suspect gangs in 

these shootings included Brick City Brims, Red Breed Gorillas, Grape Street Crips, Sex 
Managing the Group Violence Intervention

28

Money Murder, and other 793 Bloods (via internal disputes often involving drugs). Due 

to these variations, NPD shooting scorecards are often disaggregated to specific sectors 

with victim counts organized by gang affiliations (see figure 7).

Figure 7. Newark shooting victims’ gang affiliations, 2012

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Source: Data from NPD scorecard

Shooting scorecard processes are designed for collecting and analyzing information 

on the gun violence behaviors of the criminally active groups that generate consistent 

numbers of shootings, such as gangs, drug selling organizations of varying sizes, and 

street robbery crews. While the Boston and Newark examples described here involved 

gangs, police departments in other cities will need to tailor their shooting scorecards to 

local group characteristics and dynamics. 

When violence prevention and public safety are concerned, whether a criminally active 

group meets some formal definition of a gang is not the most pressing matter. The 

most important observations are that gun violence problems are usually concentrated 

among groups of chronic offenders and the dynamics between and within these groups 

(Braga et al. 2002; Kennedy 2008). This is an old observation in criminology and well 

known among line-level law enforcement personnel. Shooting scorecards offer a way 

of properly diagnosing the group conflicts that generate persistent gun violence and 

ensuring that violence interventions appropriately focus on these high-risk groups.
29

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Zimring, Franklin E. 1968. “Is Gun Control Likely to Reduce Violent Killings?” University of 

Chicago Law Review 35:21–37.

———. 1972. “The Medium Is the Message: Firearm Caliber as a Determinant of Death from 

Assault.” Journal of Legal Studies 1:97–123.
33

About the Authors

Anthony A. Braga, Rutgers University 

and Harvard University

Anthony A. Braga is the Don M. Gottfredson Professor of Evidence-Based 

Criminology in the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University and a senior 

research fellow in the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management at Harvard 

University. His research involves collaborating with criminal justice, social service, and 

community-based organizations to address illegal access to firearms, reduce gang and 

group-involved violence, and control crime hot spots. He is currently the president and 

an elected fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminology.

David M. Hureau, Harvard University

David M. Hureau is a doctoral student in Sociology and Social Policy at Harvard 

University and also serves as a research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Program in 

Criminal Justice Policy and Management. He is broadly interested in urban sociology 

and crime. His present research project is an ethnographic exploration of a network of 

individuals who have experienced disproportionate exposure to homicide.

Leigh S. Grossman, Rutgers University

Leigh S. Grossman is a doctoral student in Criminal Justice at Rutgers University. 

She is also the director of field research for the Newark Violence Reduction Initiative 

and the data and research analyst at the National Network for Safe Communities. 

Her research interests include social network analysis and serious gun violence. 

She is currently working on her dissertation, which is an exploratory analysis of the 

theoretical determinants of violent crime concentrations at specific street segments in 

Newark, New Jersey.

35

About the National Network for Safe 

Communities

The National Network for Safe Communities represents and supports jurisdictions 

around the country and internationally to apply and advance proven strategies to reduce 

serious violent crime and to close overt drug markets. 

The National Network recognizes that both law enforcement and the community 

must play a critical role in addressing these problems—but that neither can do it alone. 

Therefore, its strategies combine the best of law enforcement and community crime 

prevention approaches to improve public safety dramatically. 

Launched as a project of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay 

College of Criminal Justice in New York in 2009, the National Network currently 

comprises more than 60 jurisdictions actively implementing and advancing two specific 

strategies: the Group Violence Intervention (GVI), first implemented as Operation 

Ceasefire in Boston in the mid-1990s, and the Drug Market Intervention (DMI), also 

known as the “High Point Model,” after the North Carolina city that pioneered it. These 

strategies are carefully designed to produce specific results:

•	 Reduce serious violence 

•	 Shut down overt drug markets

•	 Reduce arrests and imprisonment

•	 Strengthen disadvantaged communities 

•	 Operate entirely or largely within existing resources

Different jurisdictions use the National Network’s approach under different titles, and 

yet each is applying GVI principles, contributing to its effectiveness and innovation. 

Some current marquee efforts that use the GVI framework with technical assistance 

from National Network include the Chicago Violence Reduction Strategy; Newark 

Violence Reduction Initiative in New Jersey; Project Longevity, which includes New 

Haven, Hartford, and Bridgeport, Connecticut; NOLA for Life in New Orleans, 

Louisiana; and Don’t Shoot Peoria in Illinois. 

The National Network is committed to saving lives and saving communities by taking its 

strategies to a national scale and serving the nation’s most vulnerable areas. The National 

Network is designed to represent and support its members, offering them technical 
Managing the Group Violence Intervention

36

assistance, recognizing and helping others learn from their work and innovations, 

supporting peer exchange and education, conducting research and evaluations, and 

raising the visibility of their work.

Please visit www.nnscommunities.org for detailed information on the National 

Network’s mission, strategies, research findings, media coverage, events, and 

membership.
37

About the COPS Office

The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) is the component of 

the U.S. Department of Justice responsible for advancing the practice of community policing by 

the nation’s state, local, territory, and tribal law enforcement agencies through information and 

grant resources. 

Community policing is a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies that support 

the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques, to proactively address the 

immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, and fear 

of crime. 

Rather than simply responding to crimes once they have been committed, community policing 

concentrates on preventing crime and eliminating the atmosphere of fear it creates. Earning the 

trust of the community and making those individuals stakeholders in their own safety enables 

law enforcement to better understand and address both the needs of the community and the 

factors that contribute to crime.

The COPS Office awards grants to state, local, territory, and tribal law enforcement agencies 

to hire and train community policing professionals, acquire and deploy cutting-edge crime 

fighting technologies, and develop and test innovative policing strategies. COPS Office funding 

also provides training and technical assistance to community members and local government 

leaders and all levels of law enforcement. The COPS Office has produced and compiled a broad 

range of information resources that can help law enforcement better address specific crime and 

operational issues, and help community leaders better understand how to work cooperatively 

with their law enforcement agency to reduce crime.

•	 Since 1994, the COPS Office has invested more than $14 billion to add community policing 

officers to the nation’s streets, enhance crime fighting technology, support crime prevention 

initiatives, and provide training and technical assistance to help advance community policing. 

•	 To date, the COPS Office has funded approximately 125,000 additional officers to more 

than 13,000 of the nation’s 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the country in small and 

large jurisdictions alike.

•	 Nearly 700,000 law enforcement personnel, community members, and government leaders 

have been trained through COPS Office-funded training organizations.

•	 To date, the COPS Office has distributed more than 8.57 million topic-specific publications, 

training curricula, white papers, and resource CDs. 

COPS Office resources, covering a wide breadth of community policing topics—from school 

and campus safety to gang violence—are available, at no cost, through its online Resource 

Center at www.cops.usdoj.gov. This easy-to-navigate website is also the grant application portal, 

providing access to online application forms.


Group shooting scorecards identify the criminal groups that commit the highest 

number shootings and experience the greatest number of shooting victimizations 

during a specific time period. With this information, shooting scorecards support the 

implementation of focused deterrence strategies to prevent group-involved violence.

They also ensure that police departments appropriately focus scarce resources on the 

groups that consistently generate the most gun violence. The most violent groups 

then receive systematic considered for focused interventions, such as the National 

Network for Safe Communities’ Group Violence Intervention in which a partnership 

of community members, law enforcement, and social service providers delivers a “no 

violence” message, information about legal consequences for further violence, and an 

offer of help.

Managing the Group Violence Intervention: Using Shooting Scorecards to Track Group 

Violence begins with a brief description of the shooting scorecard concept and its links 

to problem analysis and performance measurement systems in police departments. It 

then presents the key steps in the process and associated data quality issues and then 

details the use of shooting scorecards by the Boston Police Department as an example 

of the practical applications of this approach.

This publication is part of a series by the National Network for Safe Communities about 

its two crime reduction strategies: the Group Violence Intervention and the Drug 

Market Intervention.

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

145 N Street NE

Washington, DC 20530

To obtain details on COPS Office programs,

call the COPS Office Response Center at 800-421-6770

Visit the COPS Office online at www.cops.usdoj.gov.

John Jay College of Criminal Justice

The City University of New York

524 West 59th Street

New York, NY 10019

www.jjay.cuny.edu

ISBN: 978-1-932582-92-5

Published 2014

e111321617