Philadelphia Smart Policing Project

This program is funded under both the Edward Byrne Memorial Competitive Grant Program (Byrne Competitive Program) and the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program. Authorized by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2009 (Pub. L. 111-8), the Byrne Competitive Program helps local communities improve the capacity of state and local justice systems and provides for national support efforts including training and technical assistance programs strategically targeted to address local needs. The JAG Program (42 U.S.C. 3751(a)) is the primary provider of federal criminal justice funding to state and local jurisdictions, and JAG funds support all components of the criminal justice system.

The Smart Policing Initiative seeks to build upon the concepts of 'offender-based' and 'place-based' policing and broaden the knowledge of effective policing strategies. The most convincing research demonstrates that 'place-based' or 'hotspot' policing reduces violent crime and neighborhood disorder. This initiative address the need for effective policing that requires a tightly focused, collaborative approach that is measurable, based on sound, detailed analysis and includes policies and procedures for accountability.

The city of Philadelphia seeks to reduce violent street crime in Philadelphia. The goals of the Philadelphia's Police Department's (PPD) Smart Policing project are to reduce violent street crime, use and implement data-driven, evidence-based approaches to reducing violent street crime, and to create comparative test of three different evidence-based approaches. PPD will partner with Temple University to design, implement, and test three different evidence-based approaches to combat violence in multiple small areas. Activities will include identification of 66 physical locations in Philadelphia with the highest violent street crime, creation of strategies to address, training of PPD personnel in understanding the approaches and details on how to implement the specific approach, implementation with on-going data collection, analysis and feedback as well as post-intervention data collection, analysis, writing, and dissemination of a final report.

CA/NCF