Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative Expansion For Fiscal Year 2003

Washington, DC - The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) announces that it has selected 12 additional metropolitan areas to participate in the Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative (YCGII) for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2002. These will bring the total of cities in the program to 66.

ATF established the initiative in 1996 to focus special agent and inspector resources on reducing youth gun violence. Each participating city agrees to provide ATF with trace information about each firearm recovered at their local crime scenes. The subsequent ATF trace uses a firearm's serial number to track its movement from manufacturer or importer to the retail purchaser. These comprehensive traces allow ATF to better analyze the illegal flow of guns into each city, and to lead local law enforcement to sources of illegal firearms diversion, illegal gun traffickers, and violent criminals. The data provided by ATF is shared with State and local law enforcement authorities, who use that access to develop additional investigative leads and to focus on trends that the YCGII program identifies.

The new participants are:

Norfolk, VA
Macon, GA
Savannah, GA
Providence, RI
Rochester, NY
New Haven-Hartford-Bridgeport, CT
Springfield-W. Springfield-Holyoke, MA
Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC
Columbus, OH
E. Chicago, IL-Hammond/Gary, IN
St. Paul-Minneapolis, MN
Jackson, MS

For a complete listing of the other cities participating in YCGII and the formal Crime Gun Trace Reports based on this joint Federal-local cooperation, visit the ATF web site at:
http://www.atf.treas.gov/firearms/ycgii/2000/index.htm.