FY21 Project Safe Neighborhoods Middle District of Georgia

Georgia Criminal Justice Coordinating Council
2020 Project Safe Neighborhoods Discretionary Grant Program
Project Abstract
 
The Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC), the State Administering Agency for the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant, is pleased to submit this application on behalf of the Middle District of Georgia’s U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN). CJCC seeks to use PSN funds on violent crime reduction in three of its population centers, Albany, Columbus, and Macon. Each of these communities have experienced increased homicide and violent crime rates during the past calendar year and the current trends indicated that the surge of violent crime has not decreased. Implementation for this proposal will begin on October 1, 2021 and end September 30, 2024.

The PSN Task Force for the district has a site in each of these three communities comprised of federal, state and local law enforcement partners. The District intends to utilize data for violent crime incident, gun crime, gun confiscation, calls for police service, and incident reports, to identify the areas of each community which are plagued by gun violence. Additionally, the District utilizes task force meetings to review crime data as well as pretrial data from local prosecutors and federal prosecutors, the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, and other crime-related data. Task force meetings have led to the creation of a priority offender list that has led to an increase in PSN indictments to date since its inception in February 1, 2018.

It is the intention of the task forces to utilize the grant funds to conduct outreach and prevention strategies with special emphasis on targeting at risk youths to stem the tide of violent crime. Some of the current strategies in place include but are not limited to police training, National Night Out, the Read2Succeed program, and the STYLE (Successful Tips for Youth on Law Enforcement Encounters) Program. A portion of grant funds, 30 percent, will be used to fund the efforts of local gang unit who supports PSN initiatives throughout the Middle District.