My answer to that is that what we really want to do is this. If we have a certain amount of money that we're willing to spend on crime prevention, what I would like to do is have a serious debate about how to use that.
The evidence that I am aware of is that the police are capable of at least suppressing certain kinds of crime by their mere presence on the street. According to the studies that have targeted police officers in particular locations where there are particular problems, there seems to be a reduction during the time the police are there. The idea that massive crackdowns, as has occurred in some cities, are going to do that is another thing. But it seems to me that the simple issue of what we know, for example, from the deterrence research is that apprehension is important. Things that would lead to apprehension, targeted programs that would lead to the apprehension of people who are committing serious crimes with firearms--it's hard to argue against that.
At the same time, I think that if we have a certain number of millions of dollars, we have to sit down and ask how we are going to allocate that. Are we going to allocate it to prisons, which is punishment after the fact; or can we allocate it to the police to do the kinds of things I've just mentioned; or can we allocate it to primary prevention, where we try to reduce the motivation of people to join gangs and acquire guns?
I would like that to be the debate.