Oregon Crime Gun Initiative

The USAO will focus on repeat offenders and gun violence throughout the district with a particular focus on juvenile-involved crime and retaliatory criminal conduct associated with gang activity and/or drug trafficking. The objectives and strategies associated with FY2022 funding will be guided by PSN’s four pillars and the core principles outlined in the Deputy Attorney General’s Comprehensive Strategy for Reducing Violent Crime of community engagement, prevention and intervention, focuses strategic enforcement, and accountability, as outlined in the project scope for the FY2023 PSN agreement: 

Community Engagement:  

Objective: Develop and maintain partnerships with and between law enforcement, government entities, and community partners. 

Strategy 1:  The USAO, through its PSN and law enforcement coordinators, will engage in significant outreach to law enforcement, government, and community partners, building and sustaining robust lines of communication with each stakeholder group. 

Strategy 2: The USAO will support new and established community organizations as they build capacity for street-level outreach. 

Prevention and Intervention:  

Objective: Improve targeted prevention and intervention efforts for individuals at greatest risk of engaging in or becoming a victim of violent crime. 

Strategy 1: The USAO will convene regular, district-wide or regional meetings of representatives from key community organizations focused on violence reduction with the goal of sharing information, identifying areas of potential partnership, and expanding existing service offerings. 
Strategy 2: The USAO will support local community and government prevention and intervention programs through the deployment of Justice Department grants, training, and technical assistance.  

Focused and Strategic Enforcement: 

Objective: Focus enforcement resources on investigating and prosecuting the district’s most active or significant violent offenders.  

Strategy 1: The USAO will support and work collaboratively with multi-agency, multi-disciplinary, multi-region teams and task forces focused on using the best available intelligence and information to assess the specific violent crime challenges in different parts of the state and identify the key offenders driving violence in those areas. 
Strategy 2: The USAO will leverage all available federal statutes to support the investigation and prosecution of key offenders and, with its partners, assess which offenders should be prosecuted in federal court or if other jurisdictions might provide a more certain or appropriate sanction. 

Accountability:  

Objective: Collect and use intelligence and data to monitor violent crime trends throughout the district and assess the effectiveness of ongoing violence reduction efforts. 

Strategy 1: The USAO will conduct individual and group meetings with key law enforcement partners to discuss the effectiveness of regional violent crime reduction strategies and solicit updates from partners on the results of any available, relevant internal audits, assessments, or reviews. 
Strategy 2: The USAO will closely track and assess its own PSN-related investigation and case metrics using CaseView and other available data sources. 

DISTRICT OF OREGON PSN PROGRAM OVERVIEW 

The USAO partners with many agencies that play different and complementary roles in executing the district’s PSN grant strategy. All PSN partner agencies are encouraged to identify and use intelligence- and data-informed violent crime reduction strategies and regularly share information with one another. The USAO will continue to prioritize the identification of new community stakeholders who provide vital, violence-reduction services to at-risk individuals and families. 

The District of Oregon PSN grant selection committee includes two former directors of the City of Portland’s Office of Youth Violence Prevention, the current CEO and Founder of a Portland area non-profit focused on mentoring Black and Hispanic girls in North and Northeast Portland, and the Director of Mathematics for Portland Public Schools’ Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) program. The district’s fiscal agent is the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission. The USAO PSN team is led by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nicole Bockelman and Jeffrey Sweet and Public Affairs Officer Kevin Sonoff. 

PSN grant program funds have been distributed in the District since FY2018. FY2018 program funds supported the Portland Opportunities Industrial Center’s (POIC) intensive case manager/life coach program. FY2019 program funds supported youth gang prevention and intervention efforts at the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization’s (IRCO) Africa House. FY2020 programs funds are supporting POIC’s Skills and Opportunities for Achievement and Responsibility (SOAR) workforce re-entry program.  FY2021 funds are continuing to support the POIC’s intensive care manager/life coach program.

GANG TASK FORCE SET ASIDE 

The District of Oregon PSN Team has determined that criminal and transnational organizations are a driver of violent street crime, firearms offenses, drug trafficking, and human trafficking throughout the state. As a result, with the district’s FY2018-FY2021 PSN grant funding, the team has prioritized a violence-reduction strategy focused on gangs and other criminal organizations. The District of Oregon will continue using the 30% set aside on intervention and prevention efforts targeting gangs and other criminal organizations and on the evaluation and assessment of those focused efforts. For the district, the PSN Team will continue functioning as the “Gang Task Force” as required by the PSN grant program.