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The CDC regards violence as a public-health issue insofar as people can be physically and psychologically hurt—a take similar to that of Dr, Gary Slutkin and his team of “interrupters” at CeaseFire, a Chicago-based organization that uses public-health methods to combat gun violence.

Using his background as an epidemiologist who spent much of his career helping to combat infectious diseases such as AIDS in Africa, Slutkin approaches gun violence as if he were containing a contagious disease, using teams of individuals who often have gang or prison backgrounds, or both, to avert conflict that could result in a shooting.

CeaseFire’s mission is, simply, to prevent shots from being fired. “Punishment doesn’t drive behavior,” Slutkin told Alex Kotlowitz in a May 2008 New York Times Magazine article. “Copying and modeling and the social expectations of your peers is what drives your behavior,” he concluded, echoing Hahn’s assertion.

CeaseFire’s Web site acknowledges that joblessness, family conflict, and gang affiliation can all lead to gun-related crimes. Nevertheless, using interrupters to diffuse the impulse to fire a gun appears to be working. According to the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Public Health, gun violence in four of the newest CeaseFire zones fell by more than 40 percent in 2006 and 2007.

Around the country, organizations have begun to adopt holistic approaches to violence prevention, providing alternative activities and job training. At the Pittsburgh-based Craftsmen’s Guild, art and music teachers, many of whom are employed by the Pittsburgh school system, lend their expertise as part of its outreach programming.

Bill Strickland, president and CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corporation, the parent organization of Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, Bidwell Training Center, and Manchester Bidwell Development Trust, started the Craftmen’s Guild in 1968, following the collapse of industrial manufacturer and area employer Allis-Chalmers Corporation. The plant’s closure drained the city’s north side of much of its working class, leaving vacant properties and a steady reduction in property values. Drugs and crime soon followed.

Inspired by a high school art teacher whom Strickland, 61, still reverently calls “Mr. Ross,” the then-17-year-old sought guidance to get into the University of Pittsburgh (“Mr. Ross said he didn’t want to see me die on the streets”). He founded the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild while still an undergraduate.

It was designed to help to divert youthful energy away from the effects of the economic and social devastation of inner-city Pittsburgh, using art to inspire local youth taking ceramics classes in a then-small exhibition space. Following the Guild’s initial success, Strickland drew up a proposal for turning around the Bidwell Training Center, a vocational education program serving mostly displaced steel workers.

The Bidwell center, founded by the Bidwell Presbyterian Church, did not need to conduct an extensive vetting of Strickland for the job. They basically asked him if he paid his taxes (previous managers, Strickland says, had fallen behind on the school’s tax payments) and admired his reputation with Manchester.

Strickland has fine-tuned his operation to promote a long-term strategy of community revitalization that pays not only in crime reduction, but also in the form of economic development. Most classes at Bidwell span nine months to a year. Subjects range from horticulture to pharmaceuticals to culinary arts, and include a few months of externship in hospitals, restaurants, or other areas of training.

The Craftsmen’s Guild’s arts program that works with schoolchildren starts as early as eighth grade, with most students staying with the program through high school graduation, Strickland says. Bidwell’s funding comes, in part, from the Pennsylvania Department of Education, but also from a variety of corporations.

Strickland, who tours the country speaking about his model of community outreach and its effects to academic audiences, MBA candidates, churches, and legislators, says that his “whole life story is six city blocks. I work in this neighborhood and I’m going to die in this neighborhood.” Nevertheless, he strongly believes that despite its local roots, the Manchester Bidwell model is exportable.

He envisions opening “boutiques” across the country, and eventually around the world. “If they operate as small, not-for-profits dedicated to poor folks, you can keep the quality of a private school while providing a public purpose,” Strickland told Shelterforce. “You can scale that, and do that in a couple hundred cities. We think that’s how you get the big return on the investment.”

Planning is underway for Manchester Bidwell centers in New Haven, Conn.; Columbus and Cleveland, Ohio; Philadelphia, Pa.; Charlotte, N.C.; Austin, Tex.; and Minneapolis, Minn. Strickland says his organization is trying to establish centers in Nova Scotia, Ireland, Japan, and Israel.

While students may range in backgrounds, all the centers will have certain characteristics in common, Strickland says: no metal detectors, no cameras, and no armed guards. “It’s built around trust and confidence, and we have to let people know they’re worth something when they walk into the place.”

A simple solution to the complex problems that foster violence is elusive, primarily because they are just that: complex. Robert Hahn points to myriad contributing factors, such as interpersonal relations, physical and social environments, and peer pressure.

The CeaseFire model sidesteps questions of causality and goes directly to preventing the effects of violence. The law-enforcement model of crime and punishment has had decidedly mixed results. For Strickland, the key is finding persuasive alternatives to the “cheap fantasies” of the gangster lifestyle. It’s a slow, incremental approach to producing young people who will strengthen their communities and support themselves. After 40 years, he’s still seeing the fruits of his labors.

It’s not the most glamorous route, nor does it make good headlines, but prevention models offering alternatives and skills development for at-risk youth can, over time, have significant impact. While it takes human and financial resources to make these programs work, their potential economic and social benefits are indisputable: less public money for incarceration, refueled local economies as neighborhoods become safer, improved schools, and revitalization of the quality of life in once-violence-plagued neighborhoods.