Project Safe Neighborhoods Case Study Report: District of Nebraska (Case Study 9)

• NCJ Number: 241727
• Author(s): Natalie Kroovand Hipple, Ph.D.; Heather A. Perez, M.S.; Edmund F. McGarrell, Ph.D.; Nicholas Corsaro, M.A.; T. Hank Robinson, Ph.D.; Leigh Culver, Ph.D.
• Date Published: December 2007
• Length: 44 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2002-GP-CX-1003
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation; Program/Project Description

Annotation

This case study of the federally supported Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) in the District of Nebraska focuses on the characteristics and outcomes of this district's efforts to reduce gun violence under the PSN goals and strategies.

Abstract

In implementing PSN, the District of Nebraska built upon prior experience with multi-agency strategic problem solving through the district's informal participation in the federally initiated Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiatives (SACSI). The focus of this case study is the PSN task force serving the city of Omaha. Overall, in Omaha the average number of firearm offenses per month was reduced from 77.4 per month before the PSN intervention to 61.6 per month after PSN was implemented. Time series analyses indicated there was a statistically significant reduction in the overall firearm offenses by 20 percent per month following the PSN intervention, suggesting that PSN's focus on gun crime was responsible for the decline in gun crime. The PSN working group is composed of Federal, State, and local law enforcement and prosecutors; the Department of Corrections; the State Crime Commission; Weed and Seed; the local school system; and research partners from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Coordination is provided by a PSN Operations Director with support from the Law Enforcement incident reviews and analysis from the research partners. The working group relies on regular meetings, including gun-crime case screening; incident reviews; and a gun, gangs, and drugs enforcement team. The statewide task force and the Lincoln working group include similar multi-agency participation. Interventions designed to reduce gun violence consisted of incident reviews to better understand patterns of gun-crime prosecution case screening; increased Federal prosecution of gun-crime offenders; firearms tracing; targeted enforcement; and notification meetings with juveniles. 5 figures, 3 tables, and 7 references