Program Goals/Target Sites
This police-led initiative was an intervention designed to reduce gun crime and serious violence in St. Louis, Missouri. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD) collaborated with numerous justice, government, and community organizations to develop the intervention for the Wells Goodfellow (WGF) neighborhood. The program strategy was based on a preintervention assessment of violence patterns in WGF as well as the problems cited by WGF residents and stakeholders (Koper et al. 2010).
The City of St. Louis has a population of about 318,000. Slightly more than 25 percent of city residents live below the poverty line. In 2007, the city experienced 7,654 Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) Part I violent crimes, a rate about two-and-a-half times that of other U.S. cities of similar size. In 2004 and 2006, between 82 and 89 percent of the city’s homicides were committed with a firearm. Approximately 8,000 people reside in the WGF neighborhood, 98 percent of whom are African American. The neighborhood is characterized by high levels of family disruption and vacant housing units, as well as a high violent crime rate (Koper, Woods, and Isom 2016).
Program Components
The program included enhanced enforcement, prosecution, and supervision in WGF. Many of these key components were not entirely new or unique to WGF; however, they were intensified during the project period.
Patrol officers, detectives, and officers from multiple SLMPD specialty units coordinated proactive enforcement activities, such as directed patrols, surveillance, warrant application and execution, drug enforcement and investigation, intensified responses to shootings, and in-depth follow-up investigations. Activities were focused on hot spot crime locations, known persons in the neighborhood, and the deterrence of nonresidents who sold or bought drugs in the WGF neighborhood.
Federal authorities assisted SLMPD with the activities, including a Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) team that conducted drug operations in WGF. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) provided funding to supplement police overtime. ATF also conducted joint patrols with SLMPD during parts of the project and traced recovered firearms. Overall, these activities were designed to deter illegal gun carrying and use, target known persons, suppress drug activity believed to be associated with much of the violence in the WGF neighborhood, and better respond to incidents of serious violence.
In addition, the City of St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office increased its focus on the prosecution of offenses in WFG, particularly for cases involving violence, guns, or drugs. Prosecutors worked with SLMPD to strengthen cases and requested judicial orders to restrict outsiders convicted of drug offenses from entering the neighborhood. The United States Attorney’s Office also committed to prosecuting eligible gun cases from WGF.
Finally, SLMPD also coordinated with probation and parole officers to improve supervision for high-risk probationers in WGF. This involved strengthening a joint police-probation intensive supervision program for high-risk probationers in WGF (including those convicted of a gun offense for the first time).
The program also included efforts to improve police–community relations, and to mobilize and stimulate the community through community meetings, job fairs, and other special events. For example, an interagency team had been addressing issues related to nuisance and vacant properties in WGF, and this effort intensified during the intervention.
