The Eastern District of Virginia Project Safe Neighborhood Pprject

The primary PSN program goal is to reduce gun and gang violence in EDVA through deterrence efforts aimed at potential offenders, the implementation of proven enforcement strategies to prevent and reduce gun and gang crimes, and the prosecution of significant firearm, controlled substance, and violent crime offenses.  The PSN program will harness the resources of federal, state, and local law enforcement officials throughout EDVA.  The PSN team will incorporate the design features of PSN to reduce gun and gang violence throughout EDVA and the four PSN target enforcement areas.  The PSN program will require intelligence-led approaches to identify the most violent offenders and neighborhoods in each division, and then deploy combined resources to prevent, interdict, and suppress violent criminal acts by targeted offenders in those areas.  A significant part of the strategy will focus on investigating and prosecuting gang members, including members of transnational gangs, such as MS-13, as well as local neighborhood gangs.  EDVA intends to continue with this approach beyond 2021.  Funding for this mission would enhance the ability of EDVA’s federal, state, and local partners to implement anti-gang strategies through additional resources and equipment to investigate gang activity, over-time expenditures for already heavily worked task forces, and other useful expenditures. To achieve the PSN program’s goals, the competitive process will include a number of objectives that will be specified in the RFPs:  establish and expand evidence-based programs that enable law enforcement to prevent and respond to gun crime and gang violence effectively and sustainably; establish sustainable crime analysis that is integrated into the strategic and tactical operations of law enforcement; foster effective and consistent collaborations within police agencies, with external agencies, and the communities in which they serve that increase public safety and minimize gun crime and gang violence; and create and maintain coordination among federal, state, and local law enforcement officials with an emphasis on prevention, tactical intelligence gathering, more vigorous and strategic prosecutions of gun crime and gang violence, and enhanced accountability.            In addition to the objectives outlined above, the RFPs issued by DCJS will make clear that would-be sub-award recipients must help to achieve Specific Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Oriented (“SMART”) objectives through the implementation of PSN in EDVA.  Those SMART objectives include: a 10% decrease in homicides with a firearm in the enforcement areas by September 2021; a 5% reduction in the combined number of homicides, aggravated assaults, and robberies with a firearm after two years of implementation in the enforcement areas; and a 5% decrease in combined homicides, aggravated assaults and robberies that are gang-related in the enforcement area after two years of implementation.The program’s required deliverables will be at a minimum:  a Strategic Action Plan (“SAP”); periodic reports including the Performance Measurement Tool (“PMT”), presentations, and briefings for the PSN team and community members; and a final analysis report of the project’s implementation and outcomes produced by recipient and submitted to DCJS at the conclusion of the project.             SAP’s have been prepared and approved for each EDVA division to identify gaps in services and programs.  An RFP process will select organizations that use best practices and evidence-based programs to reduce gun and gang violence and provide services to the community.