PUBLIC COMMUNICATION

Overview

Effective public communications around youth violence interventions and criminal justice reform are critical. They appear at every stage from convincing policymakers and the community that reform is necessary to unlocking the requisite capital to avoiding spin and protecting reforms from being portrayed as “soft on crime” once they’ve been set in motion.

Beyond examining core policy decisions, it is important to consider lessons from successful communication strategies globally. These strategies are particularly important in a time when many countries are experiencing fragmentation and polarization, low levels of trust in government, and rising populist and nationalist sentiments. In today’s fragmented media landscape, different parts of the population may focus on facts that threaten to derail the larger conversation, making it hard to maintain focus. Given the centrality of the feeling of safety to people’s lives, reforms to change that perception are particularly vulnerable to challenge. At the same time, rising crime in some countries, including the US, has also made the security paradigm more salient. In this context, effective communications strategies have become even more important, if challenging, for advocates.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The core considerations of public communications are the basics of understanding the narrative context, creating an emotional connection, and monitoring all language— as well as understanding the importance of messengers and partners (see Core

Considerations). • Messengers are essential to ensuring that messages are heard and in helping insulate those messages against challenge—but identifying the right messengers can be a challenge in and of itself. Done well, it can pay dividends. Done poorly, and it can scupper the message entirely (see The Power of Messengers and The Power of

Partners). • Mapping the local and national context where reforms are focused can help prevent falling for false messengers or misunderstanding community dynamics, and thus ultimately communication efforts can be more successful (see Mapping the Context). • After mapping specific communication challenges in preparation for launching a communication strategy, there are multiple methods for setting communications strategies into motion, ranging from government inquiries and surveys to documentaries, social media campaigns and study tours (see Setting the Strategy into

Motion).

• Communications challenges can be complex (see Case Study | Bangsamoro

Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao’s Legal Reforms) and they do not end once a reform has passed. Communications often need to be ongoing (see After the Reform).

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS

• Know your audience—and work locally rather than nationally, focusing on bottom-up rather than top-down strategies. • Work with local messengers and seek out creative or unusual partners—but vet them carefully to ensure they represent and meet community need. • Communicate with emotion rather than dry facts—but ensure all points are supported by evidence and logic. • Recognize that language matters—and ensure your actions align with your words, including after the reform has been enacted.

DIVE DEEPER

Core Considerations

The Power Of Messengers

The Power Of Partners

Mapping The Context

Setting Strategy Into Motion

Case Study | Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and Judicial Reforms

After The Reform

Resources

New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal addresses Newark PD

(credit: Flickr/New Jersey Office of the Attorney General)

Conclusions

For those looking to develop a public communications strategy around youth violence reduction efforts or criminal justice reform, the Fellows of the Global Innovations on Youth Violence, Safety and Justice initiative give the following recommendations:

1. Know your audience 2. Do not insist on moral purity; accept and encourage compromise 3. Work via local, community, and state engagement rather than national 4. Consider unusual coalitions 5. Vet your local partners carefully to ensure they represent and meet community need 6. Communicate with emotion over logic, though everything should be logically founded 7. Recognize that language matters 8. Seek out good and beware false messengers 9. Effective communication is bottom-up rather than top-down 10. Keep an open line to local media 11. Ensure your actions align with your words

LOOKING AHEAD

As conversations informing this report focused on the messaging and coalition-building undergirding reform efforts, future conversations should consider further the ways in which narratives evolve once they have left the control of the reformers.

As social media has changed the media landscape and rendered the determination of “truth” more complicated, the danger that narratives will evolve in ways that challenge their authors has risen. Those working in public communications should consider carefully how they monitor and address potential challenges.

Shifting the Narrative

From the economical to the emotional, how we frame nuanced narratives around criminal justice reform can make or break its success

Read the feature

Watch the video

People Lobbying for the Bangsamoro Organic Law

(credit: Flickr/UN Women/Maricel Aguilar)