U.S. Department of Justice 

Project Safe Neighborhoods: Strategic Interventions
 

Eastern District of Missouri: Case Study 7 

Written by: 

Scott H. Decker
 

University of Missouri-St. Louis
 

Beth M. Huebner
 

University of Missouri-St. Louis
 

Adam Watkins
 

University of Missouri-St. Louis
 

Lindsey Green
 

University of Missouri-St. Louis
 

With: 

Tim Bynum
 

Michigan State University
 

Edmund F. McGarrell
 

Michigan State University
 

School of Criminal Justice
 

Michigan State University
 

560 Baker Hall
 

East Lansing, MI 48824
 

February 2007
 
U.S. Department of Justice
 

Office of Justice Programs
 

810 Seventh Street, N.W. 

Washington, D.C. 20531 

Alberto R. Gonzales 

Attorney General 

U.S. Department of Justice 

This project was supported by Grant #2002-GP-CX-1003 awarded by the National Institute of Justice, 

Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view in this document are those of 

the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department 

of Justice. The Project Safe Neighborhoods series has benefited from the support, assistance, and 

comments of John Irving, Lois Felton Mock, Robyn Thiemann, and members of the Firearms 

Enforcement Assistance Team (FEAT) of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Overview
 

The last decade of the 20th century witnessed significant declines in the rate of crime in the United States. 

This was true for most types of crime, including 

homicide and serious violent crime.1 Despite these 

declines, the level of gun crime in the United States remains 

higher than that experienced in other western democracies 

and is a source of untold tragedy for families and communities.2 Given this context, in 2001 the Bush Administration 

made the reduction of gun crime one of the top priorities 

of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), along with combating terrorism and enhancing homeland security. 

The vehicle for translating this priority into action is Project Safe 

Neighborhoods (PSN). PSN represents a commitment to gun crime 

reduction through a network of local partnerships coordinated 

through the nation’s 94 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices. These local partnerships are supported by a strategy to provide them with the resources 

that they need to be successful. 

The PSN initiative integrates five essential elements from successful 

gun crime reduction programs, such as Richmond’s Project Exile, the 

Boston Operation Ceasefire Program, and DOJ’s Strategic Approaches to 

Community Safety Initiative. Those elements are: partnerships, strategic 

planning, training, outreach, and accountability. The partnership element requires that the local U.S. Attorney create workable and sustainable partnerships with other federal, state, and local law enforcement; 

prosecutors; and the community. Strategic problem-solving involves the 

use of data and research to isolate the key factors driving gun crime at 

the local level, suggest intervention strategies, and provide feedback 

and evaluation to the task force. The outreach component incorporates 

communication strategies geared at both offenders (“focused deterrence”) and the community (“general deterrence”). The training element underscores the importance of ensuring that each person 

involved in the gun crime reduction effort—from the line police 

officer to the prosecutor to the community outreach worker—has the 

skills necessary to be most effective. Finally, the accountability element 

ensures that the task force regularly receives feedback about the impact 

of its interventions so that adjustments can be made if necessary. 

Partnerships 

The PSN program is intended to increase partnerships between 

federal, state, and local agencies through the formation of a local PSN 

task force. Coordinated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the PSN task 

force typically includes both federal and local prosecutors, federal law 

i 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

enforcement agencies, local and state law enforcement agencies, and 

probation and parole. Nearly all PSN task forces also include local government leaders, social service providers, neighborhood leaders, members of the faith community, business leaders, educators, and health 

care providers. 

Strategic Planning 

Recognizing that crime problems, including gun crime, vary from 

community to community across the United States, that state laws 

addressing gun crime vary considerably, and that local and state 

resources vary across the federal judicial districts covered by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, PSN also includes a commitment to strategic planning 

whereby the PSN program is tailored to local context. Specifically, PSN 

provides resources for the inclusion of a local research partner who 

works with the PSN task force to analyze the local gun crime problem 

and to share the findings with the task force for the development of a 

proactive plan for gun crime reduction. The research partners assist 

the task force through analysis of gun crime patterns and trends that 

can help the task force focus resources on the most serious people, 

places, and contexts of gun violence. The research partners can also 

bring evidence-based practice to the task force discussions of gun 

crime reduction strategies.3 The inclusion of the research partner was 

also intended to assist in ongoing assessment in order to provide feedback to the task force. 

Although each district creates strategic interventions that make 

sense in their local context, one strategy shared by all PSN task forces 

is increased federal prosecution of gun crime. PSN is built on the belief 

that the increased federal prosecution of gun offenders will reduce 

gun crime through the incapacitation of gun criminals and the deterrence of potential offenders. This working hypothesis is based on the 

notion that federal sanctions for gun crime are often more severe than 

those either available at the state level or likely to be imposed at the 

state level. Further, federal prosecution may include sanctions unavailable at the local level. The focus on prohibited persons possessing or 

using a firearm is built on the finding that a significant portion of gun 

crime involves offenders and victims with significant criminal histories. Thus, by increasing the certainty that a prohibited person in possession will face strong federal sanctions, the goal is to persuade 

potential offenders not to illegally possess and carry a gun. 

The commitment to increased federal prosecution appears to be 

borne out. Fiscal year 2005 witnessed over 13,000 individuals charged 

with federal gun crimes, the highest number ever recorded by DOJ. 

Since PSN’s inception, the number of federal firearms prosecutions has 

increased 73 percent.4 

ii 
Overview 

Training 

PSN has involved a significant commitment of resources to support 

training. This program has included training provided to law enforcement agencies on topics including gun crime investigations, gun crime 

identification and tracing, and related issues. Training on effective prosecution of gun cases has been provided to state and local prosecutors. 

Additional training has focused on strategic problem-solving and community outreach and engagement. By the end of 2005, DOJ estimates 

that nearly 18,000 individuals had attended a PSN-related training program sponsored by one of the many national PSN training and technical assistance partners.5 

Outreach 

The architects of PSN also recognized that increased sanctions 

would have the most impact if accompanied with a media campaign to 

communicate the message of the likelihood of federal prosecution for 

illegal possession and use of a gun. Consequently, resources were provided to all PSN task forces to work with a media partner to devise 

strategies for communicating this message to both potential offenders 

and to the community at large. This local outreach effort is also supported at the national level by the creation and distribution of Public 

Service Announcements and materials (ads, posters). These materials 

are direct mailed to media outlets and are also available to local PSN 

task forces.6 

The outreach component is also intended to support the development of prevention and intervention components. PSN provided grant 

funding in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 to the local PSN partnerships 

that could be used to support a variety of initiatives including prevention and intervention. Many initiatives were built on existing programs 

such as school-based prevention, Weed and Seed, or juvenile court 

intervention programs. 

Accountability 

The leadership of the PSN initiative at DOJ has emphasized that 

PSN would focus on outcomes—i.e., reduced gun crime—as opposed 

to a focus on outputs such as arrests and cases prosecuted. That is, 

PSN’s success is measured by the reduction in gun crime. This 

accountability component was linked to strategic planning whereby 

PSN task forces, working with their local research partner, are asked 

to monitor levels of crime over time within targeted problems and/or 

targeted areas. 

Additional Information 

For more information on Project Safe Neighborhoods, visit 

www.psn.gov. If you are interested in supporting your local Project Safe 

Neighborhoods program, please contact your local U.S. Attorney’s Office. 

iii 
 

Contents
 

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
 

Eastern District of Missouri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
 

Development and Initial Implementation . . . . . . . 4
 

How Was PSN Started? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
 

Task Force Structure and Operation . . . . . . . . 7
 

Integration of Research and PSN Task Forces . . 8
 

Integration of Federal Law Enforcement . . . . . 9
 

Task Force Meeting Schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
 

Community Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
 

A New Way of Doing Business . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
 

Problem Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
 

Strategic Interventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
 

Key Implementation Issues, Challenges,
 

and Successes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
 

Assessing Impact—Research Design . . . . . . . . . . 20
 

Intervention Neighborhoods . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
 

Control Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
 

Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
 

Outputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
 

Incident Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
 

Community/Offender Awareness of PSN . . . . 29
 

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
 

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
 

Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
 

Appendixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
 

List of Figures 

Figure 1: U.S. District Aggravated Assault and Murder 


Rates, 2001 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
 

Figure 2: Summary of the Gun Crime Problem in the 


Eastern District of Missouri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
 

Figure 3: Gun Crime Problem and PSN Strategies . . . 16
 

Figure 4: Descriptive Statistics for Intervention,
 

Control, and Contiguous Neighborhoods . . . . . . 21
 

v 
 

Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

Figure 5: Federal Ceasefire Indictments . . . . . . . . . . . 22
 

Figure 6: Sentence Length for Federal and State 


Convictions (in Years) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
 

Figure 7: Comparison of Pre- and Post-Intervention 


Change in Firearm-Involved Aggravated 

Assault Incidents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
 

Figure 8: Firearm-Involved Aggravated 


Assault Incidents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
 

Figure 9: Comparison of Pre- to Post-Intervention 


Change in Firearm-Involved Robbery Incidents . . 25
 

Figure 10: Firearm-Involved Robbery Incidents . . . . . 25
 

Figure 11: Comparison of Pre- to Post-Intervention 


Change in Homicide Incidents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
 

Figure 12: Homicides by Neighborhood Group . . . . . 26
 

Figure 13: Comparison of Pre- to Post-Intervention 


Change in Weapons Incidents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
 

Figure 14: Shots Fired by Group and Quarter . . . . . . 28
 

Figure 15: Comparison of Pre- to Post-Intervention 


Change in Shots-Fired Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
 

Figure 16: Have You Ever Owned or Possessed 


a Gun? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
 

Figure 17: What Was the Reason for Getting 


a Gun? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
 

Figure 18: How Hard Is It To Get a Gun? . . . . . . . . . . 30
 

Figure 19: Which System Has Harder Penalties? . . . . . 30
 

Figure 20: Perceived Chances of Penalty for Illegal 


Firearm Carrying (Over Time) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
 

Figure 21: Which Is a More Important Consideration 


to You When You Think About Carrying a Gun 

on the Street? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
 

Figure 22: Have You Heard of PSN? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
 

Figure 23: Summary of Key Components of 


Eastern District of Missouri’s Successful PSN 

Task Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
 

vi 
Executive Summary 

Context 

Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) in the Eastern District of Missouri is primarily focused on the City of St. Louis, a city that has consistently experienced one of the highest homicide and violent gun 

crime rates in the United States. 

Task Force 

The PSN task force is coordinated in the U.S. Attorney’s Office 

(USAO) and includes representation from federal, state, and local law 

enforcement; local and federal prosecutors; and probation and parole. 

It also includes the juvenile court, Level I trauma center, city neighborhood services, street outreach workers, the media relations partner, 

and the regional justice information system. The task force built upon 

prior multi-agency initiatives to reduce violent crime and included a 

research team from the University of Missouri–St. Louis, who have 

extensive experience working with the local criminal justice system. 

The overall PSN task force initially met monthly and now meets quarterly, though several task force committees meet more often. The gun 

case prosecution team meets biweekly and reviews all cases involving 

a gun. A meeting is held weekly at the North Patrol Division station to 

review the activities of the Violent Crime Task Force. Additional task 

forces have been convened to address specific issues and problems. 

Problem Analysis 

The problem analysis revealed very high levels of gun crime in St. 

Louis, with concentrations in particular neighborhoods. Gun crime 

typically involved high-rate offenders at risk for both victimization and 

perpetration of violence. A substantial number of these offenders and 

homicide victims were under probation and parole supervision. Most 

gun seizures occurred through traffic and pedestrian stops. The task 

force also recognized, supported by research, that there were significant gaps in processing gun crime cases and a lack of coordination 

between local and federal prosecutors in deciding whether gun crime 

cases should be prosecuted federally or locally. 

Strategies 

For the district and City of St. Louis as a whole, the PSN strategy 

consisted of increased federal prosecution. The task force selected 14 

neighborhoods, chosen due to their high level of gun crime, for a comprehensive set of strategies. Included were targeted enforcement in 

the focus neighborhoods by law enforcement and probation, federallocal gun case prosecution review, a most violent offender program, 

and probation notification meetings for high-risk probationers. These 

1 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

comprehensive strategies constituted a “system fix” that sought to prioritize a focus on gun crime among local, state, and federal law 

enforcement and improve coordination and communication. 

Outcomes 

Interviews indicate that PSN changed the business of addressing 

gun crime in St. Louis, significantly increasing information sharing 

among local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies and consensus among PSN task force members of a shared priority and accountability for gun crime. Federal prosecutions for gun crime increased 

significantly, and gun crime offenders convicted in both state and federal court received significant sentences. Interviews conducted with 

arrestees provided evidence that increased federal prosecution had an 

impact on perceptions of the likelihood of prosecution and incarceration, at least for adult offenders. Violent gun crime declined significantly in St. Louis and targeted neighborhoods following PSN, but it is 

not clear if PSN generated the decline. That is, the prediction of a PSN 

intervention effect suggests that the greatest decline would occur in 

the 14 targeted neighborhoods. Although gun crime declined in these 

target areas, the decline in arrests was not substantially different than 

that observed in the control and contiguous neighborhoods. Several 

explanations appear plausible. The gun crime decline in St. Louis and 

the target neighborhoods may reflect long-term national trends in the 

decline in violent crime that may have occurred absent PSN. Alternatively, PSN may have had an impact by creating a credible threat of federal prosecution as opposed to the targeted enforcement in the 14 

neighborhoods, thus having an impact throughout the city. 

2 
Eastern District of Missouri
 

The State of Missouri is served by two federal judicial 

districts. The Eastern District of Missouri (Eastern District) includes the St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical 

Area, St. Charles County,7 Hannibal, and the Cape Girardeau 

area. The district is comprised of a population of 2,798,229, 

ranking 38th in population among the 90 U.S. judicial districts.8 The U.S. Attorney’s (USA’s) main office is in St. Louis, 

with an additional office in Hannibal. 

As indicated in figure 1, the Eastern District ranks higher than the 

U.S. average in terms of both its murder rate and aggravated assault 

rate. It also ranks higher when compared to U.S. judicial districts of 

comparable size. 

Figure 1: U.S. District Aggravated Assault and 


Murder Rates, 2001
 

Aggravated 

Assault Rate* Murder Rate* 

U.S. District Average 30.65 0.65 

U.S. Districts of Comparable Size** 25.99 0.51 

Eastern District of Missouri 35.52 0.73 

*Per 10,000 in population.
 

**With populations from 2,100,000 to 3,500,000.
 

Although the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) prosecutes gun crime 

cases throughout the district, the primary Project Safe Neighborhoods 

(PSN) focus area has been the City of St. Louis, which has many classic 

rust-belt city characteristics, especially population loss from its peak in 

1952 at just over 850,000 residents to fewer than 450,000 in 2000. In 

addition, much of the population loss occurred in the middle class; the 

White middle class left the city largely in the 1960s, followed by the 

African-American middle class in the 1980s. These exoduses were 

accompanied by losses of jobs in the manufacturing sector that only 

exacerbated the population loss and general downturn in the city’s economy. The result in many neighborhoods has been elevated levels of 

crime, including violent crimes such as homicide and aggravated assault. 

While national violent crime rates have dropped since the early 

1990s, St. Louis has consistently ranked among the three to five cities 

with the highest homicide and aggravated assault rates. Assaults in the 

3 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

city, moreover, disproportionately involve the use of a firearm.9 In fact, 

gun crime is nine and one-half times higher than elsewhere in the 

United States. 

In St. Louis, nearly all of the increase in homicides since the late 

1980s was gun-related, and this increase was largely concentrated in 

the younger age groups. During the early 1990s, the homicide rate 

among African-American males age 15 to 19 was five times higher than 

the homicide rate for the city as a whole, a rate exceeded by 20-to-24 

year-old African-American males who suffered an astounding 626 murders per 100,000 population. Almost without exception, homicides 

involving young African-American males in St. Louis involve firearms. 

Ninety-eight percent of African-American male victims between 15 and 

24 years of age were killed with a firearm in the early 1990s, and fully 

88 percent of African-American male victims age 10 to 14 also were 

killed with firearms. By comparison, 74 percent of African-American 

male victims over the age of 24 were killed with guns.10 

In light of these statistics, St. Louis is a particularly appropriate site 

for research on and interventions to stem gun violence. The city is also 

appropriate for another reason. The correspondence between U.S. and 

St. Louis homicide rates over the 1960–1990 period is remarkably 

strong. When converted to standard scores, the correlation between 

the two data series is nearly .95, suggesting that interventions that 

change local patterns may have national relevance.11 

In addition, there is a strong spatial concentration of indicators of 

violence, particularly the distribution of homicides, firearm recoveries, 

and shots-fired calls to the 911 (CAD) system. The distribution of these 

indicators of violence in the city has historically been located within 

several distinct hot spots. Fifteen of the city’s 79 neighborhoods 

account for the locations of over half of the homicides. In addition, 

individuals involved in homicide—whether as victims or offenders— 

have extensive criminal histories. Ninety percent of suspects and 79 

percent of victims had a prior felony criminal history, and roughly onequarter of each group was serving a term of probation or parole. Data 

from the city’s Trauma Department of the Level I Trauma Center indicated that a large proportion of shooting victims (perhaps as many as 

one-third) have been treated for gunshot wounds in the past, and many 

gunshot wound victims do not appear in police records. 

Development and Initial Implementation 

PSN in St. Louis built on a number of prior local-state-federal initiatives designed to address violence. Indeed, there has been a long history of working together, although cooperation has not been as 

productive as it could have been. An enumeration of the history of 

cooperation since 1990 is provided below. These efforts include both 

symbolic and substantive interventions. For example, the 1991 Gun 

4 
Eastern District of Missouri 

Buyback Program can be viewed as primarily a symbolic intervention. 

The federal-local initiatives listed below are primarily cooperative ventures, and include a variety of both federal and local partners. 

• 1991—Gun Buyback Program. 

• 1992—Assault Crisis Teams. 

• 1996—Firearm Suppression Program. 

• 1996—Safe Futures Program. 

• 1998—Operation Ceasefire. 

• 1999—Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiative (SACSI). 

• 2001—New mayor, police chief, U.S. Attorney, and prosecutor. 

• 2002—Project Safe Neighborhoods. 

One of the key features of these interventions is that they involve a 

variety of partners; the two constants across these interventions was 

the presence of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and the 

research partner (RP) from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. There 

were several consistent shortcomings across the Assault Crisis Teams, 

Firearm Suppression Program, and Safe Futures Program. These include 

the lack of strong leadership, the lack of federal involvement, and the 

failure to engage the community in each instance. Further, each of 

these interventions lacked the resources to be fully implemented or 

sustained. This failure was confronted directly by PSN in the Eastern 

District. From its origins, there was an emphasis by the Assistant U.S. 

Attorney (AUSA) assigned to be the PSN Coordinator to fix the system; 

recognition that agencies did not work together well, share data, or 

coordinate their efforts. As a consequence of this situation, some cases 

were lost in the system and offenders avoided sanctions for their 

crimes. Thus, offenders had no reason to believe that any initiative was 

going to be different than the myriad prior, largely ineffective initiatives that had preceded PSN. 

How Was PSN Started? 

PSN in St. Louis built on a Ceasefire Task Force begun in 1996. 

Ceasefire focused on firearms violence, but without a specific set of 

interventions or goals. Thus it provided a shell for PSN, but without a 

firm set of content. In spring 2001, St. Louis elected a new mayor and 

Circuit Attorney, named a new police chief, and appointed a new U.S. 

Attorney. An editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch pointed out that 

these individuals, key to the prevention of and response to violent 

crime, had never met on a regular basis to discuss strategies to reduce 

violence in a city with one of the highest rates of violence in the country. Furthermore, these individuals were each new to their office, and 

as such were not tied to the practices of the past. In that sense, they 

were free to try new things; after all, as the editorial pointed out doing 

5 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

“the same old thing” had left St. Louis one of the most violent cities in 

the United States. These four individuals began a series of monthly 

meetings to focus specifically on crime, predominantly violent crime. 

Another key force behind the St. Louis PSN effort was the leadership of the U.S. Attorney. Early on, having seen the distribution of violent crime across the Eastern District, the USA decided that PSN 

should focus on where the gun violence problem was the greatest, in a 

specific part of the city. This decision was made independent of politics, past practice, and what would have been a more expedient decision to spread PSN resources throughout the district. The extremely 

high concentration of violence in a relatively small number of neighborhoods was a compelling factor. Throughout its implementation in 

St. Louis, PSN has remained concentrated in a small number of neighborhoods (15). This consistent focus has been one of the hallmarks of 

the strategy. 

Leadership did not end with the U.S. Attorney. The police chief 

also committed resources and leadership to the effort. Assigning a captain, who retained responsibility for the PSN initiative after his promotion to major, was a key element of the strategy’s focus and success 

because of his ability to focus efforts on the violence problem, the 

respect of rank and file, and use of the Internet as a platform for information upon which to base problem solving. In addition, the chief 

committed overtime resources for an anti-crime task force to work 

specifically in the targeted neighborhoods, and required most specialized units (Narcotics/Vice, Mobile Reserve, Gang, and Detective) to 

spend a minimum of 2 hours per night working in the targeted neighborhoods. This occurred when the police department was experiencing a reduction in force, making the commitment of resources even 

more impressive. The Circuit Attorney (the St. Louis equivalent of a 

District Attorney or State’s Attorney) also committed prosecutors to 

concentrate on violent crime. This was facilitated through the PSN 

resources that were made available through the U.S. Department of 

Justice’s grants to support local gun prosecutors. However, when 

those funds expired, the Circuit Attorney maintained her commitment 

to prosecuting gun cases and the PSN strategy. In addition, Probation 

and Parole joined the task force 2 years into its development, once a 

new supervisor was named. Its participation has been important to the 

change in strategy over time because it has expanded the nature of 

interventions by targeting probationers for additional supervision. 

PSN Message 

There is an internal and an external PSN message in St. Louis. The 

internal message is “system fix,” that is, making sure that gun crime 

offenders no longer slip through the cracks and presenting a united 

and consistent message. The external message is that gun crime offenders will be arrested and prosecuted in the venue that will give them 

6 
Eastern District of Missouri 

the most time. The goal is to remove the cloak of invisibility that often 

seems to cover offenders. Many gun offenders had become invisible to 

the criminal justice system; they knew that they could get away with 

their crime, and if caught would not receive substantial prison time. 

By far, the most important change in the way that the business of 

criminal justice is done in St. Louis is the focus on system fix. This was 

a consistent message from the PSN Coordinator, the RP, and most of 

the partners. 

One of the most striking elements of the St. Louis internal message 

was the medium by which it was communicated. The major placed in 

charge of the Violent Crime Task Force used e-mail and the electronic 

communication of material to stress the importance of what was being 

done, communicate strategic and tactical information, and build group 

solidarity. When a homicide was committed in the city, an e-mail went 

out (see appendix 1) that provided some minor descriptive details 

about the homicide but also placed it into context for the number of 

homicides by that date for the preceding 3 years. One of the unanticipated consequences was that the homicide “number” became well 

known and important locally. Individuals in the criminal justice system 

(prosecutors, police, and probation and parole officers) who previously would not have known the homicide count not only knew it, but 

became interested. This electronic platform extended to the sharing of 

information about recent violent events that was collected by different 

police units (Patrol, Violent Crime Task Force, Narcotics/Vice, Mobile 

Reserve, and Gangs) that allowed other units to link their information 

to a broader range of information and engage in more strategic action. 

In addition, a Violent Crime Case Review (see appendix 2) was created 

for each violent incident that occurred in the targeted neighborhoods. 

Task Force Structure and Operation 

PSN built on these prior efforts to coordinate a number of groups 

in violence reduction strategies; despite the lack of demonstrable outcome measures, it appears that the cooperation and trust generated 

laid a groundwork from which PSN could build. PSN St. Louis task 

force partners include: 

•	 U.S. Attorney and several Assistant U.S. Attorneys. 

•	 St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, including leadership 

from the police chief, a major specifically assigned to oversee 

the violent crime initiative, and the involvement of several district-level detectives as well as individuals from specific units, 

such as Gangs, Homicide, Narcotics, Mobile Reserve, and Crimes 

Against Persons. 

•	 Circuit Attorney and members of her staff. 

•	 Research partner and his team. 

7 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

• Federal probation office. 

• Missouri Probation and Parole. 

• Level I Trauma Center. 

• Juvenile Court (Project Sentry). 

• State police. 

• City neighborhood services. 

• Street outreach workers. 

• Media relations partner. 

• REJIS, the Regional Justice Information System. 

As PSN evolved, multiple task forces developed. This was consistent with the experience of SACSI, as well as SACSI’s predecessor, 

Ceasefire. Each of these strategies had multiple but horizontally integrated task forces. For example, SACSI had a task force to deal with 

violent crime that integrated local law enforcement with federal law 

enforcement, including the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), 

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, 

Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The existence of horizontally integrated 

task forces also was reflected in prosecution efforts that produced 

teamwork between the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Circuit Attorney. 

Integration of Research and PSN Task Forces 

Under PSN, task forces were developed that focused on researchidentified problems. Specifically, acting on research findings, PSN created task forces to address the highly localized nature of violent gun 

crime in St. Louis; inefficient aspects of the gun case processing system; the backlog of homicide cases, particularly those involving the 

use of firearms; the small number of high-level gun offenders; and probationers identified as heavily involved in gun violence. It was hardly 

the case, however, that there was a seamless transition from the identification of an issue (through whatever level of research) to the development of an intervention. It should be noted that in St. Louis, a 

number of research projects had been underway, and that a variety of 

partners (especially the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department) also 

were conducting ongoing analyses. Results would be presented at a 

Ceasefire meeting, via the Internet, or through a subcommittee meeting. Rarely was it the case that individuals at the meeting immediately 

acted by forming a task force, initiating a new effort, or proceeding to 

change the way that business was done. This points to an important 

issue in implementing change: change happens slowly, takes time to 

implement, and is not easily integrated into practice. The St. Louis 

experience confirms these principles. 

Despite these challenges, the RP has been engaged both in examining violence in the Eastern District as well as partnering with 

8 
Eastern District of Missouri 

neighboring justice agencies for quite some time. The engagement in 

such practice and research prior to SACSI and PSN funding is often 

cited as a reason why data could be accessed, partnerships were more 

easily forged, findings were taken more seriously, and the initiation of 

PSN progressed so smoothly. Put more succinctly, trust—built over 

time—can overcome hurdles. The earliest involvement of the RP with 

both local officials and violence data was the St. Louis Homicide Project, initiated in 1989. This project resulted in a broad data-sharing initiative between the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and the 

University of Missouri-St. Louis. In addition, the St. Louis Homicide 

Project sponsored a series of public events to present the findings 

from analyses of homicide to the public and solicit their involvement. 

Integration of Federal Law Enforcement 

The involvement of federal partners was, surprisingly to the St. 

Louis PSN partners, quite difficult. Two factors may have played a key 

role in this process. First, there is not a long tradition of cooperation 

between federal and local enforcement. Second, the September 11, 

2001 events caused federal law enforcement to prioritize terrorism. 

These issues worked against the St. Louis PSN effort in its early stages. 

Since 1998, U.S. Attorneys in the Eastern District have worked to 

engage federal law enforcement partners, particularly ATF. Despite the 

executive and legislative mandate to involve ATF in PSN, the agency 

was not involved in St. Louis through 2002. However, at that time, the 

chief of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department entered into discussions with the local ATF office, reminding them of the local police 

department’s commitment to working with ATF. This commitment was 

exemplified by the deployment of two officers dedicated to the ATF 

gun tracing effort. Second, the chief entered into discussions with the 

DEA to involve them in investigations of homicides. This was a very 

successful effort, as DEA subsequently assigned three officers to homicide investigations. This is particularly important as it represents newly 

forged cooperation between local and federal law enforcement. 

Task Force Meeting Schedule 

In its initial phases, the PSN task force in the Eastern District met 

on a monthly basis. Into its third year, the decision was made to hold 

meetings on a quarterly basis. This reflects several changes, including 

the development of an effective electronic platform, overcoming the 

initial implementation hurdles, and the perception that quarterly meetings would suffice. The meeting is held in a large conference room in 

the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and is convened by the U.S. Attorney. There 

are reports from each of the partners organized around function (see 

appendix 3 for a sample), beginning with the RP, moving through law 

enforcement, prosecution, probation and parole, and, when present, 

community leaders. The meeting attendance averages between 35 and 

45 individuals. A consistent set of individuals regularly attends these 

9 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

meetings. There is follow-up from meeting to meeting on action items, 

proposed efforts, and new initiatives. Local police provide extensive 

data on arrests and crime patterns in the targeted neighborhoods. This 

provides a measure of accountability for the entire group, and has set a 

tone for each of the partners. The PSN Coordinator, a veteran AUSA, 

provides information for the group regarding new federal initiatives, 

meetings, or goals. Meetings typically last between 75 and 90 minutes. 

These meetings have been the scene for demonstrations of technology 

(e.g., ATF gun tracing), federal probation initiatives and workshops, 

and FBI intelligence on gangs. The level of information presented and 

discussed is often law enforcement-sensitive. Thus, attendance is 

restricted to criminal justice employees and the RP. 

The various subcommittees and initiatives also hold regular meetings. The gun prosecution team (see Decker et al., 2006) meets 

biweekly to review all gun arrests. This is attended by representatives 

from the USAO, the Circuit Attorney’s office, ATF, and local law 

enforcement. A weekly violence review held at the North Patrol Division station reviews the activities of the Violent Crime Task Force. This 

is attended by many of the police officials who command the specialized and district units involved in the intervention, including Mobile 

Reserve (the tactical squad), Gang Unit, Vice/Narcotics, Juvenile, and 

Homicide. Each of these specialized units patrol the target area 2 hours 

each day. The PSN Coordinator and RP hold ad hoc meetings to 

address emerging issues. The Most Violent Offender Program staff 

holds regular meetings. In addition, the Probation Notification work 

group meets prior to a notification. 

As noted above, the electronic platform that exists provides significant communication opportunities. An e-mail goes out to the “large” 

PSN group following every homicide, which identifies the number of 

homicides year-to-date, provides details about the homicide, and compares the year-to-date homicide total with the prior year and the 3-year 

average. Specific police district information also is provided. (See 

appendix 1 for a sample e-mail.) In addition, the electronic platform is 

used to communicate information about the activities of each of the 

specialized units engaged in the Violent Crime Task Force. Thus it is 

possible to receive arrest, gun seizure, and field interrogation information from the Gang, Vice/Narcotics, Mobile Reserve, Homicide, and 

District detectives each day (see appendix 4 for a sample). Specific 

information about arrests and violent crime in the targeted area is one 

of the most frequent and apparently most useful pieces of information. 

These e-mails provide more detailed information about an individual, 

including the charge, address, prior record, probation/parole status, 

weapons, drugs, associates, and arrest status. They have been used on 

several occasions as the basis for changing the venue for prosecution 

from state to federal court, where penalties for gun possession and 

use, particularly by felons, are considerably more severe. 

10 
Eastern District of Missouri 

Community Engagement 

Despite what appears to be an impressive array of partners and 

processes of integrating partners into a process, there were several 

holes in the partnership organization. The most significant of these 

was the inability to engage community partners. A number of collaborative interventions (McDevitt, 2002; McGarrell, 2002; McGarrell et al., 

2006) report that a key ingredient to their outcome success was their 

ability to recruit and initiate other partners. Partners may include community, neighborhood, faith-based, social service, and aftercare (specifically probation, parole, and reentry) groups—potential partners that 

St. Louis PSN struggled to include. 

To date, there has not been successful engagement of the faithbased community in the PSN effort in the Eastern District. Three USAs 

have attempted to engage the faith-based community, including the 

offer of meetings and specific neighborhood attention. In addition, 

probation also was not successfully engaged in the PSN effort. Indeed, 

in the early SACSI effort, probation and parole distanced itself from the 

intervention. Fortunately, this has changed and probation and parole is 

among the most engaged and innovative of the partners. 

The failure to engage the community may be more consequential 

than elsewhere. In January 2003, the RP and the PSN Coordinator (the 

AUSA) recognized that dramatic increases in arrest and prosecution 

alone12 would not reduce crime rates. They began to search for city, 

community, or public sector resources that could help mobilize community characteristics, resources, and services to address these problems. 

In addition, police officers, neighborhood residents, and other engaged 

citizens had little access to social service and other non-enforcement 

resources. During interviews with officers it became evident that there 

was either a lack of resources or awareness of resources. 

Part of the struggle to engage the community stems from the difficulty of defining who or what the community is. All of the neighborhoods in the PSN target area rank in the lowest decile in the country 

on the “community disadvantage” index identified by Lauritsen (2004), 

which combines five factors (percent single parent families, vacant 

houses, percent below the poverty level, unemployment, and percent 

African-American population). As Lauritsen (2004) and Sampson (2003) 

demonstrated, this index is related both to levels of victimization and 

offending in a neighborhood. Thus for St. Louis, the target neighborhoods rank in the worst 10 percent in the country, and many of them 

rank at the bottom of that group. Finding “community” under such circumstances is not easy, as businesses, individuals, and institutions that 

could provide resources, mentors, role models, and support for the 

PSN strategy are often lacking. Several U.S. Attorneys have reached out 

to religious leaders and advocacy groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Urban 

League. Sustaining their involvement, however, has proven difficult. 

11 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

One example from the early Ceasefire efforts illustrates the difficulties 

of engaging the community and individuals in leadership positions. 

The U.S. Attorney and his Special Assistant for Special Projects organized a march against violence and gun crime, enlisting support for the 

community and local leadership, particularly from the faith-based 

community. When the march took place, more representatives from 

the U.S. Attorney’s Office participated than from the lay community 

and the faith-based community put together. When asked why he did 

not participate, one member of the faith-based community remarked 

that it was too dangerous. During the third phase of the consent-tosearch program (Decker and Rosenfeld, 2004), a ministerial group provided follow-up to the parents and youth of residences where illegal 

firearms were seized. In more than 100 police referrals, no evidence 

of a follow-up was found. 

A more recent example illustrates similar difficulties. In early 2005, 

a member of the St. Louis faith-based community publicly urged young 

African-American men to carry weapons to protect themselves from the 

police; such actions do little to encourage cooperation between law 

enforcement and the community. An additional example, again from the 

faith-based community, illustrates some of the dilemmas of engagement: 

police officers on patrol found two 12-year-olds with a pistol sitting on 

the steps of a church located in the target area. The officers stopped to 

question them, and took the gun into custody. Despite the fact that this 

happened on the steps of a church on a Sunday afternoon, neither the 

church’s leader or its congregants intervened. 

The inability to involve the community and its leaders points to 

potential sustainability problems for the PSN approach in St. Louis— 

only community members can extend the PSN prosecution and targeted enforcement message out into the community and inculcate the 

warning about illegal gun use. Absent such involvement, the PSN effort 

may not succeed. 

A New Way of Doing Business 

Several features distinguish PSN from other task force experiences 

in the district. First, the USA’s active, engaged leadership has been perhaps PSN’s most visible and important advantage. Some of the groundwork for this was laid during Ceasefire, but a succession of USAs has 

committed time, leadership, and emphasis. Having a new mayor, 

police chief, Circuit Attorney, and U.S. Attorney take office prior to the 

kickoff of PSN proved significant to the success. None of these individuals were tied to past interventions and thus the group represented a 

new start. It was clear that past efforts had not reduced gun violence 

and thus there was an impetus to try new things. The third distinguishing feature was the additional dollars and commitments leveraged with 

the PSN seed money, which were not sufficient to sustain the initiative’s scope, but were significant in initially engaging partners and 

12 
Eastern District of Missouri 

encouraging innovation and commitment. The fourth distinguishing 

feature is the involvement of federal law enforcement, working in conjunction with local law enforcement. The SACSI effort, in contrast, was 

unable to successfully engineer sustained joint federal/local initiatives. 

PSN has been able to do so with initiatives between ATF as well as 

DEA and local law enforcement. A fifth distinguishing feature has been 

the enhanced cooperation between the Circuit Attorney and the USAO. 

Finally, there has been a sense of collaboration among the PSN partnerships that has overcome institutional boundaries and ennui. 

The key to all of this has been leadership from the USAO, the Circuit Attorney, and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. There 

is leadership from the top of each of these organizations, but also from 

key management personnel. The PSN Coordinator still carries a substantial prosecution caseload, but has provided leadership in a number of 

the special efforts, notably the gun case review, probation notification 

meetings, and Violent Crime Task Force. The major in charge of the 

Violent Crime Task Force has provided leadership within the police 

department that has convinced early skeptics and engaged the special 

units vital to the task force. The Circuit Attorney’s Office also has provided leadership from management ranks. Probation and Parole (an 

integrated state function in Missouri) was not an engaged partner in the 

Ceasefire and early PSN project. However, change at the top (the 

administrator for the St. Louis Probation and Parole office) provided 

solid leadership from within this key office. There also has been a sense 

of accountability throughout the life of PSN in St. Louis. Though it was 

not intended to be the manifest goal of the homicide e-mails, they functioned to focus attention on the problem for a large number of individuals. One of the ironies about homicide in St. Louis was that despite its 

standing as one of the most violent cities in the United States, few people knew how many homicides had occurred or whether that number 

was ahead of or behind the pace from the previous year. The homicide 

e-mails changed that. A new e-mail would trigger e-mail among listserv 

members, often including suggestions about prosecution venues, prior 

arrests or involvement with the criminal justice system, or knowledge 

of associates’ involvement and locations. It was not uncommon for the 

USA to open a PSN meeting with the “count” as of that minute. This 

focus on homicide kept the group motivated. 

Problem Analysis 

Research was enhanced both by the Ceasefire and SACSI initiatives 

and the prior involvement of the research partner, who had studied 

homicide, violent crime, and criminal justice interventions programs 

locally for over 20 years. This ongoing relationship provided the RP and 

other PSN components an understanding of violent crime problems 

and issues built over that period of time, a familiarity with data sources 

and systems, and trust. These factors allowed the research process to 

13 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

get a head start as well as to proceed more smoothly than in many 

other jurisdictions. It is important to note that while the research 

process described below may appear to have “produced” many of the 

interventions, the relationship often was less clear. In some cases, the 

research and the intervention proceeded along parallel tracks. That is, 

the research question would emerge from a task force discussion, 

research would proceed at its pace, and the intervention would begin 

to build steam by adding partners, finding data, and searching for new 

directions. About the time that the research seemed to be ready to suggest an intervention, a related intervention would be underway. In 

other cases, the research clearly played the lead role in suggesting 

where the intervention should go. This is the clearest application of the 

problem-solving model. In yet other cases, the research lagged considerably behind the intervention activity. This could be the case because of 

lack of access to data, the pace of research, or the desire on the part of 

the task force to move ahead. Fortunately, in several instances the RP 

was able to head off ill-advised interventions such as boot camps or 

expanded D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) activities by 

presenting findings from previous research on these interventions. 

The research revealed the strong spatial concentration of homicide, gun crime, and violent crime in St. Louis. Although the finding 

that a relatively small part of the city accounted for most of the violent 

crime was hardly news (most operational agencies and personnel had 

long suspected it), the data vividly demonstrated the degree of this 

spatial concentration—the “top 10” most violent neighborhoods 

accounted for more than 40 percent of all murders. The second key 

finding involved the use of firearms in homicide—firearms were the 

means of inflicting death in 78 percent of all homicides in 2002. Third, 

research showed that a small number of offenders were arrested for a 

large number of offenses. An analysis of guns provided the fourth set 

of findings. While guns were plentiful in St. Louis, there were patterns 

of use and ownership among offenders as well as patterns in the 

seizure of illegal firearms. Contrary to common perception, most illegal firearms were seized during traffic or pedestrian stops rather than 

arrests or search warrants. Interviews with criminal justice personnel, 

particularly prosecution, moreover, revealed gaps in the system that 

needed to be addressed. That is, many gun cases slipped through the 

cracks. Finally, interviews with offenders in custody (typically within 

24 hours of arrest) examined their perceptions of the PSN intervention, as well as their patterns of firearms acquisition and use (see outcome section below). 

Figure 2 summarizes the gun crime problems identified. 

The RP and staff participated in all PSN planning meetings and 

joined the regular PSN working group, a result facilitated by the longstanding relationship, enhanced by the involvement in the initial PSN 

Problem-Solving Training conducted by Michigan State University 

14 
Eastern District of Missouri 

Figure 2: Summary of the Gun Crime Problem in the 


Eastern District of Missouri
 

•	 Extremely high levels of gun crime in St. Louis. 

•	 Spatial concentration of gun crime within particular areas of 

St. Louis. 

•	 Extremely high levels of firearm use in violent crime. 

•	 Case processing problems and lack of coordination between 

state and federal prosecution. 

•	 Gun crime concentrated among a small number of high-rate 

offenders. 

•	 Many victims and offenders of gun crime on probation or 

parole supervision. 

•	 Most illegal gun seizures are through traffic and pedestrian 

stops. 

(MSU). This training, attended by nine members of the Eastern District 

task force, allowed the group to better understand the role of research. 

The PSN Coordinator, the captain (now major) in charge of the initiative, the Circuit Attorney, and each USA have voiced strong support for 

research, increasing respect for the RP among other PSN partners. 

Strategic Interventions 

This section discusses the key PSN interventions in the Eastern District (summarized in figure 3 below), including: 

•	 Gun case prosecution review. 

•	 Targeted enforcement. 

•	 Probation notification. 

•	 Worst of the Worst/Most Violent Offenders Program. 

The system fix issues emerged from the interviews done early in 

the PSN process to better understand case flow. It was clear from 

these interviews that there was insufficient coordination between 

prosecutors and local and federal (ATF) law enforcement concerning 

the most appropriate venue for prosecuting a specific gun case, a lack 

of information, inadequate coordination between enforcement agencies, and a lack of follow-up on gun cases. In response, the PSN Coordinator, with the assistance of a newly hired AUSA, proposed the gun 

case prosecution review.13 The goals of this intervention were to 

improve the flow of information regarding gun cases, increase ATF 

15 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

Figure 3: Gun Crime Problem and PSN Strategies 

Problem Overall Strategy Specific Components 

Extremely high levels of gun 

crime in St. Louis 

St. Louis selected as primary 

target of PSN 

Leadership team (U.S. Attorney, mayor, police 

chief, Circuit Attorney) agree on coordinated 

PSN focus 

Spatial concentration of gun 

crime within particular areas 

of St. Louis 

Strategic interventions and 

directed patrol focused on highest 

gun crime neighborhoods 

Violent crime task force; resources devoted 

to targeted neighborhoods; weekly violence 

review meetings (Fifth District Initiative) 

Extremely high levels of 

firearm use in violent crime 

Prioritize gun crime within 

partnering agencies 

Shared accountability for homicide levels 

among PSN partnering agencies 

Case processing problems 

and lack coordination between 

state and federal prosecution 

Gun case prosecution 

screening team 

Biweekly meetings; enhanced communication; 

police intern program; U.S. Attorney feedback 

letters to arresting police officers 

Gun crime concentrated 

among a small number of 

high-rate offenders 

Chronic violent offender 

program 

Worst of the worst (WOW) 

Many victims and offenders 

of gun crime on probation or 

parole supervision 

Probation notification meetings Probation and parole become active partners 

in PSN 

Most illegal gun seizures 

are through traffic and 

pedestrian stops 

Directed patrol in targeted 

neighborhoods 

Violent crime task force 

participation in the gun prosecution process, and increase federal 

involvement in the prosecution of gun cases. The team meets weekly 

to review all gun crime arrests from the previous week and to document progress made on earlier cases. The elements of the crime, prior 

record, and any advantage to prosecuting at the state or federal level 

are discussed. A key feature is the rotating 2-month “internship” in the 

USAO for a sworn local police officer, who is responsible for tracking 

down information about open cases. 

The simplest research finding has probably had the most profound 

effect on PSN interventions: the very strong spatial concentration of 

crime, particularly violent crime, has been a consistent finding in St. 

Louis research conducted over the years.14 The top 10 neighborhoods 

accounted for nearly 40 percent of homicides, and more than half of 

the city’s gun homicides took place in 15 of the city’s 79 neighborhoods. Reducing homicides in those neighborhoods would eliminate 

most of the city’s homicides, an understanding that led to the creation 

of the Fifth District Initiative during the SACSI project and to the Violent Crime Task Force during PSN. The key player in each intervention 

16 
Eastern District of Missouri 

was the captain (later promoted to major) with area responsibility, 

who coordinated additional enforcement units from the specialized 

units (Gang, Mobile Reserve, Narcotics/Vice, and Detective) and district officers. Officers intensified enforcement activities in the targeted 

area each day and participated in the weekly review meetings and provided weekly statistical accountings of prior week activity and crime 

levels. These meetings were attended regularly by the police involved 

in the intervention, as well as the U.S. Attorney and a Circuit Attorney. 

Specific goals included preventing retaliatory homicides and shootings, 

clamping down on areas with high levels of violence, and increasing 

enforcement activity in the targeted areas. 

Probation notification, the third PSN intervention in the Eastern 

District,15 focuses on the significant proportion of homicide victims 

and offenders—in some years, as high as one-third of each group— 

who were on probation at the time of the homicide. In addition, the 

Violent Crime Task Force made a record of every arrest involving a probationer, which documented the heavy involvement of probationers in 

violent crime. This intervention emerged following site visits to Kansas 

City and Indianapolis to view their operations after which Probation 

and Parole developed a plan to guide the intervention. As a result, a 

series of probation notification meetings was scheduled. At each meeting, a representative from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Circuit Attorney’s 

Office, Probation and Parole, and local law enforcement spoke about 

the penalties for gun crime. They were complemented by a drug treatment counselor, a job placement supervisor, and a community representative. Three meetings have been held in St. Louis to date, perhaps 

the most successful at the St. Louis Agency for Training and Employment (SLATE). At this notification meeting, probationers received 

résumé preparation training, job referrals, and interviewing skills training. This venue was chosen when an analysis revealed that of nearly 80 

probationers who attended the first two meetings, only two had gone 

to SLATE for job assistance. In a true sense, the probationers were a 

captive audience for job training. 

The fourth PSN intervention, the Most Violent Offender Program 

(MVOP, renamed Worst of the Worst, or WOW), emerged from two separate sources.16 First, a graduate student noticed that the same names 

appeared over and over again in police reports, an observation made 

during the coding of assault and homicide cases, where a name would 

appear as a witness in one case, move to a suspect in another, and 

finally show up as a victim. While the order sometimes varied (i.e., 

some individuals made an initial appearance as a victim or suspect 

rather than a witness), the sequence was remarkably common. This led 

the research team to examine all assaults for a single quarter to determine the frequency of the sequence. They confirmed that roughly onethird of offenders had appeared in an earlier violent event, either as a 

victim, witness, or offender. 

17 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

The second source for MVOP was serendipitous. The Rochester 

SACSI site had employed a program known as NOSE, “Notification of 

Special Enforcement,” as a tool for communicating a focused deterrence message to high-risk offenders. NOSE became known to the St. 

Louis PSN team through the MSU strategic problem-solving training. 

The commander of the Crimes Against Persons Division in the St. Louis 

Police Department received communication from his counterpart in 

Kansas City, Missouri, identifying the specific guidelines that were 

used to implement the program. These guidelines were made available 

at a meeting of steering committee members, an AUSA, the Law 

Enforcement Community Coordinator, a prosecutor, the commander of 

the Crimes Against Persons Division, and the research team. 

While the discussions that followed this initial meeting centered on 

identifying a common method of determining those most deserving of 

being on such a list, ultimately, the St. Louis PSN initiative chose to 

emphasize the role of individuals who were targeted for arrest in 

shootings or homicides, but whose warrants were “taken under advisement.”The group was chosen because of the concern for immediate 

involvement in violence. The fact that their warrants were refused was 

an indication of two factors: 1) the individuals were not likely to come 

forward to testify, and 2) many such cases would be difficult to solve 

owing to the relationship between the victim and offender. As a consequence, these cases were identified for MVOP consideration because 

they involved individuals likely to be at risk for further victimization 

and perpetration. This set of criteria was further modified, and the 

name changed to WOW. An e-mail platform was developed to keep participants in WOW (police, prosecutors, and federal probation) abreast 

of developments. An e-mail platform also was used to notify participants of successful WOW prosecutions. 

The police department dedicated an individual to manage the 

WOW list, as well as to provide information regarding these individuals 

for prosecution. 

Key Implementation Issues, 

Challenges, and Successes 

Final reports or case studies often make a process appear seamless, either glossing over hurdles or making it appear as if the hurdles 

were overcome with ease. Neither of those things was true in the 

Eastern District; there were hurdles, and not all of them were successfully overcome. 

The first obstacle was the failure to engage Probation and Parole in 

the early stages of the project. This represented a serious impediment 

to the initiative, owing to the fact that so many individuals arrested for 

a violent crime were on probation or parole. This obstacle was 

18 
Eastern District of Missouri 

resolved as new individuals embracing the partnership and problemsolving model joined the Department of Corrections. 

To date, ATF gun trace data is not used effectively in the Eastern 

District. Although the U.S. Attorney in office when PSN was initiated 

was able to engage ATF and have them as active participants, this did 

not extend to sharing of information about gun tracing. This obstacle 

has caused frustration for both the USAO and the police chief, who 

despite providing personnel to trace information, cannot get the information back. 

Homicide incident reviews17 were tried early in the problem-solving process on two occasions but deemed a failure, with many members vowing never to try them again. With a concern on the part of 

the state prosecutor that the issues discussed could be discoverable by 

defense attorneys, the high level of involvement of both victims and 

offenders in gun crime at an early age (all 11 victims and perpetrators 

in the three homicide cases reviewed had a referral to the juvenile 

court for firearms before their 13th birthday) ultimately led to the creation of a juvenile gun court. 

Another obstacle that remains to be addressed is community 

involvement. One aspect of this is to identify services available for the 

referral of cases. Several police officers indicated their desire for a reference or asset tool they could use to invoke non-enforcement solutions to situations. St. Louis has no such list, and a community agency 

contracted with a local university to provide an electronic platform for 

such a list. To date, this community asset inventory is not available. But 

the larger issue with the community is the inability to engage a community partner for a sustained period of time. This is viewed as a major 

impediment to the long-term success and implementation of the problem-solving strategies. 

PSN successes were due largely to committed leadership from the 

police chief, the U.S. Attorney, and the Circuit Attorney. Each committed resources and personnel to PSN. The use of data has increased dramatically on the part of the police department, to the extent that many 

of the early problem-solving analyses that were completed by the RP 

are now being done routinely at the police department. Finally, the use 

of electronic communication platforms to quickly transmit and retrieve 

data has been one of the lasting keys to successful implementation. 

The media partner crafted a message that was built on information 

from individual interviews conducted in the jail as well as focus groups 

conducted at the Workhouse, the facility for holding long-term misdemeanants. The messages viewed as salient by members of this target 

audience included the longer time served for federal gun crimes, the 

certainty of federal time, and the remoteness of federal prisons. As a 

consequence, several marketing strategies built on these themes with a 

series of posters in public places (e.g., police stations, the jail, and bus 

19 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

stops) as well as a “guerilla” advertising campaign on the walls of abandoned buildings. 

Assessing Impact—Research Design 

The current evaluation uses multiple methodologies to assess the 

impact of the Project Safe Neighborhoods intervention in St. Louis. 

Specifically, a quasi-experimental design was estimated to consider the 

effect of the PSN intervention on crime rates, compared to similar 

neighborhoods that did not receive intervention services. The methodology employed to select the original fifth district intervention and 

control neighborhoods is detailed below. 

Intervention Neighborhoods 

As noted, 14 St. Louis neighborhoods were the primary focus of the 

intervention. The city is divided into 79 neighborhoods, and these designations are used for planning and operations purposes. The neighborhoods were originally chosen for the SACSI intervention and continued 

to receive targeted enforcement during PSN. The neighborhoods 

together recorded 20 homicides in 2000 and 25 in 2001, a 2-year average of 82 homicides per 100,000, nearly double the city average and 11 

times greater than the U.S. average. The high rates of violence in these 

neighborhoods, coupled with the high concentration of social disadvantage, makes these neighborhoods apt for intervention. 

Control Groups 

Control neighborhoods chosen had similar crime rates and sociodemographic characteristics to the PSN intervention neighborhoods. 

In any outcome evaluation, the central concern is how the observed 

program effects compare to what would have taken place in the 

absence of the intervention. In addition, contiguous neighborhoods 

were examined to determine whether there has been either displacement or a diffusion of effects (Braga, et al., 1999). 

The first step in the analysis was to collect crime and socio-demographic information for all neighborhoods in St. Louis. In constructing 

comparison groups, it is important to select neighborhoods as similar 

as possible to the target neighborhood, except for participation in the 

program. To separate the effect of the intervention on neighborhood 

crime, measures of arrest rates prior to the intervention were used as 

one selection criterion. Data were collected for the following arrest 

categories: assault, homicide, robbery, and weapons. 

Census data also were obtained to provide a description of the 

socio-demographic character of the neighborhoods. Data from the 2000 

Census were analyzed at the neighborhood level to ascertain the level 

of community disadvantage. The community disadvantage measure is a 

20 
Eastern District of Missouri 

five-item summary score based on the percentage of persons living in 

poverty, percent of female-headed families with children, percent of 

persons unemployed, percent of households receiving public assistance, and percent of population that is African-American (Sampson, 

Raudenbush, and Earls, 1997). The summary score provides a general 

picture of the socio-economic disadvantage of a neighborhood with 

higher scores indicating greater disadvantage. In addition, research by 

Lauritsen (2003) suggests that individuals, particularly youth living in 

neighborhoods with high concentrations of disadvantage, are at 

greater risk for victimization, further linking the relationship between 

disadvantage and incidence of personal crime. 

Second, treatment neighborhoods were compared to non-treatment 

neighborhoods on each variable listed above. Neighborhoods that 

were contiguous to any treatment neighborhood were omitted from 

selection, and were instead considered separately to control for any 

displacement effects. Contiguous neighborhoods were defined as any 

neighborhood that is adjacent, either in whole or part, to any control 

neighborhood. Control neighborhoods were selected based on their 

individual congruence, in terms of crime rate and concentrated disadvantage, with an intervention neighborhood. Aggregate agreement 

between control and intervention neighborhoods also was considered. 

As displayed in figure 4, the control and intervention neighborhoods were similar in their patterns of arrest and community disadvantage. None of the arrest measures or the community disadvantage 

indicator was significantly different; however, it is important to note 

the differences between groups. Specifically, the total arrest rate and 

rate of assaults, robbery, and weapons offenses were higher in the 

intervention neighborhood. A higher rate of crime in the intervention 

groups is expected because intervention neighborhoods were selected 

Figure 4: Descriptive Statistics for Intervention, Control, and 


Contiguous Neighborhoods
 

Intervention Control Contiguous 

Assault Rate 2000 (mean) 96.71 23.86 85.44 

Homicide Rate 2000 (mean) 1.21 0.57 1.44 

Robbery Rate 2000 (mean) 13.07 4.21 11.04 

Weapons Rate 2000 (mean) 15.29 2.93 11.74 

Total Arrest Rate 2000 (mean) 126.29 31.57 109.67 

Concentrated Disadvantage 

Factor Score (2000 Census Data) 0.69 0.52 0.22 

21 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

based on the magnitude of crime and social disadvantage in these 

areas. In addition, the size of St. Louis precludes exact matches. 

Despite the caveats noted, the quasi-experimental design is appropriate, although conclusions should be made in light of the differences 

between groups. 

Analysis 

This section assesses the impact of PSN interventions in St. Louis. 

The strength, or outputs, of the intervention are considered using federal and state prosecution data. Patterns of gun crime pre- and postintervention also are considered, using arrest measures for homicide, 

aggravated assault, and robbery. In addition, measures of shots-fired 

calls-for-service are included. 

Outputs 

Prosecutions 

The following section describes changes in prosecution after the 

implementation of the PSN intervention program. Data were obtained 

from Ceasefire roundup memos published weekly, and enumerate both 

state and federal prosecution of gun offenders. Such prosecutions are 

an important “lever,” or sanction, in this targeted intervention. Overall, 

1,381 individuals were indicted for gun crimes by the USAO or the 

St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office between January 2002 and October 

2005. The majority of indictments (82 percent) were reported by the 

USAO. Figure 5 illustrates the number of federal indictments made, by 

quarter, during the intervention period. In total, the USAO averaged 

17.4 indictments per quarter. As displayed, the number of federal 

indictments peaked in quarters 2 and 3 of 2003 and then again in the 

second quarter of 2004. Personal communications with the USAO suggest willingness to sustain, and even increase, the number of indictments made by the court. Although the overall number of indictments 

Figure 5. Federal Ceasefire Indictments 

22 
Eastern District of Missouri 

is small in comparison to the magnitude of gun crimes in St. Louis, the 

USAO indicts a comparable, if not higher, number of cases than do similarly situated USAOs. 

Consistent with the program model, nearly all (97.4 percent) of 

the indictments made in state and federal court were for firearm or 

weapons (e.g., ammunition, pipe bomb, or armed criminal action) violations. Only 20 defendants were indicted without a firearm charge. 

However, each of these individuals was indicted on a serious personal 

charge that involved a weapon (e.g., homicide), and all non-firearm 

charges were indicted in state courts. Nearly half (48 percent) of the 

sample was indicted on multiple charges. In total, 23 percent of the 

indictments involved two charges, 10 percent three, 8 percent four, 

and 7 percent had five or more charges. Most often, individuals were 

charged with drug or personal crimes in addition to a firearm offense. 

Nearly a quarter of defendants (22.8 percent) had a personal charge, 

with drug offenses close behind (20.4 percent). Only 2.2 percent had 

property charges, and 3.3 percent had charges not represented by the 

aforementioned categories. 

The majority of individuals indicted were convicted and sentenced. 

Overall, 70 percent of all Ceasefire roundup cases resulted in conviction; 72 percent of federal cases and 65 percent of state cases ended in 

conviction. The average sentence was 9.18 years; the mean sentence 

6.03 years at the federal level and 19.6 years at the state level (see figure 6). It is important to note that the mean sentence length at the state 

level was skewed because of the small sample size and the conviction 

of a number of homicide cases that resulted in lengthy sentences. 

Figure 6: Sentence Length for Federal and 


State Convictions (in Years)
 

Average Median Standard 

Length Length Deviation 

All Convictions 9.18 5.00 12.14 

Federal Convictions 6.03 4.17 6.00 

State Convictions 19.60 14.50 19.44 

Overall, the results suggest that the USAO and the St. Louis Circuit 

Attorney’s Office made a large number of indictments during the intervention period. In addition, the majority of individuals indicted were 

sentenced to lengthy terms of incarceration. 

Incident Patterns 

The following section outlines incident (offenses known) rates in 

the intervention, control, and contiguous neighborhoods. The arrest 

23 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

data are limited to broad analyses of aggravated assault, robbery, and 

homicide before and after the intervention in the first quarter of 2003. 

The following tables detail the magnitude of change before and after 

the intervention while graphs detail the fluctuations in arrest rates 

over a 5-year period. 

As displayed in figure 7, there were substantial declines in arrest 

rates for aggravated assault involving a firearm over the analysis period 

Figure 7: Comparison of Pre- to Post-Intervention 

Change in Firearm-Involved Aggravated Assault Incidents 

Pre-Intervention Post-Intervention 

Neighborhood Quarterly Quarterly 

Group Average Average Difference Percent Change 

Intervention 14.65 13.72 -0.93 -6.57 

Contiguous 4.96 4.12 -0.85 -18.61 

Control 3.32 2.24 -1.08 -38.97 

and across neighborhood groups. The overall magnitude of change was 

greatest for the control group (39 percent); however, the intervention 

neighborhoods experienced a 7 percent decline in aggravated assaults. 

Figure 8 further displays the magnitude of decline in aggravated 

assaults. Although there was a sharp decline in arrests following the 

Figure 8: Firearm-Involved Aggravated Assault Incidents 

24 
Eastern District of Missouri 

intervention, the reductions appear to be a reflection of a larger trend 

experienced across the city. 

The decline in robberies also was substantial, although again it was 

apparent across intervention, control, and contiguous neighborhoods 

(see figure 9). For the intervention group, the rate of robbery declined 

16 percent between the pre- and post-intervention periods. The contiguous neighborhoods experienced a similar decline (13 percent), 

while robbery rates in the control neighborhoods declined 41 percent. 

Figure 9: Comparison of Pre- to Post-Intervention 

Change in Firearm-Involved Robbery Incidents 

Pre-Intervention Post-Intervention 

Neighborhood Quarterly Quarterly 

Group Average Average Difference Percent Change 

Intervention 9.30 7.93 -1.38 -15.96 

Contiguous 4.89 4.30 -0.59 -12.80 

Control 3.42 2.26 -1.16 -40.84 

Apart from an increase in robberies in the intervention neighborhood toward the end of 2004, the rates of robbery declined following 

the intervention (see figure 10). A similar decline was observed in the 

contiguous and control neighborhoods, although there was substantial 

variation observed across the analysis period. 

Figure 10: Firearm-Involved Robbery Incidents 

25 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

As with robbery and assault incidents, homicides declined in all 

neighborhoods (see figure 11). Homicide rates declined 21 percent in 

the intervention neighborhood, 52 percent in the contiguous neighborhoods, and 40 percent in the control neighborhoods. 

Figure 11: Comparison of Pre- to Post-Intervention Change in Homicide Incidents 

Pre-Intervention Post-Intervention 

Neighborhood Quarterly Quarterly 

Group Average Average Difference Percent Change 

Intervention 1.24 1.00 -0.24 -21.28 

Contiguous 0.43 0.25 -0.18 -51.81 

Control 0.23 0.15 -0.08 -40.00 

Figure 12 further illustrates the variation in homicide rates over the 

analysis period. Despite the expected variation in homicide rates, the 

figure illustrates the decline in homicide following the intervention. 

The final comparison of incidents across the neighborhoods 

involved weapons offenses. Consistent declines above 34 percent were 

Figure 12: Homicides by Neighborhood Group 

26 
Eastern District of Missouri 

observed in the intervention, contiguous, and control neighborhoods 

following the intervention (see figure 13). 

Figure 13: Comparison of Pre- to Post-Intervention Change in Weapons Incidents 

Pre-Intervention Post-Intervention 

Neighborhood Quarterly Quarterly 

Group Average Average Difference Percent Change 

Intervention 4.92 3.48 -1.45 -34.44 

Contiguous 1.72 1.12 -0.60 -42.01 

Control 1.23 0.87 -0.36 -34.54 

The review of gun assaults, robberies involving a firearm, homicides, and weapons incidents reveals positive news for St. Louis, but 

confusing news for the evaluation team. Gun assaults, robberies involving a firearm, homicides, and weapons incidents declined in the intervention, control, and contiguous neighborhoods, and the magnitude of 

the decline was substantial in most case. Thus, St. Louis appears to be 

a safer community following the implementation of PSN in 2003. But, 

the fact that the decline was generally smaller in the intervention 

neighborhoods than in control and contiguous neighborhoods means 

that it is not clear that PSN caused these declines. In favor of PSN having led to these declines is the fact that many components of PSN (e.g., 

coordinated problem solving among federal-state-local agencies, federal 

prosecution, and the communication strategy) were delivered citywide. Thus, evaluators would anticipate citywide impact. On the other 

hand, the evaluation model predicted that the greatest impact would 

be in the intervention neighborhood where focused efforts were concentrated. Thus, a rival hypothesis is that some other factor rather than 

PSN was producing the declines in gun crime across the city. 

Shots Fired 

Shots-fired data were analyzed to provide a secondary measure of 

firearm-related violence in the control, intervention, and contiguous 

neighborhoods. Shots-fired reports are culled from the St. Louis Police 

Department CAD system and reflect individual calls made to the police 

to report shots fired; therefore, the data may reflect multiple calls 

made to the police department in response to one shots-fired incident. 

Because these data are citizen-driven, they also reflect citizen willingness to report crime to the police, in addition to the prevalence of gun 

crime in the neighborhood. Results of the analyses should be considered in this light. 

27 
2000 Q1

2000 Q2 

2000 Q3 

2000 Q4 

2001 Q1

2001 Q2 

2001 Q3 

2001 Q4 

2002 Q1

2002 Q2 

2002 Q3 

2002 Q4 

2003 Q1

2003 Q2 

2003 Q3 

2003 Q4 

2004 Q1

2004 Q2 

2004 Q3 

2004 Q4 

2005 Q1

2005 Q2 

Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

As displayed in figures 14 and 15, the number of shots-fired calls 

in the intervention and contiguous neighborhoods increased over 

time. There was little change in the number of shots-fired calls in the 

control neighborhoods. 

Figure 14: Shots Fired by Group and Quarter 

Average # of Shots Fired Reports 350 

300 

250 

200 

150 

100 

50 

0 

Intervention Neighborhoods Control Neighborhoods Contiguous Neighborhoods 

Figure 15: Comparison of Pre- to Post-Intervention Change in Shots-Fired Reports 

Neighborhood Pre-Intervention Post-Intervention Percent 

Group Monthly Average Monthly Average Difference Change 

Intervention 181 244 + 63 + 35% 

Control 56 55 - 1 - 2% 

Contiguous 121 152 + 31 + 26% 

As noted, substantial increases in shots-fired calls were observed 

after the intervention, although the upward trend in calls began before 

the intervention period. While the average shots fired in the control 

neighborhoods stayed approximately the same, the number of shotsfired calls increased 35 percent in the intervention neighborhoods and 

26 percent in the contiguous neighborhood. 

Although the shots-fired analyses appear to contradict the declines 

observed in arrest statistics, it may be that the increased public awareness of gun crime in the area, further increased by publicity provided 

by the PSN initiative, increased willingness to report crime in the community or awareness of violent crime. The relative stability of shots-fired 

calls in the control neighborhoods lends credibility to this explanation. 

28 
Eastern District of Missouri 

Community/Offender Awareness of PSN 

One key measure of PSN success in the Eastern District is the 

extent to which the PSN message of increased federal prosecution and 

deterrence reached its target audience: arrestees. To assess the saturation of the PSN message, the research team conducted regular interviews at the adult holdover and juvenile detention facilities. Interviews 

were conducted with both adults and juveniles at five time periods 

between February 2003 and February 2006. On average, 131 individual 

interviews were conducted each period at the adult facility, and an 

average of 68 juveniles were interviewed at each interview point. 

The results from the interviews reflect the proliferation of guns 

among the arrestee population in St. Louis. The majority of juveniles 

(60 percent) and adults (65 percent) indicated they had possessed a 

gun (see figure 16). 

In addition, most arrestees noted that they owned a gun for protection (see figure 17 below). Three-quarters of the juvenile population 

Figure 16: Have You Ever Owned or Possessed a Gun? 

Figure 17: What Was the Reason for Getting a Gun? 

29 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

obtained a gun for protection, while 71 percent of adult arrestees 

noted protection as their primary reason for procuring a weapon. A 

very small proportion of the sample owned a gun for hunting purposes (1 percent of juveniles, 5 percent of adults). 

The majority of respondents also indicated that it would be easy to 

obtain a gun (see figure 18 below). In total, 67 percent of adult and 

juvenile arrestees indicated that they could procure a weapon with little or no problem. Only 5 percent of juvenile and 10 percent of adult 

arrestees noted that they would not want a gun. 

Figure 18: How Hard Is It To Get a Gun? 

However, the majority of arrestees understood the difference 

between federal and state penalties for illegal gun possession and 

knew that federal penalties were harsher than Missouri penalties (figure 19). Three-quarters of juveniles and 80 percent of adult arrestees 

indicated that the federal system had harsher penalties for gun crimes. 

Figure 19: Which System Has Harder Penalties? 

30 
Eastern District of Missouri 

It is also important to consider the changes in perceived penalties 

for gun crimes over the study period. Overall, arrestees perceived the 

chance of being arrested did not change over time. On average, onethird of juvenile and 35 percent of adult arrestees felt that their chances 

of an arrest for illegal firearms carrying were great (see figure 20). In 

contrast, arrestee perceptions of the probability of conviction and 

imprisonment for illegal firearm carrying did increase over the study 

period. Over 60 percent of adult and juvenile arrestees indicated that 

there was a great chance of imprisonment and conviction in 2006. In 

this sense, the PSN message seems to have reached its target audience. 

Figure 20: Perceived Chances of Penalty for 


Illegal Firearm Carrying* (Over Time)
 

Arrested Convicted Imprisoned 

Juveniles 

2003 30 41 41 

2004 38 49 43 

2005a 37 59 67 

2005b 27 36 35 

2006 39 64 62 

Adults 

2003 26 37 39 

2004 52 48 52 

2005a 35 68 58 

2005b 29 61 61 

2006 35 67 64 

*Note: Percentages are for those that responded that the chances are “great” 

as opposed to “small” or “medium.” 

Finally, arrestees were queried as to which factor they viewed as 

most salient when determining whether to carry a gun on the street— 

the penalties for illegal gun carrying or running into an armed person 

on the street. At its core, this question was designed to determine if 

arrestees were more afraid of the criminal justice system or the street. 

For adults, there was a slight overall increase in arrestees’ fear of system penalties over the study period; however, a similar trend was not 

observed for juveniles (see figure 21 below). In fact, half (51 percent) 

of juveniles reported penalties as an important consideration, while 

57 percent of adult arrestees were most concerned with the penalties 

of weapons possession. 

31 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

Figure 21: Which Is a More Important Consideration to You
 

When You Think About Carrying a Gun on the Street?
 

Penalties Other Armed Person 

Juveniles 

2003 56 44 

2004 40 60 

2005a 42 58 

2005b 58 42 

2006 59 41 

Adults 

2003 49 51 

2004 65 35 

2005a 57 43 

2005b 54 46 

2006 58 42 

Because the PSN strategy was marketed more directly to adult 

offenders, it is likely that juveniles were less affected by the community awareness efforts. However, it could be that that the objective risk 

of being the victim of violence for juveniles (particularly given the 

presence of street gangs in St. Louis) was perceived to be greater 

among juveniles than adults. Consistent with these findings, only 27 

percent of juveniles were aware of the PSN intervention, while nearly 

half (48 percent) of adults had heard of Project Safe Neighborhoods 

(see figure 22). 

Figure 22: Have You Heard of PSN? 

Yes 

Juveniles 

2003 25 

2004 25 

2005a 34 

2005b 27 

2006 23 

Adults 

2003 36 

2004 56 

2005a 52 

2005b 47 

2006 49 

32 
Eastern District of Missouri 

Summary 

In a variety of ways, the “business” of gun enforcement is done differently in the Eastern District of Missouri since the inception of Project Safe Neighborhoods. One commentator remarked that the process 

of changing criminal justice institutions was like “bending granite,” the 

implication being that many criminal justice institutions are impervious to change or changed only at a glacial pace. Such was not the case 

in St. Louis under PSN. The hallmarks in St. Louis have been coordination and communication, two changes that are closely interrelated. 

Coordination among and within agencies is PSN’s most important 

contribution, and it shows signs of sustainability. The regular face-toface meetings and information exchange within the criminal justice 

system (i.e., between local and federal law enforcement and between 

local law enforcement and federal prosecution) have become routine 

in St. Louis. These partnerships are viewed as an essential tool. While 

this hardly seems profound, it recalls an early comment made concerning a request for information from a federal law enforcement 

agency. When the request was rebuffed, an Assistant U.S. Attorney 

remarked, “Aren’t we all on the same side here?”This underscores the 

difficulty of creating and maintaining partnerships, their limited scope 

before PSN, and reflects the way that PSN shifted the focus in St. 

Louis to system change and interagency coordination. After all, as was 

frequently noted by police, prosecutors, and probation and parole 

officers, why should offenders believe we are getting tough when 

they have heard such announcements most of their lives. Making the 

message credible was the central task of PSN in the Eastern District. 

This was not easy; but many noted that until the system had its act 

together, it would be fruitless to argue to offenders that any new initiative could be successful. The frequency of meetings stepped back 

over time, but that has not meant a reduction in cooperation. The U.S. 

Attorney’s Office acknowledged the fragile balance of local criminal 

justice funding and staffing, which are scarce compared to federal 

resources, and has worked to leverage federal personnel and other 

resources. A solid example is the deployment of three Drug Enforcement Administration agents to the local police department homicide 

squad to work on cold cases, recognition on DEA’s part that city 

resources were inadequate to address these cases and that such 

unsolved cases could be related to retaliatory violence. 

The partnerships appear to extend beyond personalities and are 

taking an institutionalized form. Since PSN began, there have been 

three U.S. Attorneys, and each has maintained the strong commitment 

to PSN shown by the initial USA. The importance of the leadership 

provided by the USA who introduced PSN to St. Louis can hardly be 

overstated. In addition, the PSN Coordinator has balanced one of the 

largest gun case prosecution caseloads with coordination and day-today leadership. There has been exceptional leadership from the police 

33 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

department, notably the major who runs the Violent Crime Task Force. 

The police chief took the unprecedented step of directing all information in the department regarding violent crime to flow through this 

individual. The Circuit Attorney has organized prosecution around geographic areas and ensured closer cooperation between prosecutors 

and the police officers and leadership who serve those areas. Strong, 

enlightened leadership is emerging in the state Probation and Parole 

office. These changes are all significant for St. Louis, which has historically been slow to adopt change. 

ATF now participates, with important input into the weekly Gun 

Prosecution Task Force. State Probation and Parole is also an integral 

part of PSN. Each of these developments is significant in its own right, 

as these agencies also represent two critical partners that had not been 

well-integrated into the overall justice system, and also reflect a commitment to problem solving. Today there is an underlying consideration of the best way to solve problems that underlie the call for 

service, and a more reasoned consideration of the appropriate venue 

for prosecution. 

One lasting change wrought by PSN has been the increased use of 

electronic platforms to communicate. The rapid notification to PSN 

team members of homicides and their general circumstances is but 

one example of how information can be used to galvanize attention on 

the problem of violent crime. The introduction of PSN in St. Louis corresponded closely with the implementation of a new records management system in the police department, one that facilitates effective 

electronic information sharing. The nightly activity reports from patrol, 

detectives, and specialized units in the target area provide solid information with which state and federal prosecutors can proactively seek 

appropriate venues for prosecuting gun cases, make links between 

cases, and more actively participate in the law enforcement process. 

The electronic platform also allows police officers and command staff 

to see links between cases, identify emerging problem areas or individuals, and become more aware of the interrelationships between 

offenders, victims, offenses, and locations. 

Homicide, robberies involving a firearm, and aggravated assaults 

involving a firearm declined following the PSN intervention. That said, 

it is unclear if this decrease can be linked directly to the PSN intervention model, or if the decline simply reflects larger trends observed in 

St. Louis and the nation. The decline in gun crime incidents in the PSN 

intervention neighborhoods was less than in control neighborhoods 

and similar to the decline in contiguous neighborhoods. That noted, 

the U.S. Attorney’s and Circuit Attorney’s Offices achieved substantial 

levels of indictments, convictions, and sentences of firearm-related 

offenders. This increase is an important component of program success, although the number of indictments still pales in comparison to 

the level of gun crime in St. Louis. As noted in the arrestee interviews, 

34 
Eastern District of Missouri 

many individuals carry guns on a regular basis, few have much trouble 

in obtaining illegal guns, and a large fraction are more afraid of the 

armed person on the street than the system. 

Arrest and prosecution alone are not likely to sufficiently address 

violent crime in St. Louis. In a city where nearly two-thirds of the census tracts are at the highest level of community disadvantage in the 

nation, arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment must be seen as initial 

steps. PSN partners must look for city, community, or public sector 

resources to help mobilize the community to address violent crime. 

Without such activity, enforcement efforts are likely to produce only 

short-term reductions in gun violence. The failure to engage community partners provides a negative counterbalance to the criminal justice success achieved through PSN. 

Figure 23 summarizes the Eastern District of Missouri’s successful 

PSN efforts. 

Figure 23: Summary of Key Components of Eastern 


District of Missouri’s Successful PSN Task Force
 

Key Component Description 

Leadership	 Active role of U.S. Attorney, mayor, police chief, 

Circuit Attorney; PSN clear priority; shared 

accountability for homicide 

PSN Task Force Overall PSN task force coupled with strategyStructure focused task forces (Violent Crime, Gun Case 

Screening, WOW, Probation/Parole Notification) 

Partnerships	 Enhanced partnerships among local and federal 

law enforcement agencies 

Inclusion of research partners as task force 

members 

Rotating police internship program within U.S. 

Attorney’s Office 

Regular Meetings	 PSN task force initially met monthly, now 

quarterly; gun prosecution screening team 

meets biweekly; violent incident review team 

meets weekly 

Enhanced Communication E-mail information sharing; U.S. Attorney feedback 

and Coordination to arresting officers 

System Responsibility Key agencies involved in PSN and shared 

and Accountability responsibility for focus on gun crime 

35 
References
 

Blumstein, Alfred and Richard Rosenfeld. 1999. “Explaining Recent 

Trends in U.S. Homicide Rates.” Journal of Criminal Law and 

Criminology LXXXVIII:1175–1216. 

Braga, A.A., et al. 1999. “Problem-Oriented Policing in Violent Crime 

Places: A Randomized Controlled Experiment. Criminology 

37(3):541-580. 

Bureau of Justice Assistance. 2004. Project Safe Neighborhoods:America’s Network Against Gun Violence. (Program Brief). Washington, 

DC: U.S. Department of Justice. 

Bynum, T., et al. 2006. Project Safe Neighborhoods: Strategic Interventions: Chronic Violent Offender Lists (Case Study 4). Washington, 

DC: U.S. Department of Justice. 

Decker, Scott H., Richard Rosenfeld, and Carol Kohfeld. 1989. The St. 

Louis Homicide Project. St. Louis, MO: University of Missouri-St. 

Louis, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice. 

Decker, Scott H. and Richard Rosenfeld. 2004. Consent to Search:The 

St. Louis Firearm Suppression Program. Washington, D.C: National 

Institute of Justice. 

Decker, S., et al. 2006. Project Safe Neighborhoods: Strategic Interventions: Gun Prosecution Case Screening (Case Study 1). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. 

Klofas, J., et al. 2006. Project Safe Neighborhoods: Strategic Interventions: Crime Incident Reviews (Case Study 3). Washington, DC: 

U.S. Department of Justice. 

Lauritsen, Janet L. 2004. Individual and Community Correlates of Victimization. Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. 

McDevitt, Jack, et al. 2002. “Boston’s Youth Violence Prevention Program: 

A Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach.” In S. Decker, ed., 

Policing Gangs and Youth Violence. Belmont, CA: Thompson. 

McDevitt, J., et al. 2006. Project Safe Neighborhoods: Strategic Intervention: Offender Notification Meetings (Case Study 2). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. 

McGarrell, E.F., et al. 2006. “Reducing Homicide Through a ‘LeverPulling’ Strategy.” Justice Quarterly 23(2):214-231. 

37 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

McGarrell, Edmund and Steven Chermak. 2002. “Problem Solving 

to Reduce Gang and Drug-Related Violence in Indianapolis.” 

In S. Decker, ed., Policing Gangs and Youth Violence. Belmont, 

CA: Thompson. 

Rosenfeld, Richard and Scott H. Decker. 1993. “Where Public Health 

and Law Enforcement Meet.” American Journal of Police 12:11-57. 

Rosenfeld, Richard and Scott H. Decker. 1996. “Consent to Search and 

Seize: The St. Louis Firearm Suppression Project.” Law and Contemporary Problems 59:197-220. 

Sampson, R. S. Raudenbush and F, Earl. 1997. “Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy.” Science 

277:918-924. 

Sampson, Robert. 2003. “The Community.” In J.Q. Wilson and Joan 

Petersilia, eds.,Crime. Oakland, CA: Institute for Contemporary 

Studies. 

38 
Endnotes 

1. Bureau of Justice Statistics: www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjc/cvict_c.htm 

(as of 12/28/04). 

2. Levels of property crime and violent crime not involving a gun 

are lower in the United States than many other western democracies, 

but gun crime remains exceptionally high in the United States. See 

Zimring and Hawkins, 1999; Bureau of Justice Statistics: 

www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/ijs.htm (as of 12/28/04). 

3. Reviews of promising gun crime reduction strategies that can 

assist research partners and task forces include Braga, 2004; National 

Research Council, 2005; Ludwig and Cook, 2003; Office of Juvenile 

Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1999. See also Dalton, 2003; 

Decker, 2003. 

4. These data were reported by the U.S. Department of Justice, 

Executive Office for United States Attorneys (10/05). 

5. Data compiled by Professor Joe Trotter and colleagues as part of 

American University’s PSN Technical Assistance Program. 

6. Bureau of Justice Assistance, 2004. See also www.psn.gov. 

7. The fastest growing county in the state and one of the 10 fastest 

growing in the United States. 

8. Population data are from the 2000 U.S. Census. Comparable 

crime and demographic data are not available for Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Marianas Islands. Thus comparisons are 

made to the 90 U.S. judicial districts, rather than the 94 PSN districts. 

9. In 2000, 3,729 homicides, robberies, or aggravated assaults 

involved a firearm. This equates to a rate of 1,144 serious firearm crimes 

per 100,000 residents compared to a national rate of 121/100,000. In 

2004, there were 466 violent crimes per 100,000 for the U.S., 26 percent of which were firearm-related. Thus, .26 x 466 = 121. 

10. There is no question that the youth homicide problem in St. 

Louis, as in other racially diverse cities, is concentrated disproportionately among African-American youth. 

11. Standard scores reflect a statistical technique to make comparable data that are gathered at varying levels of magnitude. For example, 

to compare city statistics with national statistics. 

12. This is not to downplay the significance or difficulty of such 

efforts. 

13. For a fuller description of this process, see Decker et al., 2006. 

39 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

14. This finding dates to the 1980s (Decker, Rosenfeld and Kohfeld, 

1989) and has been a feature of much research since then (Rosenfeld 

and Decker, 1993; 1996). 

15. For a description of offender notification meetings, see McDevitt et al., 2006. 

16. For a description of chronic violent offender programs, see 

Bynum et al., 2006. 

17. For a description of incident reviews, see Klofas et al., 2006. 

40 
Appendix 1. Homicide Notification 


E-Mail (Sample)
 

41 
Appendix 2. Violent Crime Case Review 


E-Mail (Sample)
 

Violent Crime Case Review 

Date: 04/29/05 Time: 0030 CN 05-032806 —- CPD 05/08 

Location: Cardinal @ Rutger 

Neighborhood: The Gate District 

Victim #1: C Pedigree: B/M/26 

Address: XX Street, Jennings, MO Occupation: Unemployed 

Suspect #1: C Pedigree: B/M/26 

Address: XX Street, St. Louis, MO Occupation: Unemployed 

Suspect #2: Unknown Pedigree: B/M/ 22 - 26 

Address: Unknown Occupation: Unknown 

Weapon(s) Used: Revolver 

Pump shotgun w/ pistol grip handle 

Motive: Victim YY and YY know each other from middle school. Apparent motive is Robbery.
 

Gang Affiliation: Victim #1: Grape Street Crips (2600 Hickory)
 

Wanted Subject: YY is not documented.
 

Summary of Incident: Robbery 1st Degree (shooting) & Assault 1st Degree
 

Victim C reported he was traveling southbound on Cardinal at Rutger, when he
 

was waved down by suspect YY, who he knew from middle school. As C
 

and C were speaking, an unknown African-American male approached the passenger side
 

of the vehicle, pointed a shotgun at the victim and racked the action.
 

YY exited his vehicle when YY produced a revolver and stated, “We’re
 

gonna kill this mother....” YY stated he began struggling with YY
 

over the revolver. During the struggle, two shots were fired. YY was grazed
 

once on the top of the head and once in the side of his neck. He was then struck on
 

top of the head with the butt of the shotgun by the unknown male. Victim YY suffered a laceration on the top of his
 

head, a graze wound on top of his head and
 

a small laceration and burn to the side of his neck.
 

Following the two gunshots, YY and the unknown African-American male entered YY’s vehicle and traveled south
 

on Cardinal until out of sight.
 

YY ran to 2806 xxxx where he used an unknown subject’s phone to call for a
 

taxi. He took the cab to his girlfriend’s house, YY, who resides at XX Street. YY conveyed YY to Barnes Hospital and
 

contacted this department while en route, approximately 40 minutes after the incident occurred.
 

Note: There was no ballistic evidence recovered from the scene, nor from the hospital.
 

Victim #1:
 

Criminal History: LID# xxxxxx VMCSL – Dist Del Manuf Controlled Substance, Tampering w/ Utility 2nd Degree,
 

Drug Violation (misdemeanor), Stealing Over $500.
 

Felony – 2, Misdemeanor – 3, Local Ordinance – 2 (Convictions – 0)
 

Associates: N/A
 

43 
Appendix 3. Ceasefire Meeting Agenda 

(Sample) 

PROJECT SAFE NEIGHBORHOODS
 

CEASEFIRE Working Group—Agenda
 

June 22, 2005
 

I. Introductions - United States Attorney 

II. Data Collections/Analysis Update 

III. Updates 

A. Enforcement 

1. DEA Violent Trafficker Task Force 

2. St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department 

3. St. Louis County Police Department 

4. Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives 

5. United States Marshals Service 

B. Prosecution 

1. United States Attorney 

2. St. Louis City Circuit Attorney 

3. St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney 

C. Probation & Parole 

1. Juvenile 

2. Federal 

3. State 

D. Prevention/Intervention 

1. Project Sentry 

2. St. Louis Public Schools 

3. City of St. Louis 

IV. New Business 

V. Adjourn 

45 
Appendix 4. Violent Neighborhood 


Initiative E-Mail Update (Sample)
 

From: YY @SLMPD.ORG] 

Sent: Friday, July 22, 2005 12:08 PM 

To: PSN Distribution List 

Subject: SPD Nightly Staff Report 

Incident: Assault 1st L.E.O. 

Location: 2941 XX Street (rear) 

Complaint Number: 05-057869 

Date and Time: 07/21/05 @ 09:37 

Supervisor: Sgt. YY 

Victim: Sgt. F/P.O. D/P.O. H/P.O. R/J (arrested subject) 

Suspect: Unknown 

Synopsis: The above Officers & Sgt. had observed J, who is a member of the S.W.A.T. Street Gang and was wanted 

for Armed Robbery (of xxxx), standing at Chippewa and Pennsylvania. YY fled on foot and was chased to the rear of 

2941 YY Street, where he was taken into custody without incident. After XX was placed into the rear of a police 

vehicle, the officers were standing next to their cars conducting computer checks when approximately five minutes 

later; someone fired a gunshot at the officers. The officers heard the projectile traveling through nearby foliage and 

heard it impact a metallic object within close proximity to them. The area was checked thoroughly by District Officers, K-9, the helicopter and Mobile Reserve. A witness to the incident was detained and brought to the S.P.D. for 

questioning. The suspect was never observed therefore, there is no description. No damage from the gunshot could 

be located. 

DISTRICT THREE: 

CN: 05-xxxxx 

Incident: Assault 1st 

Location: 3506 YY Street 

Neighborhood: Tower Grove East 

Precinct/Area Car: 314/330 

Supervisor: 1311 S 

Officers: 1328 A and B 

SPD Detective: 

Dates/Times: 7/21/05 10:55 

Victim(s): C. b/m 12/3/69, residing at xxxx Street 

Suspect(s): L. b/m 11/25/82, last known address xxx Street 6’0 140 dark complexion, armed with a dark 

colored 9mm semi-automatic handgun and operating an older model gray with blue vinyl top Buick 

Regal bearing a Missouri temp tag. 

Synopsis: Victim L stated he was involved in an argument with his nephew/ suspect YY over rent money. Suspect C 

produced a handgun and fired several shots in the direction of the victim. Suspect then fled in the above described 

vehicle. No injuries to victim, casings recovered. Several witnesses were located at the scene. 

From: YY@SLMPD.ORG] 

Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 8:50 AM 

To: PSN Distribution List 

Subject: CPD Bureau Nightly - 5/19/05 

Metropolitan Police Department – City of St. Louis Metropolitan Police 

INTRA-DEPARTMENT REPORT AND CORRESPONDENCE SHEET 

Date: 5-19-2005 

47 
Strategic Interventions: Case Studies 

To: Commander Central Patrol 

From: Central Patrol Detective Bureau 

Subject: Nightly 

Copies To: 

Sir: 

Central Patrol Detectives moved into the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood due to numerous citizens complaints of 

drug and gang activity. We focused on the xxxx and xxxx blocks of YY and YY. Over the next few weeks we will 

continue to focus on this area with a zero tolerance policy for criminal activity. 

Detectives xxx and xxx conducted pedestrian checks in the xxxx block of YY and arrested subject XX( Fug. Traffic, 

xxxx) B/M, DOB: 09/15/78 residing at xxxx St. Fired subjects M, B/M, DOB: xx/xx/xx, SSN: XXX-XX-XXXX and W, 

B/M, DOB: xx/xx/xx SSN: XXX-XX-XXXX. 

Detectives N and S stopped the following three individuals in the 4300 block of YY: 

#1 J b/m xx/xx/xx 

SID # xxxxxxxx 

Booked on 9 outstanding bench warrants 

Currently on Probation 

Criminal History: 

Drug Violation
 

Tampering
 

Robbery 2nd
 

DWI
 

Probation Violation
 

Poss. Controlled Subst.
 

#2 B b/m xx/xx/xx 

SID # xxxxxxxx 

Currently on Probation 

Criminal History: 

Stealing
 

Fraudulant Use Credit Device
 

Distribution Contr. Subst.
 

UUW
 

Domestic Assault 2nd
 

#3 K 

SID # xxxxxxxx 

Currently on Probation 

Criminal History: 

Tampering
 

Resisting Arrest
 

DWI
 

Distribution Contr. Subst.
 

Poss. Contr. Subst.
 

Assault LEO w/ Injury (sentenced to 10 yrs on xx/xx/xx !!!!!)
 

Stealing M/V
 

Assault 1st
 

48