Department of Justice to host National Summit on Crime Reduction and Public Safety at the end of June

Acting Assistant Attorney General Alan Hanson gave this speech today at the Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Program Symposium. The entire speech makes for an interesting and encouraging read, and here are a few passages that really caught my eye (including the reference to the coming National Summit mentioned in the post title):

As with any new Administration, I know there are lots of questions about priorities. The President just released his budget last week, and you can see that the White House is clearly focused on reducing crime in America’s communities. That’s good news for all us who care about public safety. I think it’s also important for everyone here to know — and this will come as no surprise — that for our Attorney General, the safety of our communities, and of those who protect them, is paramount.

Attorney General Sessions has made it clear that he’s willing to do what it takes to help cities reduce crime and violence. And having worked very closely with Jeff Sessions during his time in the Senate, I can tell you those are not empty words.  For anyone who cares about making sure our neighborhoods are places of promise and opportunity — where citizens can live, work and thrive — you can be sure you have an ally in our Attorney General.

In his short time in office, he has already set up a task force on crime reduction and public safety.  The goal of this task force is to work with federal, state and local law enforcement and community organizations to identify effective public safety strategies.  As part of this effort, the Department plans to host a National Summit on Crime Reduction and Public Safety at the end of June.  We hope to learn at that summit about local strategies that work and determine how we at the federal level can support those efforts....

As you know, the BCJI program offers a unique approach to public safety and neighborhood revitalization.  It’s place-based, community-oriented, driven by data and research and grounded in partnerships across agencies and across disciplines — all the elements you would expect in a successful public safety program.

The BCJI model builds on programs like Project Safe Neighborhoods that rely on coordination between federal, state and local law enforcement and prosecutors and on collaboration with researchers.  It focuses on crime hot spots, and on distressed areas where resources are most urgently needed.  Perhaps most importantly, it brings community leaders and law enforcement to the table together, which guarantees that this work isn’t being done in a vacuum.

This approach is not one we see often enough — which is a shame, because we know it works.  In Evansville, Indiana, for example, from 2013 to 2015, reported crime dropped 42 percent in the BCJI target neighborhood of Jacobsville.  Five hot spots in Milwaukee’s target area saw a 23 percent drop in violent crime over the same period. That’s compared to a 1 percent increase in the city as a whole.  And in Austin, Texas, during the 16 months of BCJI operation in the Rundberg neighborhood, violent crime dropped 15 percent.

These are impressive numbers, and they’re especially notable when many other cities are seeing a trend in the opposite direction....

This work — the work that you’re doing — is more important than ever.  Crime rates remain near historically low levels, but there’s no question that some cities are seeing troubling recent surges in violence — in some cases, dramatic increases.  This is a time for vigilance, not complacency, because, as the Attorney General said, “When crime rates move in the wrong direction, they can move quickly.”