Talk:Cure Violence

Confusing Sentence in History Section
However, a three-year review by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2009 found that it reduced shootings from 16 percent to 34 percent and eliminated retaliatory murders resulting from increased use of public education slogans — such as “Don’t shoot. I want to grow up.” — and conflict mediation and community mobilization. I have a really hard time understanding what this sentence is saying. Can someone who knows more elucidate a bit? I suppose this sentence also needs a citation since it's quoting some facts and figures. JTConroy88 (talk) 01:09, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
 * For example, it says "...reduced shootings from 16 percent to 34 percent..." which doesn't seem like a reduction. Also the "However" at the beginning seems to mean this sentence should be contradicting the previous sentence about CeaseFire's claim of reduction in shootings. This sentence seems to also be giving praise to the organization. JTConroy88 (talk) 01:12, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

RfC at A.C.A.B.
More comments are requested at Talk:A.C.A.B.. 71.178.129.13 (talk) 03:44, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Overhauling Article
Hello fellow Wikipedian! I am working on this article in hopes of getting it to FA status. There are a few broad points that I want to make sure I address which are listed below (I'll sign each of them so that they can be independently discussed if relevant). I have a draft/notes user page. I used to have a worklog in this section, but it seems pretty noisy and I'm not sure it's actually useful to anyone. However, I did move the worklog to the talk page of the notes/draft, and I'll keep updating it, because it just seems proper to have one. *shrugs* Skyvine (talk) 17:31, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

The history section is rather abbreviated in its current state, though it does contain some useful sources. I'm working on a rewrite as I go through a newspaper archive to research its history. My plan is to do a first pass by going through an archive, then supplement the information with web searches for events that seem notable. I generally prefer to incorporate changes into articles as I go, so that information can be shared as widely as possible as early as possible. However, this seems difficult to do with history because it would end up being lopsided - if I got what I have now into a publishable state, there would be a significant amount of content about the first half of its history and next to nothing about the second half. Skyvine (talk) 17:31, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

There are some pages related to this article, such as violence interruption and credible messenger program, which don't seem to have enough content to justify their existence. I will incorporate what they have into this article and set them as redirects until the sections grow large enough to justify a separate page. Skyvine (talk) 17:31, 22 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Violence interruption page merged, it was mostly a copy-paste, see also the lengthier note in the "Merge with Violence Interruption?" topic below. After looking a little bit more into credible messengers as a separate entity from Cure Violence, I discovered the Credible Messenger Justice Center (https://cmjcenter.org/). The article is certainly a stub, but it seems plausible that there is enough stuff out there to justify its independent existence, so I no longer intend to merge it. Skyvine (talk) 00:44, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

There are a number of academic studies, many of which are already in the article, but some of which are not. I will expand on this section and improve the organization, to present it more narratively (but still encyclopedically) instead of just listing the studies. Additionally, there are some criticisms I have consistently seen in newspapers which are not mentioned here, most notably accusations that this model funds criminals. This is a tricky subject to discuss in a nuanced way while still staying neutral. Cure Violence has consistently put out arguments that working with reformed criminals is essential to their success, but this is also exactly the thing that is being criticized. I that discussing their arguments in the "model" section and discussing the criticisms separately in its own section addresses all of the concerns, but my confidence in this is low. Feedback would be very much appreciated. =) Skyvine (talk) 17:31, 22 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I think I figured it out! It doesn't make sense to have a separate "criticisms" section, they should be merged into other sections just like the endorsements. So discussing concerns about "funding criminals" should be done in the "model" section. Skyvine (talk) 22:55, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm keeping the "notable endorsements" section in its listicle format for the moment because the information seems relevant, but I don't think the section really makes sense. There are certainly appropriate places to use lists, but I think it would be a better article if the endorsements were placed into places where they naturally fit. For example, the NGO Advisor award can go in the infobox (there's an "awards" parameter) and the Dwyane Wade fundraiser can be discussed in the context of the 2007 budget cuts, along with Cicero's general fundraising efforts. Skyvine (talk) 17:31, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

I that this section is actually a place where a list is appropriate. Still thinking about it. Skyvine (talk) 17:31, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

There are a couple of problems with the citations I've added so far. First, I misunderstood the role of "publisher" in "cite news", this should be changed to "work" in I believe every single citation I've added. Second, it has recently come to my attention that if you make a clipping on newspapers.com, it is publicly viewable (the recently featured article on New Jersey's 1927 biannual elections proposal uses this in a couple of places). I've found most of my newspaper sources through this website, but I thought clippings were just convenient bookmarks for personal use; I'll update citations with links to clippings so that there is greater transparency for editors who might want to object to the accuracy of the text I write. In cases where first-party sources are available I will continue to use them, as first-party sources are generally preferred for good reason. Skyvine (talk) 21:14, 23 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Fixed. There were fewer citations to go through than I feared, the Chicago Tribune is far and away the most prolific coverer of CV, and they digitized their articles. skyvine 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk) 00:28, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

More Realistic Expectations
I underestimated the amount of work this would be when I started. I wanted to go through local articles for every implementing site in order to get as complete a history as possible, which would be good but will take literal years even if I can find the time for it (which I have not been able to recently) and people are still looking at this article in the meantime.

So my new plan is this: incorporate what I have right now into the article. It's incomplete, but it's more complete than what is currently there. As I find time, continue adding things piecemeal. Most of what I have right now is focused on the history, so that will be my next update, but there are a number of studies on implementing programs and I think that is a more urgent concern than getting a complete history of the organization. Some of the studies are reviewing more than just CV, so that might also create opportunities to link to related articles which is generally a good thing when the links are added judiciously. skyvine 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk) 17:34, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Merge with Violence Interruption?
I'm currently thinking that it makes sense for Violence Interruption to just redirect to this page, the contents are very similar and it's not clear to me that there's a meaningful distinction between organizations that work with Cure Violence and organizations that implement violence interruption as a practice. I made a longer post on the Violence Interruption talk page since that's the one that would get replaced, but mentioning it here too in case anyone with a perspective is watching this page more closely than that one. I haven't looked at the standards/process for this kind of action, I'll think about it more deeply once I'm done improving this page. Skyvine (talk) 00:03, 12 February 2023 (UTC)


 * It's been more than a week with no reply, so I'm going to go ahead and merge, per the "be bold" suggestion. Since the other page is mostly a lightly edited copy/paste, I think this qualifies as "the need for the merge is obvious". I would not be surprised if the section on violence interruption one day becomes large enough to justify a separate article, but it can be split off if and when that happens.
 * I took a particular interest in https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Violence_interruption&diff=prev&oldid=1022517081, since this edit is associated with the "Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment" section of the talk page. The edit adds information about a few different organizations, which was interesting to look at; unfortunately, I do not think they are appropriate to include in the Cure Violence page, or even a dedicated "violence interruption" page if one were to exist. While it is logical to draw an association between these programs, they are not doing precisely the same thing. For example, some of the organizations mentioned are practicing focused deterrence which explicitly involves law enforcement officers as a "stick" while social service providers are involved as "carrots". This is markedly different from the violence interruption approach which intentionally avoids association with law enforcement officers in order to maintain "credible messenger" status. This topic is particularly confusing as an oft-cited example of focused deterrence is Operation Ceasefire, which preceded and was completely independent of CeaseFire Chicago, despite the similar name and purpose. It might make sense to discuss these in relation to each other in a page generally about community-oriented violence prevention strategies (if such a page exists, and it probably makes sense for it to), but this does not justify a separate page on violence interruption, nor is it appropriate to include in the Cure Violence page.
 * However, one notably useful aspect of the edit is the reference to https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23440488/. While the information included from this source is not novel to the Cure Violence page, it can be added as an additional citation to bolster the claims that already exist. Additional reliable evidence is always welcome. I will add it to the appropriate places in the Cure Violence page, attributing the discovery of the source to Agarcia999. Skyvine (talk) 00:12, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
 * My bad. Operation Ceasefire *is* related, in that Slutkin says that the original plan he promoted was based on it (https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2000-05-18-0005180154-story.html). I've also seen some references to Hardiman being the one to create & promote the credible messenger program, which is the most distinguishing characteristic of the organization, but there is little information about this other than "Hardiman developed it". skyvine 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk) 20:13, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Recent Edits
Hi @CRansford! Thanks for helping improve this article. I see you've made several edits recently, and there are just 2 points where I'm not sure the edit was correct. I'm hoping to discuss these points here so that we can reach consensus before I make any further edits to the article.

The first point is in the edit removing the sections on gendered violence and the medicalization of violence. I took another look at the source on gendered violence, and I see that I was indeed mistaken on that point. I was relying on the quote from Shaw on that point, but looking back Shaw was actually from the Illinois Violence Prevention Authority. The article mentioned that this org was going to train CeaseFire workers, but I didn't see any follow-up to that when I was looking into Chicago so presumably it either never happened or it whiffed. I agree that the section on gendered violence needed to be removed.

However, I disagree with the removal of the medicalization section. Full disclosure, I did not originally write up that part and I do not currently have access to the full article. However, the stated reason for removal that it is not medicalization because public health is not medicine (eg, pharmaceutical drugs) is a misinterpretation of the term medicaliztion. I understand that this term might not be clear to people who have not encountered it before, so I think it would be appropriate to restore this part of the content and link the word to the Wikipedia article explaining the term. Looking at the abstract, the researchers were specifically investigating Cure Violence's methodology so it is certainly on-topic. I grant that the peer-review process has its problems, but it also has some value in filtering out some arguments that are completely illegitimate, so I think we'd need a strong argument (such as widespread and widely accepted criticism, or revelations of undisclosed author bias) before dismissing it out-of-hand.

The other point that I disagree with is changing the section heading from "outreach work" to "behavior change". This heading was based on the terminology used in the Skogan report. Now, the Skogan report is not a first-party document and I agree that it is good to align with the terms used by the organization as much as is reasonable for the sake of clarity, particularly as people reading this article are likely to also be reading materials from the organization, but I have not found a reliable reference from the organization describing their methodology in full. In fact, they seem rather opaque to me, focusing their communication more on their alleged results than on explaining what they actually do. If you have found a comprehensive explanation from them I would greatly appreciate being made aware of it. If we do need to move to the "Behavior Change" terminology, then we will also need to update the term used in the lead-in paragraph to the "model" section, and it would probably be good to reword some of the contents of the behavior change section as well.

Let me know if there is anything incorrect or missing in this analysis. Thanks! skyvine 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk) 22:23, 20 May 2023 (UTC)


 * It's been a couple weeks without a reply, so I'm going to go ahead and make the edits described above. If @CRansford or anyone else wants to discuss this further I'm still open to it. skyvine 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk) 18:38, 6 June 2023 (UTC)