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Pathway to Violence is a campaign led by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that provides information to the public on how to identify possible cases of future violence. Informing about unusual activities or attitudes is imperative to be able to identify and neutralize cases of violence. Communities and citizens are then the first line of defense against violence, they live and share the same public spaces and environments as future violent offenders, understanding why they act like they do.
Signals such as aggressive behaviors, abuse of substances, isolation, financial difficulties and observable grievances are key to the identification of a future offender. By informing citizens of these kind of signs, lives could be saved .

RTM or Risk Terrain Modeling is an application designed by Dr. Joel Caplan to study the conditions of a certain geographic area and determine if its morphology incentivizes or not crime and violence. The state of the buildings, the type of public equipment (if there’s any), the type of business in the neighborhood, etc. and their interaction are key variables to determine where and why crime takes place in the places it does. By identifying those hot spots it is possible to better assign resources not only on policing but also to bring urban rejuvenation, inclusive architecture and public services. RTM is a free tool that has been effectively tested in multiple cities across the world, performing with great success. For low and medium income countries that depend on an effective application of scarce resources, a tool like this one could save plenty of lives.

Opening schools in segregated an unequal regions is not just an investment to educate children. It is also about empowering communities, letting them achieve their dreams and escape the fear of violence and crime. By letting citizens out of the education system we are leaving their communities vulnerable to criminal organizations, low expectatives and a vicious spiral of poverty. Criminals are not born, but rather the result of a toxic atmosphere were future seems only like a dream. Nadia Lopez empowered low income communities in New York City through education and showing them the world, helping them create dreams they could fight for.

The vast array of consequences derived from violence against women is yet unknown in its majority due to a lack of conversation on the topic. Men believe that gender issues and segregation are just problems for a specific sector of society in which they don’t belong. It is then impossible to advance in the search for some solutions to violence when the half of the population is not interested on the topic. However, it is a mistake for men to think that gender issues do not comprise their areas of interest, creating empathy for victims is possible when the individuals threatened by this problems are mothers, sisters, daughters and sons of otherwise uninterested men. Esta Soler reminds us that laws and agencies alone are not enough to reduce violence against women, a change of culture and the reconstruction of social fabric are two enterprises that need the involvement of all of the members of society.

In our approach to understanding reality, sometimes it is forgotten the fact that human beings act exactly as other types of life do on earth. Like viruses and bacteria, crime and violence follow the same dynamics and recognizable patterns that only experts on the matter could identify. Gary Slutkin brought all of his knowledge on epidemiology from his experiences on battling cholera, tuberculosis and AIDS in Africa to apply them in Chicago during the 90’s. By isolating individuals “infected” by violence (violent offenders) from society and treating them on reconciliation and reinsertion to society, the outbreak of violence in Chicago was able to be stopped. The effectiveness of the medical approach has been demonstrated over and over again when high infectious diseases are contained and eliminated, from SARS in the 2000's to the latest outbreak of Ebola in 2014, experts were able to keep societies safe from the diseases. If we treat violence like the disease that it is, we could be looking at the end of its outbreak.