Project ADVANCE

Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) is designed to create safer neighborhoods through a sustained reduction in crime associated with gang and gun violence. The program's effectiveness is based on the cooperation of local, state, and federal agencies engaged in a unified approach led by the U.S. Attorney (USA) in each district. The USA is responsible for establishing a collaborative PSN task force of federal, state, and local law enforcement and other community members to implement gang and gun crime enforcement, intervention and prevention initiatives within the district. Through the PSN task force, the USA will implement the five design features of PSN--partnerships, strategic planning, training, outreach, and accountability--to address specific gun and gang crime problems in that district.

The city of West Valley, seving as the fiscal agent for the USAO District of Utah, will maintain Utah PSN's dual focus on gun and gang crime through the Addressing Domestic Violence to Avert New Criminal Efforts (Project ADVANCE) Program. Project ADVANCE is an initiative aimed specifically at preventing, investigating, and prosecuting domestic violence-related firearm crime within a pilot region composed of Salt Lake City and West Valley City. Under this project, the Utah Project Safe Neighborhoods Task Force will forge new partnerships with organizations, including local domestic violence counseling organizations and domestic violence victim advocates that have not traditionally participated in past PSN initiatives. Project ADVANCE will accomplish its goal of mitigating domestic violence-related firearm violence by a) diminishing the number of domestic violence offenders who illegally possess firearms through targeted outreach; b) empowering domestic violence victims to advocate for removing firearms from their homes; and c) aggressively investigating and prosecuting domestic violence-related gun crime.

CA/NCF