An Evaluation of the GunStat Model and Organizational Change in the City of Philadelphia

• In Event: Crime and Place: Intervention and Evaluation Research

Abstract

In January of 2012, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter outlined the crime fighting measures that his administration would pursue during his second term as mayor. Included was a plan to introduce a multi-agency crime reduction program, which Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey and District Attorney Seth Williams would co-chair, called GunStat. GunStat was described as a collaborative effort to reduce gun violence through (1) identifying locations with a high incidence of violent crime, (2) identifying violent offenders responsible for these crimes, (3) focusing on arresting and prosecuting these offenders for crimes committed at these places, and (4) enhanced monitoring of offenders on probation and parole who are living and/or offending within these locations. In effect, GunStat was designed to target the right people (prolific, violent known offenders) at the right places (hot spots of violent crime). This presentation reports the results of an in-depth, ex post facto evaluation of Philadelphia’s GunStat model as implemented over a two year period in five target locations with high incidents of violent crime.

Author

• Evan Sorg, Temple University