The job of the police is to catch people once they've crossed the line," said Gary Slutkin, an epidemiologist and director of CeaseFire. "Our job is to keep them from crossing that line in the first place."

Here's how Project CeaseFire began:

Launched by the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention at the University of Illinois at Chicago, CeaseFire hires outreach workers, many of them ex-convicts and reformed gang members, to canvass violent neighborhoods and talk directly to high-risk individuals. Their goal is to alter the mind-set that violence is an appropriate behavior and offer alternatives, from GED programs and drug counseling to steady jobs. CeaseFire workers--who get paid an average of $27,000 a year--also directly intervene in street conflicts and mediate tense gang situations where lives are on the line.

Part of the success of the project may be due to increased funding.

The state increased the program's funding from under $1 million last year to about $5 million this year. There are now 70 outreach workers, up from 20 last year, and CeaseFire has a presence in 12 different Chicago-area communities and four other cities across the state.

There's a lot more in this article, we recommend reading all of it. Could it work in South Central LA? Would it be better than "broken windows" policing? Maybe they should give it a try.