The NDCA PSN Program

The creation of an Analyst position to support the Community Violence Reduction and Gang Unit (CVRU) within the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office is a critical component of the Northern District of California’s PSN Strategy and will drive intelligence-informed state and federal violent crime prosecutions. Such a program is an explicit action item in the PSN Pillar for focused and strategic enforcement, and the USAO’s ability to collaborate with the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office would directly facilitate this goal. 

The CVRU is currently composed of attorneys and investigators committed to the reduction of violent crime caused by guns, gangs, drugs, and human trafficking through intervention, prevention and education.  However, the unit is not currently supported by an analyst.  The creation and funding of such a position will assist the attorneys and investigators in evaluating crimes and linking them by identifying the prolific offenders, using firearms-related intelligence such as ballistics associations and tracing information, and uncovering linked crimes to build the most impactful cases that target violence drivers and disrupt the flow of illicit firearms.

The addition of an Analyst will allow the CVRU to analyze real-time intelligence from police reports, ballistics information, and other sources to identify trends associated to and the crime drivers perpetrating gun violence and gun trafficking in Contra Costa County.  CVRU will also implement violence reduction, prevention, and intervention efforts targeting high risk gang members as well as evaluation and assessment of those focused efforts. We aim to develop an intensive, ongoing collaboration between the ATF, FBI, local police departments, crime laboratories, probation and parole, local gang units, prosecuting attorneys, USAO, crime analysts and community groups to further these goals.