David M. Kennedy, heralded 13 months ago as a solution to a surge in shootings across the city, was back in Pittsburgh yesterday preparing the way for an experienced team to "jump start" a long-awaited anti-violence plan here.

Mr. Kennedy -- director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control and professor of anthropology at the City University of New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice -- spent the first half of a two-day visit meeting with law enforcement and social service agencies.

He said he's pleased with the emerging Pittsburgh Initiative to Reduce Crime (PIRC), but wants to bring in a team from the University of Cincinnati that has experience identifying violent groups, mapping out their relationships, and planning the clean-up-or-else meetings that precede a gang crackdown.

The team "will help produce the snapshot of the streets. Where are the groups that are driving violence in the city? What are their relationships with one another?" he said yesterday. "They'll review a lot of the actual violence and unpack it to get the details of the Pittsburgh street dynamic."

The team, led by Associate Professor Robin Engel, director of the University of Cincinnati Policing Institute, has worked on that city's version of PIRC. She's also crafting an Ohio-wide anti-gang drive, said Mr. Kennedy.

She will work with the University of Pittsburgh's John Wallace, of the School of Social Work, and Michael Yonas, of the Department of Family Medicine, among others there. Pitt has a $200,000 contract with the city, and the University of Cincinnati's $40,000 charge will come out of that.

"This is pretty specialized research," said Mr. Kennedy. Ms. Engel is part of "a growing body of us around the country that support each other in this work."

"They have regional expertise, and we're simply using this regional expertise to jump-start this program," said Pittsburgh City Councilman Ricky Burgess, who sits with Public Safety Director Michael Huss and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl on the PIRC governing board.

The Cincinnati team is expected to arrive in Pittsburgh in mid-November. Ms. Engel could not be reached for comment.

Mr. Burgess' executive assistant, Crystal Sumpter, went to Cincinnati and saw the dramatic centerpiece of the program -- a meeting at which gang members are confronted by victims and community leaders, while service agencies wait in the wings to help them go mainstream.

"It worked seamlessly," she said. "I think that's because [Cincinnati has] been doing it for a while."

Mr. Kennedy said such a meeting could occur in Pittsburgh "within several months."

"It may have taken longer than what we anticipated, but we've got to get it right," said Mr. Huss. Implementation of the program was slowed by drawn-out contract talks with Pitt, and the need to shift funding after money initially slated for PIRC was spent on other public safety needs.

Homicides in the city are down around 40 percent from last year, but Mr. Kennedy said that's no reason to abandon PIRC.

"These are very bumpy numbers," he said. "However high it is, it's too high, and we can bring it down some more. ... It will turn out to be true that what remains is the kind of violence that we're organizing to do something about."

Mr. Burgess said he needs "a pause in [violent] activity" that will "allow me the breathing room I need to encourage economic development in my district." That district includes Homewood, Lincoln-Lemington and Larimer.

Cincinnati saw a life-saving pause after it implemented Mr. Kennedy's model. Killings dropped from 89 in 2006 to 68 in 2007.

The Cincinnati Police Department won the 2008 International Association of Chiefs of Police Award for its anti-gang work. The IACP credited it for a 38 percent drop in gang violence.

PIRC Coordinator Jay Gilmer said Pittsburgh has long contemplated a contract with an outside agency and has been eyeing Cincinnati as its model since last year, so the pairing made sense.

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