Project Greenlight Detroit: Evaluation Report.

By Giovanni Circo, June Werdlow Rogers, Edmund F. McGarrell, Julie M. Krupa, Alaina De Biasi, Juli Liebler, Shannon Cartwright and Travis Carter

Project Greenlight Detroit (PGLD) represents an innovative approach to public safety. PGLD involves a partnership between the Detroit Police Department (DPD), the city of Detroit, and business owners. PGLD is a multiple component strategy that involves the installation of high-quality video systems in and around retail, service, and multi-unit residential locations; monitoring of the cameras in a Real-Time Crime Center; priority call response; and supportive collaboration between DPD and PGLD participants. PGLD is best viewed as part of a comprehensive set of crime and 6 violence reduction strategies developed by DPD and its local, state, and federal partners over recent years. These comprehensive strategies include interventions aimed at high rate, repeat offenders, gangs and groups involved in violent crimes and shootings, and outreach, prevention, and community development strategies. PGLD represents a place-based intervention that builds upon crime analysis that indicates a small number of geographic locations account for a disproportionate amount of the crime and violence that occurs in the city. Additionally, these crime analysis patterns have revealed that violent crime is concentrated among a small proportion of street segments, particularly those where gas stations, bars and taverns, and small commercial entities such as convenience stores are located. Particularly, when combined with indicators of illicit drug sales, these types of locations demonstrate high risk for fatal and nonfatal shootings and other types of violent crime. PGLD represents a strategic response to these crime patterns based upon the partnership of the City, DPD, and PGLD business and property owners. This report presents the results of a multi-year evaluation of PGLD. The report provides background on the development and key components of PGLD, provides insight into the implementation and key program outputs, and then examines the potential impact of PGLD on crime. The evaluation is complicated because of the nature of the PGLD program itself. In effect, the program has been in a continual “roll-out” since its launch in 2016. Thus, the program began with 77 PGLD locations in 2016 and has added 138, 235, 204 new locations from 2017-2019, respectively. Even in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, an additional 62 PGLD locations were enrolled through the end of November. Indeed, the expansion of PGLD, requiring initial and ongoing investment by the business owner, represents an indicator of the success of PGLD. Yet, from an evaluation perspective, this is more complicated than studying the impact of a program initiated at one point in time. Second, we have reason to believe that PGLD results in increases in reporting of crime, particularly property and disorder offenses, to the police. This makes it difficult to assess trends in crime – is an observed increase in incidents indicative of more crime or a greater willingness to report the incident? Third, PGLD was implemented during a period of multiple crime and violence reduction strategies. Overall crime trends indicate that these strategies have improved public safety in Detroit (see Table 1). Indeed, fatal and nonfatal shootings were 38 percent lower in 2018-19 compared to 2011-12 and since 2016 fatal and nonfatal shootings have declined 27 percent compared to the prior five years.

East Lansing, MI: Michigan Justice Statistics Center School of Criminal Justice Michigan State University,. 2020. 94p.