MISSING PIECES - Inter-Parliamentary Union

THEME 6
areas of the country. 13 This partnership analysed the dynamics driving
the city’s youth homicide problem and developed an intervention its members
believed would have a substantial near-term impact on the problem. 14
Operation Ceasefire was launched the following year and employed a
deterrence strategy that focused criminal justice attention (e.g. increased
policing and enforcement, and improved legal processing) on a small
number of chronically offending gang-involved youth. The deterrent effect
of focused policing rapidly increased the price of gun acquisition while
simultaneously reducing preferences through perceived improvements in
community safety and security. An impact evaluation undertaken following
Operation Ceasefire indicated that the project was associated with
significant reductions in indicators of violence, such as youth homicide,
reports to the police of shots having been fired, and incidence of gun assaults
in Boston. 15
Increasingly programmes are also set up to try and influence the relationship
between masculinities, violence and guns. For example, the “White
Ribbon Campaign” 16 is a global campaign which started in Canada in the
early 1990s after a man who had not been accepted into a graduate programme
in Montreal entered a classroom and killed fourteen female students
in revenge. It consists of men speaking out against violence against
women and is now active in more than 40 countries worldwide.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PARLIAMENTARIANS
Local efforts to address the demand side of the small arms equation have
generated an institutional knowledge base that is overdue for assimilation
into policy discussions on small arms. Some recommendations for parliamentarians
to consider include the following:
1. Investigate demand factors. Increasing attention is being directed to
various ‘demand’ factors, such as linkages between poverty and violence
or police reform. Parliamentarians can conduct inquiries and public consultation
and contribute to action oriented research about demand factors,
or call on national commissions on small arms to take over these tasks.
This can significantly inform policy development and public debate about
weapons control.
2. Governments and multilateral agencies should integrate thinking
about demand factors for guns into their practical responses to violence
and arms reduction. Parliamentarians are ideally placed to encourage gov-
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