If the instinct to conform is a significant force in shaping human behavior, can it be used to save and change lives in Baltimore? Can a consistent anti-violence message at street level get more of Baltimore’s men to drop their guns? Can peace ever be more contagious than violence?
A study of Erricka Bridgeford’s Ceasefire movement says it’s possible. Simple, steady and serious messaging — “Nobody kill anybody” — resulted in a 52% drop in shootings on weekends when Ceasefire was active, according to the study, published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health. Ceasefire’s effectiveness is in large part due to its nature: It originated in communities most affected by violence, and, led by local activists, it pleads for peace with the authority of a loving peer.
There have been similar pleadings in the past (prayer vigils and marches), but Ceasefire could be a real breakthrough in changing attitudes and behavior.
Robert H. Frank, a Cornell University economics professor, says peer pressure is an underrated power in societal transformations. In a new book, “Under The Influence: Putting Peer Pressure To Work,” he argues that the big behavioral adjustments needed to combat climate change could result from the same force that significantly reduced cigarette smoking within a generation.
Tobacco taxes and smoking bans had a lot to do with it. “But, far more important, these moves kick-started a virtuous cycle,” Frank argues. “One of the strongest predictors of whether someone will become a smoker is the smoking rate among his peers. With fewer people starting to smoke, Americans had fewer smoking peers, which reduced smoking rates still further.”
At the consumer level, we might think there’s not much we can do about climate change. In fact, Frank notes, peer pressure has influenced the choices we’ve made — big houses, SUVs and pickup trucks, long commutes — that have contributed to carbon emissions. We are all susceptible to “behavior contagion.”
“But,” says Frank, “where contagion creates a problem, it can also help solve it. Just as in the case of smoking, where peer effects exacerbated and then reduced the prevalence of the practice, so too could contagion help us meet the climate challenge.”
The decisions we make — to eat less meat, to buy an electric car, to install solar panels on our homes — all send messages to neighbors, friends and co-workers. “Our actions,” Frank writes, “have the power to shape those of people around us.”
If that’s true, how might this work with men who carry guns in Baltimore? Ceasefire has helped reduce violence on six to 10 weekends per year. But what about the rest of the time?
On the morning of Sunday, Feb. 9, someone walked up to a car on Coppin Court in Cherry Hill and shot the man sitting inside it, 31-year-old Keith Thomas. About 29 hours later, and just a block away, three men were wounded in a shootout. Two of them, 41-year-old Davon Stewart and 28-year-old Detrell Garvin, died.
In Baltimore, violence is contagious, so it’s no surprise that police found the Monday madness connected to the Sunday insanity. The desire to retaliate on behalf of a friend or relative has contributed to the city’s violent spiral these last five years. “Gun violence feeds on itself,” Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, told me. "Each shooting presents a challenge to prevent retaliations that perpetuate violence.”
In fact, the Safe Streets interrupters employed by the city in Cherry Hill have met that challenge many times. They have mediated more than 2,000 conflicts and can take some credit for a year without a fatal shooting. Baltimore had 348 homicides in 2019, but the Safe Streets post in Cherry Hill had none. The ex-offenders who work in the program are peacemakers. Their message carries the power of a peer who wants the best for others: “Stop Shooting. Start Living.”
The Safe Streets interrupters operate out of nine locations now, but apparently Baltimore needs more.
But even with an expansion of Safe Streets and other intervention programs, several things have to happen before the “peace contagion” could reach a critical mass against violence.
In an email, Webster listed what’s needed in epidemiological terms: “Some quarantine (incarceration) is required of those who are infecting others. The folks with the best data to track the epidemic are in law enforcement. (They have arrest records, investigative reports, ballistics linking shootings). Law enforcement is needed to reduce illegal gun carrying that is prompted by the contagion of gun violence. And behavioral interventions to talk people down from retaliation rest upon their ability to convince people that law enforcement will bring shooters to justice.”
And that brings us to another issue: The rate of arrests for crimes of violence in the city. Baltimore police cleared just 32% of homicides last year, one of the lowest rates in the last three decades.
Gov. Larry Hogan got all hot and blustery last week because Democrats in the General Assembly aren’t going along with his idea for combating Baltimore violence. Hogan wants to increase the mandatory minimum sentences for gun offenses, an approach that sounds great on talk radio but has dubious merit. And, as Del. Luke Clippinger pointed out, “You can’t get a mandatory minimum if there’s not an arrest.”
Nor will we see Baltimore’s retaliation contagion contained. It won’t happen, as Webster suggested, without more repeat offenders in quarantine — and without more of those in the risk pool feeling pressure to leave it.
And that presents yet another challenge. Carlmichael “Stokey” Cannady, the community activist who is running for mayor, says anyone who gives up his gun and the street life needs to be shown the way to a new safe place. “Create viable resources for those who are risking everything,” he says.
Breaking the cycle, changing lives, saving lives — this is tough stuff, like climate change. But Ceasefire and Safe Streets show promise. We should celebrate and thank the peacemakers for getting something started.