Stop the guns (2007)
This paper tells how the Metropolitan Police Service used communications to tackle black community gun crime in London. Working together, MCBD and MediaCom developed a three-year strategy for engaging streetwise black males, aged 14-24, in selected London boroughs. Using the rallying cry "Stop the guns", communications dramatised the devastating effects of gun crime, encouraged people to come forward with information and challenged the glamorous imagery surrounding guns. Creative media was central to the strategy, incorporating everything from petrol pumps to a music video. As a result of all this activity, calls with intelligence on gun crime were boosted by 86% and hundreds of thousands of young people were engaged with the campaign. Overall, there has been a sea-change in community attitudes, helping reduce gun crime in London by 15% since the campaign began
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