After months of delay, an ambitious anti-violence program with a track record of dramatic success in several U.S. cities is getting under way in Pittsburgh.

Last September, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl announced the creation of the "Pittsburgh Initiative to Reduce Crime" to combat a murder rate that would go on to make 2008, with 72 homicides, the city's second-bloodiest year in two decades.

The program is based on the work of David Kennedy, a professor in the anthropology department at New York City's John Jay College of Criminal Justice. It involves "call-in sessions" that bring gang members face-to-face with relatives, community leaders and law enforcement officials who tell them of the pain they cause and offer to help them escape the street life -- or threaten to crack down on the whole group if one member commits another act of violence.

So far, Pittsburgh hasn't held any such sessions. But city Councilman Ricky Burgess thinks one can happen as soon as the fall.

Late last month, the city selected Jay Gilmer, a Highland Park attorney, to be the full-time coordinator of the anti-violence program, known as PIRC. Pittsburgh police Lt. Charles Rodriguez, who performs computer support for police projects, will work with Mr. Gilmer.

But dozens of obstacles remain before PIRC can become fully active. The city must finalize a contract with the University of Pittsburgh, which is providing two researchers -- Dr. John Wallace of the School of Social Work and Dr. Michael Yonas of the Department of Family Medicine -- to help compile data about the different groups connected to violence.

Also, Mr. Gilmer must contact everyone with call-in session roles, from parole officers, to social service providers, to prosecutors, to the rank-and-file cops who know about neighborhood gangs.

"I know there's an army of people concerned about these issues who want to see results on the street," said Mr. Gilmer, who has been a project manager for FaithWorks, an organization that helps faith-based organizations grow.

The city has set aside $200,000 for PIRC.

"I'm completely confident of its worth," said Mr. Burgess, who has been in regular contact with Mr. Kennedy of John Jay since last year. "The difficult part is to get all the moving pieces together. Once you get them together, it falls into place very rapidly."

Mr. Kennedy's national reputation received a boost in recent weeks. The June 22 issue of The New Yorker magazine featured a lengthy profile, describing the professor as a long-haired "High Plains Drifter -- the mysterious stranger who blows into town one day and makes all the bad guys go away."

Earlier in the month, Mr. Kennedy was in Providence, R.I., for the formal unveiling of the National Network for Safe Communities, a union of 30 cities, including Pittsburgh, that plan to share their experiences with Mr. Kennedy's crime-fighting strategies.

"There's a nearly 15-year history now of the kind of work that Pittsburgh is undertaking," Mr. Kennedy said last week. "There have been many, many cities that have done this. Everyone who has been serious about sticking to the core elements has been successful."

Boston, the first city to undertake the program, demonstrates the limits of such success. After posting a two-thirds decline in youth homicides in the late 1990s, the murder rate started to climb again as police and community groups lost their focus on gang violence.

The process pioneered by Mr. Kennedy is complicated and labor intensive. Organizers must create a list of a city's most violent groups. They then identify group members who are already under probation or parole and compel them to attend a first call-in session, often in a courtroom.

At the session, relatives of homicide victims talk about their anguish over the death of a loved one, while clergy members or other community leaders describe how violence is harming a community.

Then law enforcement officials explain that they will target the entire group if the violence continues. Social service organizations offer to guide group members if they want to change their ways -- a "carrot-and-stick" approach.

Police Chief James Fealy of High Point, N.C., was skeptical when he first learned about the program. But it has transformed his city of 100,000.

A decade ago, High Point had one of the worst per capita violent crime rates in North Carolina. Today, it's the second-safest city in the state. Some open-air drug markets have disappeared.

"It's been sustained," Chief Fealy said. "It's not an accident."

Since 2004, the city has brought 700 people in for sessions. Of those, about 100 have faced federal prosecution.

It's unclear how many of those who weren't arrested have been able to turn their lives around, and that is something the city hopes to start tracking. But the goal, Chief Fealy said, "isn't to create model citizens."

He cites as an example one man with an extensive criminal record who was threatened with hefty consequences if he didn't stop selling drugs. Three months after the call-in session, officers caught the man smoking marijuana. But he was only charged with possession.

"We didn't tell him he couldn't smoke dope. He wasn't dealing drugs," Chief Fealy said.

Planners in some cities have to be ready to adjust tactics as the situation on the ground changes.

In the six-month period after the program started in Cincinnati a few years ago, gang-related homicides fell 61 percent compared to the same period the previous year, according to the University of Cincinnati's Policing Institute. Last summer, the homicides started an uptick as gang members became accustomed to the call-in sessions.

Then police started making home visits. The message was, "any more violence around here and we're going to be back at your door with an arrest warrant," said Cincinnati police Lt. Col. James Whalen.

Pittsburgh has seen a sharp drop in its homicide rate this year. As of Thursday, there had been 24 killings in the city, compared with 34 through July 2 last year.

But some of the killings involve warring groups, such as the death of 18-year-old Shavaughn Wallace, a pregnant student at Indiana University of Pennsylvania who was shot May 22 on Alpine Street on the North Side.

Police last week charged 18-year-old Lamon Street with Ms. Wallace's death. A witness told investigators that the shooting stemmed from three feuding groups: the Brighton Place Crips, the North Charles Street Crips and the Hoodtown Mafia.

Last year, police said there were about 40 gangs with about 875 members on Pittsburgh's streets.

For PIRC to be effective, the program needs to have a consistent public message for those groups, Mr. Gilmer said.

"Violent crime is not the way to go. It's wrong, it hurts everyone and it hurts you," he said. "You're going to end up paying the price for it."