Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2008, $142,728)
Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a nationwide commitment to reducing gun crime, links existing local programs together and provides them with necessary tools. PSN 1) takes a hard line against gun criminals, using every available means to create safer neighborhoods; 2) seeks to achieve heightened coordination among federal, state, and local law enforcement; and 3) emphasizes tactical intelligence gathering, more aggressive prosecutions, and enhanced accountability through performance measures. The United States Attorney in each federal judicial district will lead the offensive. The fiscal agent, in coordination with the PSN Task Force, will allocate funds throughout the community.
The Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) will use FY08 PSN funds to support the following goals: 1) increase intelligence gathering capabilities; 2) increase prevention/detection resources; and 3) community-based gang prevention efforts.
Specifically, the PCCD will support the following:
1) ATF Violent Crime Impact Teams (VCIT): The goal of this initiative is to target Pittsburgh's most violent communities and the armed individuals/gangs which perpetuate the cycle of violent crime through the use of firearms. Part I crime statistics will be compared from prior to the initiation of this initiative to the duration of the project for the targeted areas to quantify the initiative's progress. Funds will be utilized for overtime for task force officers, who will continue to pursue gang violence and firearm cases and prosecute those individuals and gang members who use firearms in furtherance of their illegal activities. Also, there has been an increase in the backlog of entering recovered firearms into the ATF e-Trace system. For this reason, overtime for the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police Firearms Tracking Unit will be provided.
2) Gang Free School and Communities (Pittsburgh Youth Intervention Project): A full-time outreach worker position will be funded to work with gang-involved youth and participate in support services with their families to dissuade them from gang involvement.
3) United States Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force: The primary mission of the fugitive task force is to seek out and arrest, in a joint and coordinated manner, persons who have outstanding state and/or federal felony warrants for their arrest. State parole agents will be provided overtime.
4) Erie Weed and Seed Program: Special Operation Teams and additional law enforcement will use overtime to conduct multiple operations in the target area in conjunction with ATF. Additionally, surveillance equipment for special operations and emergency situations will be funded.
5) Project Safe Neighborhoods: Anti-Gang Grant Program Evaluation: Funds will be used to support a portion of the research partner and research assistants' salaries. Together, they will be responsible for gathering gun and gang crime data, preparing files for analysis, and submitting reports to the task force and fiscal agent.
6) Gang Awareness Conference: This annual conference is free and open to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies throughout Pennsylvania and neighboring states. Funds will be used to defray the cost of the 2009 Gang Awareness Conference.
NCA/NCF