National Evaluation of Project Safe Neighborhoods

Evaluating the effectiveness of this federal program will lead to a better understanding of successful crime reduction strategies.

Project Safe Neighborhoods

Since 2001, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has directed and funded the Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) program, aimed at identifying, addressing, and preventing violent crime within communities across the country. It is one of the DOJ and federal government’s premier violent crime reduction programs. In 2017, DOJ introduced an enhanced PSN model wherein U.S. Attorneys’ Offices (USAOs) across the nation’s 94 federal judicial districts received funding and support to lead PSN efforts. In 2021, DOJ introduced an updated model as part of its violence reduction strategy.

The National Institute of Justice selected RTI, in partnership with the Justice Research Innovation Network (JIRN), to evaluate the Project Safe Neighborhoods program to promote public safety through reduced violent crime and prosecution of firearms violations.

Because districts face different violent crime issues and have different law enforcement, government, and community resources, PSN provides a framework for USAOs to work in partnership with local law enforcement and community groups to more effectively combat and prevent local violent crime. 

From one district to the next, PSN programs vary greatly in the geographic areas and crimes of focus. Some districts focus on specific neighborhoods within cities and specific crimes like gang violence, while others focus on the entire district and all firearm-related crime. Despite this diversity, all districts participating in the program share common goals and implement the key elements of the current PSN model: 

• Community engagement, prevention, and intervention to reduce future violence
• Focused and strategic enforcement
• Collecting and using data to guide decision-making on enforcement and prevention efforts

RTI's Project Safe Neighborhoods Evaluation

In 2020, the DOJ’s National Institute of Justice began funding RTI to lead a rigorous evaluation of PSN to:

• Assess the implementation and outcomes of PSN at the national level and in 10 selected case study districts
• Develop findings, materials, and reports that benefit local PSN practitioners and federal personnel who administer PSN
• Disseminate findings to practitioners, policymakers, and researchers through scholarly products and presentations
• Submit all resulting data sets and supporting documentation for future replication and reanalysis by other researchers

Our evaluation team seeks to understand how PSN is implemented locally, with a focus on the key elements of the enhanced and updated PSN models. We use information from USAO semi-annual reports, surveys, and interviews with USAO staff and PSN partners. In the 10 case study districts, RTI and JIRN researchers hold monthly calls with PSN site coordinators and conduct virtual or in-person site visits to interview PSN stakeholders and observe program activities.

The outcome evaluation compares trends in violent crimes during different time periods: before the enhanced model was introduced in 2017, during the initial enhanced model, and since the updated model was introduced in 2021. The comparisons take into consideration the widespread increases in crime due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The outcome evaluation also examines changes in crime as a function of differences in local PSN implementation. In case study districts, the evaluation team is using the cutting-edge “synthetic control” method to assess changes in violent crime rates in each PSN target enforcement area compared with changes in non-PSN areas that were carefully selected and weighted to closely resemble the PSN areas in prior crime rates. 

Through our evaluation of the implementation and efficacy of the PSN program, RTI is contributing to the continued success and optimization of the federal government’s efforts to promote public safety. The PSN Evaluation, which concludes in 2024, will provide the USAOs and their partners, the Department of Justice, and Congress with the vital empirical information necessary for continuing to improve the efficacy of violent crime reduction strategies in the U.S.