Research consistently shows that violence disproportionately concentrates among small numbers of individuals, groups, and locations at the highest risk for violence. Before taking action, leaders should perform analyses to identify the people and places driving violence in their jurisdiction.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has training and technical assistance (TTA) resources to help local jurisdictions set goals, perform analyses, and develop plans for reducing crime and violence. Flexible grant funding can support these activities as well. Helpful reports, publications, and other materials are also provided. Key resources are identified below, followed by links to additional resources. These same resources are also listed for Actions 1 and 3, since these three are related to one another.
Resources
Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) National Training and Technical Assistance Center (NTTAC)
BJA NTTAC connects justice agencies with national experts to help reduce violent and drug-related crime. A specific Violence Reduction Response Center connects localities with resources to help address the work of identifying where and among whom violence is concentrating. Jurisdictions interested in implementing strategies outlined in the Roadmap may also contact NTTAC to request TTA from the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF). In collaboration with BJA and a cadre of subject matter experts, PERF will coordinate no-cost TTA services designed to enhance jurisdictions’ capacity to reduce community gun violence and promote community trust.
Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CVIPI)
The CVIPI provides funding to support evidence-based violence intervention and prevention programs. The CVIPI webpage provides access to a variety of resources for planning, implementing, supporting, and assessing community-based violence intervention and prevention efforts. CVIPI funding can support goal-setting, analysis, and planning activities. Communities can request technical assistance to support these efforts through the National CVIPI Resource Center.
Community Violence Intervention Implementation Checklist
Developed with support from BJA, the Community Violence Intervention Implementation Checklist captures background information about CVI efforts, CVI guiding principles, and details on the following specific steps to take when implementing CVI programs.
Local Law Enforcement Crime Gun Intelligence Center (CGIC) Integration Initiative
CGIC grants provide funding to local law enforcement to incorporate business practices that allow for them to utilize the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) and eTrace to generate crime gun intelligence. NIBIN automates ballistics evaluations of gun case images and provides actionable investigative leads in a timely manner.
National Public Safety Partnership (PSP)
PSP is a network of communities who are committed to implementing evidence-informed approaches to reducing violence and enhancing public safety. It is a DOJ-wide program that connects communities with peers and experts to receive coordinated training and technical assistance. There are many resources available to all jurisdictions – including virtual training academies and published materials - through the Clearinghouse, including numerous resources supporting the identification of individuals and locations most at-risk of violence.
Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN)
PSN is spearheaded by each U.S. Attorney’s Office, bringing together federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement officials, community leaders and other stakeholders to identify their most pressing violent crime problems and develop comprehensive solutions to address them. The PSN website includes training resources for all localities working to reduce violence, including a gun violence resource hub. Localities should connect with their United States Attorney’s Office to better understand these resources.
Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program
The JAG Program is a formula award administered to each state and territory, based on their population and violent crime. The award is divided between the state (60%) and direct to local (40%) units of government. JAG funding is administered by a state agency. JAG funds are extremely flexible in ways they can support violent crime reduction and can be used for planning and evaluation activities, and community engagement. Localities should contact their State Administering Agency or the National Criminal Justice Association.
Rural and Small Department Violent Crime Reduction Program
This funding seeks to support small and rural agencies in their efforts to combat violent crime. This program will provide funding to small and/or rural agencies and/or to prosecutors who are interested in implementing or improving the capacity of their organization around one or more critical elements found in the Violent Crime Reductions Operations Guide or the Prosecutors’ Guide to Reducing Violence and Building Safer Communities.
Institute for Intergovernmental Research Violence Reduction Focus Area
Learn about technical assistance to support state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies, officers, and prosecutors in the investigation, prosecution, and deterrence of violent crime, especially crime related to gun violence, gangs, domestic violence, and drug trafficking.
A nationwide program designed to support law enforcement agencies in improving their violent crime clearance rates, with an emphasis on fatal and nonfatal shooting cases. The project team actively partners with law enforcement agencies to identify effective and sustainable practices related to agency operations, agency resources, investigator capabilities, and community relations.
National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center (ERC)
The ERC is a TTA hub designed to support states and localities with the implementation of their ERPO programs to reduce gun violence and save lives.
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) National Gang Center (NGC)
The OJJDP NGC contains numerous resources to support communities that are working to prevent and reduce violence. The NGC provides both direct engagement and produced guidance assist localities where those people and places most at-risk of experiencing violence are involved in group-related violence.
OJJDP National Training and Technical Assistance Center
OJJDP provides TTA resources to address the needs of juvenile justice practitioners and support state and local efforts to build capacity and expand the use of evidence-based practices.
PSN Training and Technical Assistance Program
BJA, in partnership with Michigan State University, the CNA Institute for Public Research, and the National Center for Victims of Crime, provides training and technical assistance in the implementation of Project Safe Neighborhoods.
Rural Violent Crime Reduction Initiative (RVCRI)
RVCRI provides funding and assistance to rural law enforcement agencies seeking to reduce violent crime. Many of the resources are for grantees, but publicly available resources include a clearing house of guides, reports, podcasts, and webinars from researchers, partner agencies, and innovators on addressing drivers of violence across different types of communities.
Smart Policing Initiative (SPI)
The SPI generally is available to program grantees, but there are publicly available resources on the SPI website. These resources include implementation guides, toolkits, survey guides, community engagement strategies, and problem-oriented policing tactics.
VetoViolence Tools & Trainings
This Centers for Disease Control and Prevention center provides training and resources to strengthen the violence prevention toolkit of educators, policy makers, and public health professionals.
BJA Violent Crime Reduction Summit Resource Center
Resources from the BJA Violent Crime Reduction Summit designed to offer insights and tools to jurisdictions in addressing violent crime that impacts their communities.
With the support of BJA using Strategies for Policing Innovation1 (SPI) funds, the Boston Police Department engaged in a problem-oriented policing enterprise to understand the underlying nature of its homicide clearance problem, develop appropriate responses to enhance its investigations of homicide victimizations, and evaluate the impact of the implemented intervention.
Bringing a Folding Chair: Planning for Community Violence Intervention and Prevention
During this webinar, a diverse group of multi-disciplinary leaders in the community-based violence intervention space spoke about the importance of cross-sector collaborations between trusted partners.
Cardiff Violence Prevention Model Toolkit
The Cardiff Violence Prevention Model provides a way for communities to gain a clearer picture about where violence is occurring by combining and mapping both hospital and police data on violence. It also provides a framework for hospitals, law enforcement agencies, public health agencies, community groups, and others interested in violence prevention to work together and develop collaborative violence prevention strategies.
This resource was developed to help communities take advantage of the best available evidence to prevent youth violence. This resource is available in English and Spanish and can impact individual behaviors and the relationship, family, school, community, and societal factors that influence the risk and protective factors for violence.
Crime Solutions Practice Profile: Geographically Focused Policing Initiatives
Geographically focused policing initiatives increase the presence and visibility of police officers at specific high-crime locations to significantly reduce crime and disorder. When implementing geographically focused policing initiatives, the target areas may include small places (e.g., crime hot spots, problem buildings), smaller police-defined areas (e.g., beats), neighborhoods and selected stretches of roads or highways, or larger police-defined areas (e.g., precincts). This practice is rated Promising for reducing crime in treatment areas relative to control areas.
Crime Solutions Practice Profile: Hot Spots Policing
Hot spots policing strategies focus on small geographic areas or places, usually in urban settings, where crime is concentrated. Through hot spots policing strategies, law enforcement agencies can focus limited resources in areas where crime is most likely to occur. This practice is rated Effective for reducing overall crime and rated Promising for reducing violent, property, public order, and drug and alcohol offenses. This program profile provides a description of the practice and key evaluation findings.
Crime Solutions Program Profile: Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS)
This is a community-based program that brings police, local government agencies, and the community together to prioritize problems and prevention efforts in Chicago, Ill. The goal is to solve neighborhood crime problems, rather than react to only to their symptomatic consequences. The program is rated Promising. Police beats or geographical units that implemented the program experienced a statistically significant reduction in crime and calls to 911, compared with police beats that did not. This program profile details the description, methodology, and evaluation outcomes.
Crime Solutions Program Profile: Comprehensive Anti-Gang Initiative (CAGI)
A crime-focused initiative, designed to address gang-related gun homicides in selected cities. The Comprehensive Anti-Gang Initiative (CAGI) was implemented in 12 select cities in response to increasing gang prevalence across the country. The main purpose of the CAGI was to prevent and reduce gang-related crime. The initiative involved a comprehensive model of suppression (enforcement), prevention, and reentry. The program is rated Promising; there was a significant reduction in gun homicides related to gang crime in cities that implemented the initiative.
Crime Solutions Program Profile: Geographically Based Focused Deterrence Intervention (Midwest)
A geographically based focused deterrence intervention was implemented in a midwestern city, with the goal of reducing gun violence, particularly gang-related gun violence. The dual place- and person-based components of focused deterrence strategies typically target gang networks and areas that suffer from high amounts of gang and gun violence. The target area was selected using official police data on the number of shots fired during a specific period of time. There was a statistically significant reduction in confirmed shots fired, residents’ reports of hearing gunshots, and residents’ reports of seeing gang activity. However, there was no statistically significant impact on calls for service for shots fired. The program is rated Promising.
Crime Solutions Program Profile: Operation Ceasefire in Boston, MA
Operation Ceasefire is a problem-solving police strategy that started in Boston, MA and was designed to reduce gang violence, illegal gun possession, and gun violence in communities using a focused deterrence strategy. This program is rated Effective; when implemented in Boston, there were statistically significant reductions in youth homicide, citywide gun assaults, calls for service, and recovered new guns following implementation of the intervention. This program profile provides a description of the program, evaluation findings, and key implementation information.
Crime Solutions Program Profile: Safe Street Teams (Boston, MA)
Safe Street Teams (SST) is a place-based, problem-oriented policing strategy implemented by the Boston (Mass.) Police Department in response to a sudden increase in violent index crimes. The SST program was designed to reduce violent crime by assigning teams of BPD officers to targeted crime hot spots around the city and requiring them to implement problem-oriented policing strategies to address specific violence-related problems at each site. The program is rated Promising; treatment street units experienced statistically significant reductions in total violent index crime, robbery, and aggravated assault, compared with control street units.
Five Things You Need to Know About Targeting Criminal Networks Through Crime Gun Intelligence (PDF, 58 KB)
Utilizing crime gun intelligence can be integral to identifying and dismantling criminal networks. Through timely analysis, local multidisciplinary teams prevent and reduce violent crime by identifying perpetrators, linking criminal activities, and identifying sources of crime guns for immediate disruption, investigation, and prosecution. This brief outlines key strategies to support the successful use of crime gun intelligence.
From Crime Mapping to Crime Forecasting: The Evolution of Place-Based Policing
In this NIJ Journal article, an NIJ scientist reviews the history, landscape, and evolution of place-based policing. Over the years, NIJ has funded projects that explore, evaluate, and seed analytical techniques and technology to support law enforcement agencies that use place-based policing practices and strategies to help answer the question, “How do we best reduce crime and improve public safety?”
A Guide to Assessing Your Community’s Youth Gang Problem
The assessment guide provides a blueprint for conducting a comprehensive community gang problem assessment. It describes the areas of inquiry, data variables, and sources of the data, and it provides data collection instruments. It also provides suggestions on how to organize the data and guidelines for preparation of an assessment report to present the findings from the assessment.
Identifying Hot Spots of Juvenile Offending: A Guide for Crime Analysts
This COPS Office guide provides an overview of the procedures developed to identify and map hot spots of youth violence and crime and discusses how this information can inform problem-solving approaches that stress prevention and place-management strategies over enforcement strategies. It is intended as a resource for relatively experienced crime analysts who are familiar with extracting data to conduct hot spot analysis and to enable them to tailor their analyses.
Managing the Group Violence Intervention: Using Shooting Scorecards to Track Group Violence
Group shooting scorecards are a systematic means of identifying the groups that are driving violence to target for focused interventions administered by a partnership of community members, law enforcement, and social service providers. Developed to support focused deterrence strategies, shooting scorecards help ensure that law enforcement agencies focus scarce resources on the groups that consistently generate the most gun violence. This publication provides an overview of shooting scorecards, its links to problem analysis and performance measurement systems in police departments, the importance of data quality, and the key steps in using the scorecards.
Meaningful Strategic Planning that Produces Results
In this webinar experts in strategic planning share experiences on how to get started and how to navigate challenging strategic planning issues. The session also includes considerations for multi-disciplinary partner engagement, strategic plan elements, ways to measure impact, and DOJ TTA opportunities.
National Public Safety Partnership Social Network Analysis Webinar
This webinar outlined the concept of social network analysis (SNA) and how this tool can be utilized to further crime-reduction strategies. Topics included visualizing a network and types of network data related to SNA, understanding group dynamics and the utilization of SNA in focused deterrence, SNA associated with hotspots as well as NIBIN linkages, and potential implementation challenges and legal considerations.
Notes From the Field: Using Evidence-Based Policing to Combat Violent Crime
This NIJ "Notes from the Field" article discusses evidence-based policing and the experiences of the Manchester (New Hampshire) Police Department in applying it to focused patrols in gun crime hot spots. Sgt. Matthew Barter describes why he became interested in evidence-based policing. He notes how Manchester Police used grant funding in 2015 to provide focused patrols in the gun crime hot spots.
Paving the Way for Project Safe Neighborhoods: SACSI in 10 US Cities (PDF, 353 KB)
The Department of Justice launched the Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiative (SACSI) to test data-driven intervention strategies for targeted homicide, youth violence, firearm violence in 9 cities and rape and sexual assault in 1 city. The study found that the SACSI approach, when implemented effectively, is associated with reductions in targeted violent crimes, sometimes by as much as 50 percent. This report highlights the key elements that led to success of SACSI, such as leadership provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the integration of research into planning and intervention strategies, collaborative strategic planning, and implementation of various intervention strategies.
Policing the Connected World: Using Social Network Analysis in Police-Community Partnerships
This COPS Office report focuses on the use of Social Network Analysis in police-community partnerships and how this approach can reduce crime while building local trust. As demonstrated through examples in Chicago, Illinois; New Haven, Connecticut; and East Palo Alto and Stockton, California, gathering information from local residents and service providers allows police to gain actionable insights into which individuals and groups are at the greatest risk of engaging in or being victimized by violence. When law enforcement agencies can target their deterrence efforts, they increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their operations.
The Prosecutors' Guide for Reducing Violence and Building Safer Communities
Informed by a roundtable of experienced prosecutors from around the country, this guide provides a systematic way for prosecutors’ offices to evaluate their practices with respect to the key elements of a successful violent crime reduction strategy. This guide is intended to enable the executives responsible for operating a prosecutor’s office to identify policies and practices that can be readily implemented, as well as those that represent actionable goals to work toward. It suggests practices that are customizable and scalable, from foundational to enhanced, depending on an office’s available resources and experiences, as well as jurisdiction-specific needs and challenges.
PSN Blueprint for Success (PDF)
This guide provides information for prosecutors, law enforcement, and community partners to develop and sustain effective responses to violent crime. The guide provides insights on identifying stakeholders, establishing metrics, and utilizing training and technical assistance resources.
PSN Webinar on Building and Enhancing PSN Partnerships and Strategies
This recorded webinar reviews strategies PSN programs have used for building partnerships, including approaches to planning, communication, information sharing, accountability and sustainability.
PSP Guide to Social Network Analysis
Social Network Analysis is a tool frequently used by law enforcement to visualize relationships into social structures to be shared as intelligence to better inform crime prevention and intervention efforts.
This report provides case study reviews of sites where Strategies for Policing Innovation initiatives implemented two software technologies: risk terrain modeling (New Haven, Connecticut) and social network analysis (Cincinnati, Ohio; Glendale, Arizona; and Kansas City, Missouri).
Understanding and Responding to Crime and Disorder Hot Spots
This guide highlights hot spots policing and uses the scanning, analysis, response, and assessment model as a framework to discuss the process of understanding and responding to hot spots.
Using Forensic Intelligence To Combat Serial and Organized Violent Crimes
In this NIJ Journal article, NIJ scientists describe how integrating forensic evidence into the intelligence process is an evolutionary next step in reducing, disrupting, and preventing violent crime.
VetoViolence Tools & Trainings
This Centers for Disease Control and Prevention center provides training and resources to strengthen the violence prevention toolkit of educators, policy makers, and public health professionals.
Violence Prevention: Funded Research
The Division of Violence Prevention publishes research on the factors that put people at risk or protect them from violence, creates and evaluates the effectiveness of prevention strategies, and examines how to adopt and disseminate prevention strategies.
Violent Crime Reduction Operations Guide
This guide, developed under the leadership of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, provides an action plan for police leaders on how to focus their leadership on community engagement, partnerships, accountability, resources and sustainability, training and tactics, analytics and intelligence, and technology, to comprehensively work to reduce violence.