b'In 2020 the United States experienced a nearly 30 percent rise in homicides from 2019. That\\u2019s the single biggest one-year increase since we started keeping national records in 1960. And violence has continued to rise well into 2021.\\n\\nTo deny or downplay the seriousness of this spike is neither morally justified nor politically wise. Violence takes lives, traumatizes children, instills fear, destroys community life and entrenches racial and economic inequality. Public opinion responds in kind: Polling indicates that Americans are increasingly worried about violent crime. And if November\\u2019s state and local campaigns were any indication, public safety will be a defining issue in upcoming election cycles.\\n\\nLiberals and progressives need an answer to the question of how to handle rising violence. But that answer doesn\\u2019t need to involve a return to the punitive, tough-on-crime approach that has devastated Black and brown communities for decades and led millions of people to take to the streets in protest last summer.\\n\\nPatrick Sharkey is a sociologist at Princeton University and the author of \\u201cUneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence.\\u201d The central claim of his work is this: Police are effective at reducing violence, but they aren\\u2019t the only actors capable of doing so. Sharkey has studied community-based models for addressing violence in places as varied as rural Australia and New York City. As a result, he has developed a compelling, evidence-backed vision of how cities and communities can tackle violent crime without relying heavily on police.\\n\\nSo this conversation is about what an alternative approach to addressing the current homicide spike could look like and all the messy, difficult questions it raises. It also explores the causes of the homicide spike, why Sharkey thinks policing is ultimately an \\u201cunsustainable\\u201d solution to crime, how New York City managed to reduce gun violence by 50 percent while reducing arrests and prison populations, whether it\\u2019s possible to overcome the punitive politics of rising crime, why America has such abnormally high levels of violent crime in the first place and more. \\n\\nMentioned:\\n\\n\\u201cCommunity and the Crime Decline: The Causal Effect of Local Nonprofits on Violent Crime\\u201d by Patrick Sharkey, Gerard Torrats-Espinosa and Delaram Takyar \\n\\n\\u201cReducing Violence Without Police: A Review of Research Evidence\\u201d\\n\\n\\u201cSocial Fabric: A New Model For Public Safety and Vital Neighborhoods\\u201d by Elizabeth Glazer and Patrick Sharkey\\n\\n\\u201cCan Precision Policing Reduce Gun Violence? Evidence from \\u201cGang Takedowns in New York City\\u201d by Aaron Chalfin, Michael LaForest and Jacob Kaplan\\n\\nBook Recommendations:\\n\\nThe Stickup Kids by Randol Contreras\\n\\nThe Truly Disadvantaged by William Julius Wilson\\n\\nSiddhartha by Hermann Hesse\\n\\nThis episode is guest hosted by Rog\\xe9 Karma, the staff editor for \\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show.\\u201d Rog\\xe9 has been with the show since July 2019, when it was based at Vox. He works closely with Ezra on everything related to the show, from editing to interview prep to guest selection. At Vox, he also wrote stories and conducted interviews on topics ranging from policing and racial justice to democracy reform and the coronavirus.\\n\\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.\\n\\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.\\n\\n\\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rog\\xe9 Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Andrea L\\xf3pez Cruzado; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld, audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Alison Bruzek.'