Empowering Community-Based Organizations to Become Co-producers of Public Safety:Developing a Gun Violence Crime Prevention Effort in the City of Newark

Objective:
The proposed study seeks to develop a community-based participatory-action research effort to prevent and reduce gun violence in the City of Newark. Incidents of gun violence have recently concentrated in Newark's South and West Wards. According to year-to-date incident-level data for homicides, the number of gun violence-related homicides (approximately 80% of the total) has increased by 53% compared to last year. The Newark Public Safety Collaborative (NPSC), a Rutgers-Newark School of Criminal Justice Anchor Initiative, has a well-established
partnership with over forty community-based organizations, some of which are serving the geographic areas most affected by gun violence (e.g., the Newark Community Street Team, the Brick City Peace Collective, and the Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery). This
proposal aims to develop a comprehensive participatory-action research effort to...
1. Identify problem places that attract and/or generate gun violence
2. Engage local CBOs in a collaborative effort to mobilize community resources in hyperlocal areas most affected by gun violence.
3. Democratize access to data and analytics to empower community organizations to become co-producers of community safety.

Funded By:
New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center

Project Status:
In progress

Principal Investigator (PI):
Alejandro Gimenez Santana, PhD

Co-Principal Investigators:
Les Kennedy, PhD, Joel Caplan, PhD

Amount Awarded:
$35,000