Project Safe Neighborhoods

Project Safe Neighborhoods is a nationwide initiative that brings together federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and community leaders to identify the most pressing violent crime problems in a community and develop comprehensive solutions to address them.

In an effort to reduce violent crime, the Department of Justice has taken steps to strengthen the Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) Program and other initiatives. Read the press release and see the corresponding memo to United States Attorneys to learn more.

• PSN Annual Progress Report (October 2020) – This report provides background on PSN, highlights effective implementation of PSN’s program elements in districts around the country, and showcases four successful districts where PSN strategies have helped reduce violent crime. The report also discusses resources available to support PSN implementation and examples of how districts have used PSN training and technical assistance to address local violent crime issues.
   
• PSN: Working Together to Stop Violent Crime and Make Communities Safer - This video provides a short (7 minute) summary of the PSN strategy, highlighting how it is community-based, targeted, and comprehensive.
   
• PSN One-Year Progress Report (March 2019) – This report highlights elements of the PSN strategy, the status of implementation across the country, recent successes, and resources to support PSN programs.

PSN Strategy

The foundations of the PSN strategy are:

• Community-Based –Each local program is contoured to fit the specific violent crime problem in that district. 
   
• Targeted – Utilizes law enforcement and community intelligence, along with cutting-edge technology, to identify and target the most violent offenders for enforcement action. 
   
• Comprehensive – Directs United States Attorneys to marry enforcement efforts with support of prevention and reentry strategies to truly combat violent crime in a lasting way. 

U.S. Attorneys PSN Programs

Every United States Attorney is implementing a PSN program that incorporates these standard features

1. Leadership by the United States Attorney to convene all partners;
    
2. Partnerships at all levels of law enforcement and with the community;
    
3. Targeted enforcement efforts that:
   • utilize the full range of available data, methods, and technologies to
   • identify the offenders that are driving violent crime rates in the most violent
   • locations in the district
   • ensure prosecution of those offenders in the federal, state, local, or tribal system – whichever provides the most certain and appropriate sanction;
      
4. Prevention of additional violence by prioritizing efforts such as:
   • ensuring public awareness of the violent crime reduction strategy and enforcement results;
   • communicating directly to offenders about the consequences of continuing violent behaviors;
   • supporting locally based prevention and reentry efforts;
      
5. Accountability for results based on outcome (reduction in violent crime), not merely output (numbers of investigations or prosecutions).