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David Kennedy, director of the center for crime prevention and control and a member of the faculty at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, designed the drug market elimination strategy for the High Point [N.C.] Police Department that earned them the 2007 Innovations in American Government Award from the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Kennedy previously directed the Boston Gun Project, which won numerous awards, including the Ford Foundation Innovations in Government Award, for its Operation Ceasefire Initiative. His latest book, Don’t Shoot, details his progress; his “Operation Ceasefire” interventions; and his results in city after city: plummeting violence, dried-up drug markets, and a reset relationship between police and community.Kennedy envisioned an approach in which everyone: gang members, cops, and  community members come together in what is essentially a huge intervention. When David Kennedy, a self-taught and then-unknown criminologist, helped to engineer the “Boston Miracle” in the mid-1990s that resulted in two and a half years of not a single youth homicide in the city; he pointed the way toward what few had imagined: a solution.”Today, [Kennedy’s] antiviolence strategy is no longer an untested theory. It has proven itself time and time again with nearly unbelievable reductions in violence, and every time it has worked it has drawn more followers. It has, in fact, become a movement.”Tate Chambers, Department of Justice, Executive Office for United States AttorneysKennedy has also served as advisor for several government departments and the White House on crime issues.Lunch will be provided. Seating is limited; RSVP required.RSVP to rsvp@publicaffairs.ucla.edu In the media:The New YorkerNewsweek