Boston Gun Project
Lorenzo M. Boyd
The Boston Gun Project, also known as “Operation Ceasefire,” is a deterrence-based, problem-oriented criminal justice intervention that occurred in 1996 and 1997. The project was intended to reduce youth homicide and youth firearms violence in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Gun Project was characterized by an innovative partnership among researchers, practitioners, community leaders, and clergy to assess Boston's youth homicide problem and implement an intervention designed to have a substantial near-term impact on the problem. The Boston Gun Project was based on the “pulling levers” deterrence strategy that focused criminal justice attention on a small number of Boston's youth who were chronic offenders, involved in gang-related activities, and responsible for much of the city's youth homicide problem. Many of these youths were minorities. The Boston Gun Project working group held communications meetings with at-risk members of the community, warning them that further violence and criminality would not be tolerated and would ...