July 21, 2010 – With Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) funding through the U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Rosamond Gifford Foundation, the Finn Institute will continue to serve as the research partner to Onondaga County’s PSN/Operation IMPACT task force.
Project Safe Neighborhoods is a federal initiative to reduce gun violence. Local task forces in each federal district, including federal, state, and local agencies under the leadership of the United States Attorney, develop data-driven approaches to the gun crime problems in each locality. Each task force includes a research partner, who analyzes gun violence patterns and draws on extant research to help inform the development of violence-reduction strategies, and also monitors implementation and outcomes. Finn Institute researchers have served as the research partner in the Northern District of New York since 2002.
Operation IMPACT (Integrated Municipal Police Anti-Crime Teams) is a New York State initiative that provides funding for strategic crime-reduction interventions by multi-agency task forces in each of seventeen jurisdictions across New York State; in Onondaga County, the PSN task force is also the IMPACT task force.
Institute Director Rob Worden said, “We are pleased to continue working with the task force in Onondaga County. No group is more committed than they are to making their city safer, and they appreciate the value of analysis and research.”