By Marc L. Swatt, Craig D. Uchida, Anna M. Goedert, and Alese Wooditch

Gun violence remains a challenging problem for law enforcement agencies across the country. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC, 2023), there were 20,958 firearm homicide deaths across the United States in 2021 resulting in a rate of 6.3 per 100,000 residents. This rate understates the problem, as the risk for firearm homicide is not evenly distributed and certain segments of the population have a considerably higher risk of firearm homicide victimization. For example, for 15-19-year-old Black males, the rate of firearm homicide death is 98.9 per 100,000 residents and for 20-24-year-old Black males, the rate is 134.4 per 100,000 residents (CDC, 2023). Further, firearm homicide is concentrated within impoverished areas within cities (Kravitz-Wirtz, Bruns, Aubel, Zhang, & Buggs, 2022). Recent research suggests that firearm violence has increased in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic (Kegler, Simon, Zwald, Chen, Mercy, Jones, et al. 2022; McDonald, Mohler, & Brantingham, 2022). While the causes of firearm homicide are complex and involve both risk and protective factors (see American Psychological Association, 2013; Gaylord-Harden, Alli, Davis-Stober, & Henderson, 2022; Mattson, Sigel, & Mercado, 2020; Pardini, Beardslee, Docherty, Shubert, & Mulvey, 2020), there are strategies that law enforcement can adopt to reduce the prevalence of firearm violence (see Braga, Turchan, Papachristos, & Hureau, 2019; Braga, Weisburd, & Turchan, 2019; Uchida & Swatt, 2013). Recently, law enforcement agencies have sought to leverage forensic evidence from gun discharge events to improve gun violence suppression efforts. Traditionally, firearm forensic evidence – namely retrieved firearms and spent casings – were used mainly to enhance prosecutorial efforts at obtaining convictions. However, by rapidly entering and retrieving information from the ATF’s National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (NIBIN) and electronic gun tracing database (eTrace), law enforcement can proactively use this information to identify linkages between seemingly disparate cases to apprehend likely shooters and disrupt gun trafficking networks (see Pierce, Braga, Hyatt, & Koper, 2004). To maximize the efficacy of this strategy, several agencies have been adopting coordinated interagency firearm enforcement programs – Crime Gun Intelligence Centers. The Baltimore Police Department (BPD) is one of 46 agencies across the country that received funding from the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) to set up a CGIC. In 2018, BPD planned its CGIC and over the next five years implemented key components of it. Justice & Security Strategies, Inc. (JSS) served as the research partner on the grant and evaluated the program. This report details the results of this evaluation effort. In this chapter, we first discuss the CGIC concept, how CGICs can decrease gun violence and the results of CGIC evaluations. In the second chapter, we discuss the City of Baltimore, the BPD, the implementation of CGIC, and the unique challenges facing this implementation to provide context for our findings. In the third chapter, we discuss the results of the process evaluation for CGIC and discuss CGIC activities,  challenges, and successes. The fourth chapter presents the results of the impact evaluation and examines whether CGIC was successful at reducing violent gun crime. The final chapter provides additional discussion of the conclusions of this research and provides several recommendations to BPD for the continuation of CGIC. 

Los Angeles: Justice & Security Strategies, 2024. 123p.

By Christopher Koper | Heather Vovak | Brett Cowell 

This study presents an evaluation of the Crime Gun Intelligence Center (CGIC) initiative in Milwaukee conducted by a research partner team from the National Police Foundation and George Mason University. The report covers the operations and impacts of the CGIC program from 2014 through 2017. The first part of the report documents the CGIC program as it operated during the study period. The heart of the CGIC initiative involves systematic collection and analysis of ballistics evidence collected from both crime scenes and test fires of recovered firearms. This ballistics evidence is scanned into the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (NIBIN) administered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). Scanning ballistics evidence into NIBIN enables analysts to compare images of ballistics evidence across cases nationwide to identify gun crimes that may have involved the same firearm (based on unique markings that firearms make on fired shell casings and bullets). This helps investigators to identify crimes that are likely to have been committed by the same offender or by offenders who used the same firearm. Teams of detectives, analysts, and other staff from MPD, ATF, and other partner agencies use these leads to prioritize, inform, and target gun crime investigations and prosecutions. The second part of the report presents three series of analyses conducted by the Milwaukee CGIC’s research partners to assess the potential and actual impacts of the CGIC initiative on gun-related investigations and gun crime in Milwaukee. All of these analyses focus in particular on the outcomes of NIBIN testing and the value of NIBIN-related evidence in solving gun-related investigations and reducing gun crime. The first set of analyses examined the scope and nature of interconnected gun crimes in Milwaukee. The CGIC program targets repeat shooters and networks of offenders responsible for multiple gunfire incidents through the sharing of firearms. As a first step in evaluating the impacts of the program, the research team sought to determine how much of Milwaukee’s gun violence is attributable to such offenders using data from CGIC case files and the MPD’s records management system (RMS). This portion of the study helped to define the scope of the problem targeted by the CGIC program and illuminate the program’s strategic value as a tool for improving gun crime investigations and reducing gun crime. It also illustrates the value of NIBIN testing as an analytical tool to improve the understanding of gun crime in the city. The next series of analyses examined the impact of NIBIN testing on the outcomes of gun-related investigations in Milwaukee. In principle, the CGIC program, and NIBIN testing in particular, should produce leads that help investigators solve gunfire-related crimes that might otherwise go unsolved. The research team thus examined the outcomes of NIBIN-related investigations and the role that NIBIN evidence played in these investigations using information extracted from NIBIN-related case files. In addition, the research team used data from MPD’s RMS to examine  whether the CGIC program has improved overall case closure rates for gunfire-related crimes since its major launch in 2014. Finally, the third set of analyses investigated whether NIBIN-related enforcement activity has reduced gun crime in Milwaukee. If the CGIC program is successful in targeting the most active shooters and networks in the city, then the program could produce significant incapacitation and deterrence effects that reduce the city’s overall level of shooting incidents. This was examined through a time series analysis of trends in NIBIN-related arrests and shootings (fatal and nonfatal) across Milwaukee’s police districts from 2011 through 2017. In summary, the evaluation suggests that the CGIC program in Milwaukee has high strategic value in targeting the city’s gun violence prevention efforts. Ballistics evidence generated through NIBIN testing is helping the MPD focus on repeat shooters and networks of active offenders who account for roughly half of fatal and non-fatal shootings in Milwaukee. Hence, the CGIC program has a high ceiling for its potential to reduce gun crime. NIBIN-related evidence is also helping investigators identify and apprehend more suspects in gun crime investigations. This does not mean that NIBIN evidence is a cure-all for investigating gun crime; cases with NIBIN links do not always produce arrests, nor is NIBIN evidence always critical to closing cases when it is available. Greater coordination and effort focused on NIBIN-related cases have also contributed to better outcomes for these investigations. On balance, nonetheless, systematic collection and analysis of ballistics evidence appears to be a useful strategy for solving cases and illuminating active shooters for further investigation. NIBIN-related evidence and the CGIC investigative process appear to have been particularly helpful for improving the investigation of non-fatal shootings. After an initial decline in clearances for these crimes in 2014 (due likely to a surge in gun violence throughout the city), they have been increasing during the years of the CGIC initiative. By some measures, clearances for nonfatal shootings in 2017 (the last year studied) were better than those before the program, even though gun violence levels were considerably lower during the pre-program years. Further, these recent improvements have been due specifically to improvements in clearances of cases with NIBIN-related evidence. Finally, the study provides tentative indications that NIBIN-related arrests have reduced shootings. These findings were not definitive. However, it was difficult to conduct a rigorous assessment of the program’s impacts on shootings given the lack of comparison areas for study (the program was implemented citywide, so it was not possible to compare areas with and without the program). A general rise in gun violence in Milwaukee that coincided with the implementation of the program also complicated efforts to judge the program’s impacts. In light of these findings, a longer-term study of Milwaukee’s CGIC program would seem valuable. The program’s effects may well become stronger over time as the MPD’s ballistics evidence database grows. Indeed, the rate of matches and leads from recovered ballistics evidence has grown notably during the life of the program. Hence, the research team recommends additional follow-up studies to assess the program’s longer-term impact on shooting investigations and gun crime. If impacts on gun crime can be determined more conclusively, cost-benefit analyses could also be conducted to quantify the program’s financial benefits. 

Washington, DC: National Police Foundation. 2019.. 51p.   

By Craid Uchida, Allison Quigley and Kyle Anderson

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD Department) received a grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) to establish the Los Angeles Crime Gun Intelligence Center (LA CGIC). The Center is a collaboration that focuses on the collection, management, and analysis of crime gun data and seeks to reduce gun-related crime. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) developed the concept of the Crime Gun Intelligence Center, and the Bureau of Justice Assistance provided funding for planning and implementation purposes. In Los Angeles, ATF, the LAPD, and all of the partners implemented a CGIC in 77th Street Division, one of 21 patrol stations in the Department. In January 2018, LA CGIC became fully operational and began to use ‘actionable intelligence’ based on National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) leads and hits. In October 2018, LA CGIC was expanded to include three other South Bureau divisions: Harbor (HBR), Southeast (SOE), and Southwest (SOW). This report provides background information about the formation of the LA CGIC and evaluates the program using data and information gathered through interviews and observations of meetings and activities of the LA CGIC partners.   

Los Angeles: Justice & Security Strategies, Inc., 2019. 46p.