Press Release from the Office of the Mayor, David N. Cicilline

Thomas Connell, Communications
Office of the United States Attorney
401-528-5224


	Mayor Cicilline announcing the $285,000 Project Safe Neighborhoods grant

Providence - A federal, state, and city partnership against gun violence has received a major boost with the awarding of a $285,000 Project Safe Neighborhoods grant. The grant will help both law enforcement initiatives against gun crimes and community intervention efforts against gun violence. Components of the program that will be financed by the grant include a community intervention program known as Streetworkers, the Attorney General’s Community Prosecution initiative, and a Providence Police Gun Task Force.

Mayor David Cicilline, Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick J. Lynch, U.S. Attorney Margaret E. Curran, and Raymond Rowley, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, announced the grant today at Richardson Park on Providence’s south side.

Flanked by representatives of the state’s Congressional delegation, Providence Police officers, and community leaders, Mayor Cicilline hailed the grant as a major boost for the city’s efforts to create safer neighborhoods for our children by stemming gun violence.

“I want to thank U. S. Attorney Meg Curran for all of her hard work towards strengthening the Project Safe Neighborhoods partnership,” said Cicilline. “She recognizes, as I do, that it takes an entire community to keep our children safe from gun violence. This grant gives us the resources we need to send more Streetworkers into the neighborhoods to reach out to youth before they fall victim to violence.”

The Rhode Island Justice Commission submitted the grant application on behalf of the Project Safe Neighborhoods partnership and will administer the grant for the state and the city.

Project Safe Neighborhoods is a nationwide Department of Justice initiative designed to help forge community partnerships against gun violence and gun crimes. The grant announced today is one of many being awarded to states and cities across the country. Each Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative, though in part federally financed, is designed and implemented locally.

"The essence of community policing and community prosecution is teamwork,"

said Attorney General Lynch. "House by house, street by street and block by block, our prosecutors look forward to building relationships with citizens throughout the communities of Providence. In doing so, we hope to play a part in addressing our biggest challenge - restoring people's faith in our criminal justice system."

U.S. Attorney Curran has been laying the groundwork for Project Safe Neighborhoods partnerships by bringing together various components of the community. “The grant announced today is only one component of our efforts - it is a building block for our work,” U.S. Attorney Curran said. “The real building blocks for construction of Project Safe Neighborhoods, however, are the energy and commitment of city residents and community leaders to stand together against gun violence, to help our young people reject a lifestyle of violence.”

The grant announced today will finance three components of Project Safe Neighborhoods:

- Streetworkers - a program fostered by Mayor Cicilline that uses violence intervention workers to teach the principles and practices of nonviolence and address potentially violent situations. Managed through the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence, the program is designed to fill gaps between services provided by youth programs and law enforcement. Part of the Streetworkers approach is to link young people with social services, job training and employment opportunities.

- Community Prosecution - The Community Prosecution Unit of Attorney General Lynch’s Office places prosecutors in selected neighborhoods that are experiencing firearm -related violence. Their two-fold mission is to prosecute gun crimes and help the community develop problem-solving strategies. It is designed to work closely with the community policing strategy initiated by Providence Police Chief Dean Esserman. Attorney General Lynch last week announced the dedication of a prosecutor to each of the nine police districts into which the Providence Police Department has been organized.

- Providence Police Gun Task Force - Initiated recently by Colonel Esserman, the Gun Task Force concentrates on short term investigations and the interdiction of illegal firearms. Ultimately, this facilitates the work of other units and agencies on long-term investigations into illegal firearms possession, use, and trafficking. The Gun Crimes Task Force works especially closely with the Firearms Trafficking and Violence Task Force, which is led by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Project Safe Neighborhoods will also use crime mapping and data-collection systems to track the incidence of gun violence in Providence and help the police department to direct resources where they are most needed. Roger Williams University and the Providence Plan are assisting in those efforts.

Another component of the Project Safe Neighborhoods strategy is community outreach, including education initiatives designed to increase public awareness of federal gun laws and the consequences of gun crimes, as well as programs to help bolster community involvement in anti-gun crime initiatives. Justice Assistance, a non-profit organization with a mission of providing services designed to enhance the justice system, is coordinating those efforts.