FY19 Project Safe Neighborhoods

The Center for Court Innovation will partner with the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey as the fiscal agent for the FY19 Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) grant program.  The proposed project period is October 1, 2019 – September 30, 2023. 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the New Jersey estimated population for 2017 was 8,908,520.  Currently, there are three Project Safe Neighborhood (“PSN”) Target Areas:  Camden; Jersey City; and Newark.  The 2017 Uniform Crime Report indicates a total of 20,604 violent crimes occurred in New Jersey in 2017.  The PSN Target areas accounted for approximately 25% of the violent crimes and approximately 37.5% of the murders in New Jersey in 2017.

The envisioned PSN strategy for the District of New Jersey includes the five design features of leadership, partnership, targeted and prioritized enforcement, prevention, and accountability.  The highlights of the strategy for the District of New Jersey focus on enforcement and community engagement.  The enforcement strategy will aim to combat violent crime with an emphasis on reducing the number of fatal and non-fatal shootings by specifically targeting, among others, known shooters and gang members through aggressive prosecutorial efforts.  The PSN program will be a collaborative effort to enhance existing task force initiatives to combat violent crime to include CorrStat Region Real Time Crime Center. Community engagement will aim to prevent crime and improve relationships between the community and law enforcement through approaches such as school-based prevention efforts, reentry programming to prevent recidivist offenders from re-offending, diversion programming for at risk-teens, as well as other community events such as National Night Out.  A specific Strategic Action Plan will be developed within six months of grant award. 

Key partners include: the local police department in the PSN subrecipient jurisdiction; local sheriff’s department; county prosecutor’s office; New Jersey State Parole; New Jersey State Police; Federal Bureau of Investigations; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Drug Enforcement Administration; and the United States Marshal’s Service.

Through its research partner – the New Jersey State Police’s Regional Operational Intelligence Center (ROIC) – crime data will be analyzed to assess crime trends, identify violent hot spots, and ensure that the PSN initiatives are having the desired impact on crime.