Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) is a nationwide commitment to reduce gun and gang crime in America by networking existing local programs that target gun and gun crime and providing these programs with additional tools necessary to be successful. Since its inception in 2001, approximately $2 billion has been committed to this initiative. This funding is being used to hire new federal and state prosecutors, support investigators, provide training, distribute gun lock safety kits, deter juvenile gun crime, and develop and promote community outreach efforts as well as to support other gun and gang violence reduction strategies.

History and Foundation

The Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative was launched in 2001, and built upon the foundations of previously-existing gun crime reduction efforts such as the Clinton-era Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiative (SACSI), Richmond's Project Exile, and the Boston Ceasefire program. By studying these and other efforts, the Department determined that successful gun crime reduction initiatives had three common elements: they were comprehensive, coordinated and community-based. It is on these three fundamental principles that PSN is based. More specifically:

Comprehensive – While enforcement is a necessary and important aspect of crime reduction programs, the most successful initiatives marry enforcement with prevention and deterrence efforts.

Coordinated – Programs that ensure coordination between the enforcement, deterrence and prevention efforts are more likely to succeed than those that do not.

Community-based – Gun crime is local, and the resources available to address it vary from district to district. Accordingly, any national gun crime reduction program must remain sufficiently flexible for jurisdictions to implement it in a way that both responds to the specific problem in that area, and accounts for the particular local capacities and resources that can be dedicated to it.

Using those principles as a guide, the Department required that each United States Attorney implement a local gun crime reduction effort that contained each of the following five elements: partnerships, strategic planning, training, outreach, and accountability. The partnership element requires that the local U.S. Attorney create workable and sustainable partnerships with other federal, state, and local law enforcement; prosecutors; and the community. Strategic problem-solving involves the use of data and research to isolate the key factors driving gun crime at the local level, suggest intervention strategies, and provide feedback and evaluation to the task force. The outreach component incorporates communication strategies geared at both offenders ("focused deterrence") and the community ("general deterrence"). The training element underscores the importance of ensuring that each person involved in the gun crime reduction effort—from the line police officer to the prosecutor to the community outreach worker—has the skills necessary to be most effective. Finally, the accountability element ensures that the task force regularly receives feedback about the impact of its interventions so that adjustments can be made if necessary. A more detailed account of each element follows: ¹

Partnerships: The PSN program is intended to increase partnerships between federal, state, and local agencies through the formation of a local PSN task force. Coordinated by the U.S. Attorney's Office, the PSN task force typically includes both federal and local prosecutors, federal law enforcement agencies, local and state law enforcement agencies, and probation and parole. Nearly all PSN task forces also include additional members, such as representatives of local governments, social service providers, neighborhood leaders, members of the faith community, business leaders, educators, and health care providers.

In addition to the local partnerships developed in each district, the national PSN program also adopted two national partners: the National District Attorneys Association and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Although the national partners do not have a defined role, these groups have been integral in communicating – to their constituents, Congress, and others – the importance of the initiative and need for continued support each budget cycle.

Strategic Planning: Recognizing that crime problems, including gun crime, vary from community to community across the United States, that state laws addressing gun crime vary considerably, and that local and state resources vary across the federal judicial districts covered by U.S. Attorneys' Offices, PSN also includes a commitment to tailor the program to local context. Specifically, PSN provided resources for the inclusion of a local research partner who worked with the PSN task force to analyze the local gun crime problem and help develop a proactive plan for gun crime reduction. The goal was for the research partners to assist the task force through analysis of gun crime patterns and trends that could help the task force focus resources on the most serious people, places, and contexts of gun violence. The research partners could also bring evidence-based practice to the task force discussions of gun crime reduction strategies. The inclusion of the research partner was also intended to assist in ongoing assessment in order to provide feedback to the task force. (See Accountability component, below.)

Although each district creates strategic interventions that make sense in its local context, one strategy shared by all PSN task forces is increased federal prosecution of gun crime. PSN is built on the belief that the increased federal prosecution of gun offenders will reduce gun crime through the incapacitation of gun criminals and the deterrence of potential offenders. This working hypothesis is based on the notion that federal sanctions for gun crime are often more severe than those either available at the state level or likely to be imposed at the state level. Further, federal prosecution may include sanctions unavailable at the local level. The focus on prohibited persons possessing or using a firearm is built on the finding that a significant portion of gun crime involves offenders with significant criminal histories. Thus, by increasing the certainty that a prohibited person in possession will face strong federal sanctions, the goal is to persuade potential offenders not to illegally possess and carry a gun.

Training: PSN has involved a significant commitment of resources to support training. This program has included training provided to law enforcement agencies on topics including gun crime investigations, crime gun identification and tracing, and related issues. Training on effective prosecution of gun cases has been provided to state and local prosecutors. Additional training has focused on strategic problem-solving and community outreach and engagement. Nationally-supported PSN training programs are hosted by a network of national training and technical assistance providers; in addition, local training sessions are conducted by each United States Attorneys Office.

Outreach: The architects of PSN believed that increased sanctions would have the most impact if accompanied with a media campaign to communicate the message of the likelihood of federal prosecution for illegal possession and use of a gun. Consequently, resources were provided to all PSN task forces to work with an outreach partner to devise strategies for communicating this message to both potential offenders and to the community at large. This local outreach effort is also supported at the national level by the creation and distribution of Public Service Announcements and materials (ads, posters). These materials are direct mailed to media outlets and are also available to local PSN task forces.

The outreach component is also intended to support the development of prevention and intervention components. PSN provided grant funding in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 to the local PSN partnerships that could be used to support a variety of initiatives including prevention and intervention. Many initiatives were built on existing programs such as school-based prevention, Weed and Seed, or juvenile court intervention programs.

Accountability: This element emphasized that PSN would focus on outcomes—i.e., reduced gun crime—as opposed to a focus on outputs such as arrests and cases prosecuted. That is, PSN's success is measured by the reduction in gun crime. This accountability component was linked to strategic planning whereby PSN task forces, working with their local research partner, are asked to monitor levels of crime over time within targeted problems and/or targeted areas.

To implement the program, each United States Attorney's Office has designated a PSN Coordinator who is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the initiative. The Department monitors the progress of the initiative through reports submitted by each United States Attorney. In addition, the Department established a point-of-contact for each district to assist with implementation issues and created the Firearms Enforcement Assistance Team (FEAT) to support the program overall. To help ensure that each district developed the skills it needed to implement the initiative, OJP has funded a comprehensive network of training and technical assistance providers, and hosts a PSN National Conference approximately every 18 months. Individual districts also have received grant funding, through a local fiscal agent, for each year of the program.

In 2006, in response to the growing problem of violent gangs across the country, the Department expanded Project Safe Neighborhoods to include a focus on gangs and gang violence. The goal is to use strategies and partnerships with state and local law enforcement and communities pioneered under PSN to shut down violent gangs in America. As a result, although PSN remains "America's Network Against Gun Violence," each federal judicial district has incorporated anti-gang efforts into its PSN program.

¹The summary of each of the elements of PSN, along with the more detailed recitation of each element, has been adapted from the Project Safe Neighborhoods: Strategic Intervention case study series, each of which contains this overview. (See, e.g., Strategic Intervention: Lowell, District of Massachusetts, Case Study 6, available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/pdf/Lowell_MA.pdf.)