Project Safe Neighborhoods was the centerpiece of the Bush administration's crime policy in President Bush's first term. This is a policy driven by deterrence and incapacitation and directed at reducing gun violence. In brief, the policy called for federal prosecution of certain gun crimes that had been previously prosecuted at the local level. The get-tough-on-crime message was further enhanced by minimum mandatory sentences. The interesting break from earlier efforts at deterrence and incapacitation was that Project Safe Neighborhoods provided funds to develop and execute a well-designed public service campaign to “get the message out there.” Interrupted time-series analysis of project effects in the Southern District of Alabama points to significantly lower post-intervention gun crime.
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