This report presents the methodology and findings of an evaluation of the implementation and impact of Washington DC’s Crime Gun Intelligence Center (CGIC) improvements.
The CGIC launched in 2015 used the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF’s) National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) to link ballistic evidence across cases in which the same gun is used multiple times. The goal is to identify, detain, and prosecute the most active shooters in DC, thus reducing gun crime. The rationale for these efforts is the timely processing of ballistic evidence to enable law enforcement personnel to investigate, arrest, and prosecute perpetrators of gun crime and remove illegitimate firearms from circulation. The initial evaluation of the CGIC led to the development of a series of programmatic and policy changes related to personnel capacity, communication, and processes, with the goals of streamlining and improving the NIBIN process. These improvements, called CGIC 2.0, were piloted from November 2017-April 2018. Specific improvements in personnel, communication, and process for CGIC 2.0 are described in this report. In November 2017, a pilot of the improvements was launched in DC’s Metropolitan Police Department’s (MPD’s) Seventh District, with data collection for the pilot period concluding at the end of April 2019. This district of DC consistently experiences the highest rate of gun crime in the city. The evaluation of this effort focused on case clearance rates, prosecutorial outcomes, detectives’ perceptions, causal effect on violent crime outcomes, and ShotSpotter alerts. The evaluation concludes that although it did not find an effect of CGIC 2.0 improvements on violent-crime outcomes during the study period, descriptive analyses suggest the value of CGIC and NIBIN information in advancing the investigatory process. 33 figures and 13 tables