How to Reduce Crime and Improve Race Relations

On Chicago's violence-ridden West Side, Tracey Meares was the lead researcher on an intervention that helped slash homicide and recidivism rates by about a third. What's more, the program avoided much of the police–community antagonism that plagues many efforts to lower crime. Why? Because Meares, a professor at Yale Law School, put into practice her academic theory, which focuses not on why people break the law, but on why people obey it.

Meares discussed the Chicago intervention and a new national effort to scale up interventions like hers across the country.

Open Society Fellow Mark Schoofs introduced the event.