Operation Ceasefire (also known as the Boston Gun Project and the Boston Miracle) is a
problem-oriented policing
Problem-oriented policing (POP), coined by University of Wisconsin–Madison professor Herman Goldstein, is a policing strategy that involves the identification and analysis of specific crime and disorder problems, in order to develop effective r ...
initiative implemented in 1996 in
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
,
Massachusetts
Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...
. The program was specifically aimed at youth
gun violence
Gun-related violence is violence against a person committed with the use of a firearm to inflict a gunshot wound. Gun violence may or may not be considered criminal. Criminal violence includes homicide (except when and where ruled justifiable ...
as a large-scale problem. The plan is based on the work of criminologist
David M. Kennedy.
Boston
Through the late 1980s and early 1990s, Boston, like many cities in the United States, experienced an epidemic of youth gun homicides. Violence was particularly concentrated in poor inner city neighborhoods including
Roxbury,
Dorchester, and
Mattapan.
Youth homicide (ages 24 and under) in Boston increased 230% - from 22 victims in 1987 to 73 in 1990.
Between 1991 and 1995, Boston averaged about 44 youth homicides a year.
Operation Ceasefire entailed a
problem-oriented policing
Problem-oriented policing (POP), coined by University of Wisconsin–Madison professor Herman Goldstein, is a policing strategy that involves the identification and analysis of specific crime and disorder problems, in order to develop effective r ...
approach, and focused on specific places that were crime
hot spots. Focus was placed on two elements of the gun violence problem: illicit gun trafficking
and
gang violence
A gang is a group or society of associates, friends, or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collecti ...
.
At the outset, the strategy was sponsored by the
National Institute of Justice
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is the research, development, and evaluation agency of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ).
NIJ, along with the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), Offic ...
and was co-directed by
David M. Kennedy,
Anthony A. Braga, and
Anne M. Piehl of
Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. The project, over the course of time, became unique, as it:
* Assembled a multi- and interagency working group composed largely of line-level
criminal justice
Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the rehabilitation of offenders, preventing other ...
practitioners & Boston's Streetworker Program;
* Applied qualitative ''and'' quantitative research techniques;
* Created an assessment of the nature of and dynamics driving youth violence in Boston;
* Adapted the intervention after implementation, and continued to do so throughout the program; and
* Evaluated the intervention's impact.
A core participating agency was defined as one that regularly participated in the Boston Gun Project Working Group over the duration of the project.
The participating core agencies included the
Boston Police Department
The Boston Police Department (BPD) is the primary law enforcement agency of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1854, the BPD is the oldest municipal police department in the United States. It is also the 20th largest law enforce ...
; Massachusetts departments of probation and parole; the Suffolk County district attorney; the office of the
United States Attorney
United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal ...
; the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), commonly referred to as ATF, is a domestic law enforcement agency within the United States Department of Justice. Its responsibilities include the investigation and prevention ...
; the
Massachusetts Department of Youth Services (juvenile corrections); Boston school police; and gang outreach and prevention streetworkers attached to the Boston Community center program. Other important partners with more intermittent participation include the Ten Points Coalition, the Office of the
Massachusetts Attorney General, the
Drug Enforcement Administration
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating illicit Illegal drug trade, drug trafficking a ...
, and the
Massachusetts State Police
The Massachusetts State Police (MSP) is an agency of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, responsible for law enforcement and vehicle regulation across the state. As of 2024, it has 2,500 sworn troop ...
.
Design on the project began in 1995. It led to what is now known as the
Group Violence Intervention (GVI), typically overseen by the
National Network for Safe Communities, out of
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
The John Jay College of Criminal Justice (John Jay) is a public college focused on criminal justice and located in New York City. It is a senior college of the City University of New York (CUNY). John Jay was founded as the only liberal arts col ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
, but has also been implemented independently by several jurisdictions. The Boston project launched in 1996 with an innovative partnership between practitioners and researchers. These groups came together to assess the youth homicide problem and implement the intervention, and found a substantial near-term impact on the problem. Operation Ceasefire was based on
"pulling levers policing" deterrence strategies, which focus criminal justice enforcement on a small number of chronic offenders and gang-involved youth who were responsible for much of Boston's homicide problem.
Early impact evaluations suggested that the Ceasefire intervention was associated with significant reductions in youth homicide victimization, shots fired, calls for service, and gun assaults in Boston.
Within two years of implementing Operation Ceasefire in Boston, the number of youth homicides dropped to ten, with one handgun-related youth homicide occurring in 1999 and 2000.
After a change in supervising personnel within the Boston police department and city government, this first site was abandoned. Youth homicides began to climb again with 37 in 2005 and reaching a peak of 52 in 2010.
Findings and results
The Pareto principle in Ceasefire
Research on the Ceasefire method has found a profound and so far invariant connection between serious violence and highly active criminal groups.
A typical city-level finding is that groups collectively representing under 0.5% of the city's population will be connected as offenders, victims or both, with between half and three quarters of all homicide in the city
—an example of the
Pareto principle: a large proportion of the effects comes from a small proportion of the causes. This is likely to be an underestimate, as only incidents known to be connected to street groups are counted as such; a substantial portion of those not known will also be group connected.
In Boston, for example, which at the time had a population of roughly 556,180 people, approximately 1,500 individuals were identified as comprising 61 separate groups. This 0.3% of the population was responsible for 60% of the city's homicides.
Similarly, in Cincinnati in 1997, which had a population of about 333,210, between 800 and 1,000 individuals—less than 0.3% of the population—were identified as being group related, and were responsible for 75% of the city's homicides.
Results and impact
Studies of Boston Operation Ceasefire found a 63% reduction in youth homicide.
Since then, Operation Ceasefire has evolved into the
National Network for Safe Communities' Group Violence Intervention. The
Group Violence Intervention (GVI) has been deployed in dozens of cities – from
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
to
Providence, from
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
to
Nashville
Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...
– over almost 20 years. A 2011 Campbell Collaboration Systematic Review of the strategies, and others related to them, concluded that there is now "strong empirical evidence" for their crime prevention effectiveness.
Stockton's Operation Peacekeeper produced an overall 42% reduction in gun homicide in the city.
The Chicago extension of the national
Project Safe Neighborhoods Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) is a national initiative by the United States Department of Justice with the help of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to reduce gun violence in the United States. The project's aim is to ...
initiative, has shown 37% reductions in homicide,
while the
Lowell, Massachusetts
Lowell () is a city in Massachusetts, United States. Alongside Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, it is one of two traditional county seat, seats of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Middlesex County. With an estimated population of 115,554 in ...
, Project Safe Neighborhoods efforts have produced 44% reductions in gun assault.
A 34% reduction in homicide has been recorded in
Indianapolis
Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...
after the launch of the Indianapolis Violence Reduction Partnership.
The
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...
Initiative to Reduce Violence (CIRV) has shown a 41% reduction in street group member-related homicides.
Awards and recognition

In 2003, the program received the
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of Law of the Unite ...
's "Outstanding Comprehensive Strategic Plan Award".
[{{cite web , title=#054: 01-31-03 JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ANNOUNCES RECIPIENTS OF FIRST ANNUAL PROJECT SAFE NEIGHBORHOODS ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS , url=https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2003/January/03_ag_054.htm , website=www.justice.gov , publisher=United States Department of Justice , access-date=14 December 2021 , date=January 31, 2003]
In fiction
The crime drama series
''City on a Hill'' shows a fictionalized account of Operation Ceasefire.
Notable Documentaries
The Emmy nominated documentar
Operation Ceasefiregives an inside look at the creation and implementation of the program through the testimonies of its key figures.
References
Law enforcement operations in the United States
Government of Boston
History of Boston
Gun violence in the United States