Speaking of Tom Friedman's units

Back in October, the consultant who created Mitch Landrieu's "NOLA for Life" publicity campaign made this prediction to a Loyola symposium on violent crime.

Police initiatives have come and gone over the years, but New Orleans' murder rate has remained frustratingly high. Now, the mastermind behind the city's new murder-reduction strategy says the city could be seeing fewer bodies on the ground within a matter of months.

"We should be seeing a real difference inside six months," criminologist David Kennedy said in an interview Friday after speaking at a Loyola University symposium on lethal violence.

Kennedy's ideas are the basis for a new component of Mayor Mitch Landrieu's "NOLA for Life" murder-reduction campaign.

Six months to a "real difference" in the violent crime problem.  That sounds like a bold statement. How are we doing with that?

Update: How about now? 

Look, I'm not trying to be insensitive or flippant about tragic violence.  I don't think there's an easy solution the police or the mayor can or even should pursue. Nevertheless they do pay these cynical consultants a lot of money to tell them where to put up billboards and stuff in order to look like they are doing something. Maybe they could spend that money more wisely. Like on getting the prison into compliance with the US Constitution or something.