The Island must follow the lead of communities in the US in tackling its gang and gun violence, a Bermudian abroad is urging.An initiative known as Focused Deterrence, used successfully in North Carolina, is said to bear some resemblance to Operation Ceasefire, which the Island is adopting from Boston, Massachusetts.National Security Minister Wayne Perinchief announced earlier this month that Boston’s Street Safe initiative has been identified as a scheme with “several components easily adaptable to the Bermudian context”: a mixture of gang suppression alongside social work.Focused Deterrence, which aggressively targets top offenders but offers lower-level offenders a second change, contains “several elements that are familiar to and are employed by the various agencies involved in anti-gang strategies”, a National Security spokesman said.“These programmes are often rebranded to suit local conditions. Bermuda’s own programme is such an example.”Focused Deterrence, with its combination of get-tough strategies and assistance from social service agencies, was deployed recently in Wilmington, Delaware — a city which former Bermuda resident Barry Kayes said has been troubled by “a lot of the same problems as Bermuda”.Mr Kayes, a resident of Charlottesville, Virginia, said Wilmington is experiencing a surge in “crime, murders and gun violence”, but has seen quick results from the eight-step strategy of Focused Deterrence.The city of roughly 70,000 could be an example to Bermuda’s law enforcement, he added.“Bermuda’s a long way from where it was in my childhood in the 1940s, when you didn’t lock your door,” he said. “With all this hell that seems to be happening in Bermuda with gun violence and murders, I thought the Government in Bermuda could look into this as a possible solution.”As gang culture crops up in smaller communities across the US, many have resorted to shopping around for alternative strategies to simply arresting offenders.Just as Bermuda has begun to adopt Operation Ceasefire from authorities in Boston, police in Wilmington learned Focused Deterrence from the city of High Point, North Carolina — which, in turn, took the lead from Boston.“Our agency has been using Focused Deterrence on a regular basis now for 15 years,” the High Point Assistant Chief of Police Major Larry Casterline told The Royal Gazette.Initially used against chronic violent offenders in 1997, the programme was retooled with the help of criminologist David Kennedy in 2003, to tackle what Major Casterline called “open-air drug markets” troubling High Point.“It significantly reduces open air drug markets, thereby reducing the violence it breeds,” he said. “We used it in 2008 on violent groups, gangs, cliques, whatever you like to call them, to reduce robberies.“We use it to notify juveniles returning from Youth Corrections, and have most recently implemented it for domestic violence offenders.”The latest version of Focused Deterrence, the Offender Focused Domestic Violence Initiative, has not been running long enough to produce significant statistical change, Major Casterline said.Giving the programme one year, the High Point police “hope to have a noticeable change by January, 2013”, he said.“Additionally, we use it to respond to geographical locations where data indicates spikes in violence,” Major Casterline continued.“We identify the area and individuals driving the problem and use deterrence to thwart further violence.“Please note that this is not a special project, but a way to address violent crime. It is a change in philosophy that deterrence is a real tool that can yield very real reductions in violence.”He added: “Arrests are still a necessary tool; however, not the answer to all situations.”Useful website: www.nnscommunities.org