Researchers have struggled to explain why violent crime in the US dropped by about half since the 1990s.
The most prominent explanations focus on policing and the incarceration rate.
In this video, Patrick Sharkey, associate professor of sociology at New York University, suggests there’s a different set of actors who can play a prominent role in confronting violence: "The local residents in the organizations who are in the communities hit hardest by violent crime have a great capacity to confront it.”