Project Safe Neighborhoods and Violent Crime Trends in US Cities: Assessing Violent Crime Impact

A partial assessment of South Carolina's Project Safe Neighborhoods strategy: Evidence from a sample of supervised offenders

“…Although the current results did not offer support for the SCDPPPS CeaseFire notification program's ability to deter supervised offenders from firearm involvement, the importance of focusing deterrence efforts on high-risk populations likely remains the best tactic for reducing gun crimes locally and nationally (McGarrell et al, 2010). Prior researchers have highlighted several limitations within the deterrence perspective, namely that would-be offenders have no idea what the risks of crime actually are (Kleck & Barnes, in press;Kleck et al, 2005).…”

“…The PSN initiative was largely made possible by approximately 1.5 billion dollars allocated by Congress to the ninety-four federal court districts across the United States (Project Safe Neighborhoods, n.d.). Each district was awarded funding upon the assurance that the monies would be used to form an interagency taskforce (i.e., local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies) whose unified objective was assessing the factors driving local gun crime and devising strategies to reduce those factors (Ludwig, 2005;McGarrell, Corsaro, Hipple, & Bynum, 2010;Papachristos, Meares, & Fagan, 2007).…”

“…Research also suggested that Operation Ceasefire led to a reduction in homicide in Boston as compared to other large cities (Rosenfeld et al, 2005). Key elements such as strategic problem solving, formulating interagency partnerships, community outreach, and training and accountability were adopted from Project Exile and Operation Ceasefire to formulate the nationally focused problemoriented PSN initiative (Decker, Huebner, Watkins, Green, Bynum, & McGarrell, 2006;Ludwig, 2005;McGarrell et al, 2010).…”

“…To date, only one study analyzed the effects of the PSN initiative on a national scale (McGarrell et al, 2010). McGarrell and colleagues examined violent crime trends from 2000 to 2006 using data drawn from 82 cities that implemented PSN programs and 170 cities that did not.…”

Can we prevent deaths of homeless persons? Police led public health approach to prevent homeless deaths

“…Evidence from the field of criminal justice supports multi-agency partnerships and the integration of research for helping law enforcement achieve their problem-solving and crime reduction goals (Braga et al, 2001;McGarrell, Corsaro, Hipple, & Bynum, 2010;Piehl, Kennedy, & Braga, 2000;Roehl et al, 2008).…”