2022 Project Safe Neighborhoods Western District of Kentucky

Pursuant to Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Kentucky (USAO/WDKY) convened a Task Force to develop and implement a strategy to address violent crime, including gang activity, through coordinated enforcement, intervention, prevention, and reentry initiatives within the District.  The PSN Task Force consists of representatives from local, state, and federal law enforcement, and state probation/parole, and corrections as well as other stakeholders, including community-based organizations.  The USAO-WDKY’s PSN Strategy is to invest in community-based prevention and intervention strategies with a special emphasis on engaging at-risk youth. The grant will focus on reducing violent crime through community engagement with organizations whose goal is to impact individuals deemed at-risk for future contact with the criminal justice system. The USAO/WDKY faces unique challenges when it comes to comprehensively combating violent crime.  Violent crime continues to be a major issue in the Louisville Metro area.  Additionally, at least two other cities within the Western District, Madisonville and Hopkinsville are experiencing increases in violent crime.  The focus of violent crime reduction is primarily in Louisville, Jefferson County, which is the largest city and urban center of the district. Violent crime continues to rise in the city, and has continued to broaden across the city and into surrounding locations within Jefferson County, driven in part by drug trafficking and youth gang violence.  The project will provide subawards to affected locations throughout the Western Region of the state to support violence reduction initiatives and other community-oriented prevention and interventions.