Evaluation of a Comprehensive Approach to Reducing Gun Violence in Detroit

This study will conduct a process and outcome evaluation of the Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) gun violence reduction interventions in the target eighth precinct of Detroit, an area beset by high firearms crime and violence. In addition to enhanced prosecution (including federal prosecution) district-wide, target-area interventions include two major programs: a program of strategies directed toward released inmates reentering the community and a program of strategies to decrease gun violence among the most violent offenders.

In the process evaluation, researchers will document PSN activities and conduct structured interviews with PSN task force personnel (representatives of law enforcement, prosecution, and corrections agencies at local, state, and federal levels) regarding their project expectations versus performance, implementation and operational issues, areas in need of improvement, accomplishments, and suggestions for changes prior to replication elsewhere. To test the program's outcome effectiveness, matched comparison groups from a similar but non-adjacent precinct will be created for the parolee reentry group and the most violent offender group, based on age, gender, prior record, and other variables, and the treatment and control groups will be compared on subsequent arrests and crimes committed. In addition to individual-level data, the experimental and comparison precinct will be compared for numbers of gun crimes (homicides, robberies, assaults, and concealed weapons offenses), arrests made, and court outcomes. Recidivism rates of offenders in each precinct will also be compared.

Results of this study will have implications for other urban PSN jurisdictions and for other programs aimed at reducing gun violence at the local level.