Projects

Recent & Ongoing Projects

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An Evaluation of Citywide Street Lighting Upgrades on Gun Violence

The Philadelphia Energy Authority is engaging in one of the most ambitious public infrastructure projects in the United States by upgrading the entire light network of the city with energy-efficient “smart” LED […]

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The Last Mile Evaluation

The Last Mile (TLM) has provided courses on computer programming, web development, and entrepreneurship to incarcerated individuals for over ten years. The courses aim to teach returning citizens invaluable, marketable skills as […]

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Determining the Effects of Street Cleaning on Gun Violence: The Clean Streets Intervention

The objective of this project is to determine the effectiveness of a street cleaning intervention on gun violence. The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) launched the LandCare Block Cleanup Program in July with […]

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Field Testing and Validating Risk Assessment Tools in Latin America and the Caribbean

For the past several decades, many Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries have been facing increasing levels of youth involvement in crime and violence. This issue is a top priority for the […]

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Shannon Community Safety Initiative

Since 2006, the Massachusetts Legislature has appropriated funds to support the Shannon Community Safety Initiative (CSI) aimed at reducing gang violence across the Commonwealth. Administered by the Massachusetts Office of Grants and […]

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Community of Practice with Joyce

Community Violence Intervention (CVI) programs have enormous potential to save lives and improve justice system outcomes across a wide range of cities and counties. Many innovative jurisdictions are currently either piloting new […]

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Somerville Police Alternatives and Co-Response

CJP, in collaboration with the City of Somerville Department of Racial and Social Justice, is creating a primer on the city’s public safety response landscape. The primer will discuss the current landscape […]

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Hampden Stepdown Program

In partnership with researchers at Northeastern University, CJP researchers are assisting in evaluating the Hampden County Sheriff’s Office’s (HCSO) Step-Down Program. The step-down program is NIJ-funded and the investigation involves a difference-in-difference […]

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Tracking the Sale and Spread of Illegal Guns in the US

Leveraging an innovative partnership with online payment company PayPal, in 2020 the CJP formed of a research collaborative designed to better understand illegal firearm trafficking and financing in the United States. Partners […]

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Exploring the Effects of Civic Justice on Offending Patterns in Mexico

Civic Justice is a preventative approach to minor offenses based on community courts, restorative justice, and problem-oriented policing components. The goal of the model is to reduce recidivism and escalation to more […]

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Prosecutors and Criminal Justice Reform: Research Partnership with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office

Penn CJP researchers is partnering with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office (DAO) to conduct research on the role of prosecutor-driven policies in improving fairness and efficiency in the criminal justice system. The […]

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Evaluating Philadelphia’s Group Violence Intervention

In partnership with the Philadelphia Office of Violence Prevention and the Urban Affairs Coalition, CJP researchers are evaluating the Philadelphia Group Violence Intervention (GVI), an evidence-based approach to reducing group-involved violence. GVI […]

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Crime Prevention through Streamlined Information Sharing

A critical factor in data-driven policing strategies is the ability to plan, collect, analyze, disseminate, and evaluate information being provided to street officers and investigators. To do this effectively and efficiently, data […]

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Improving Treatment for Juvenile Justice

In February of 2019, the Philadelphia DAO established new juvenile justice policies aimed at improving the treatment of and outcomes for youth within the Juvenile Justice system and decreasing the use of […]

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Developing New Tools to Fight the Opioid Epidemic

The opioid epidemic in Massachusetts (and the U.S. more broadly) shows no sign of subsiding; there is growing awareness among policymakers that expanding treatment alone may not be enough to curtail the […]

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Preventing Community Violence in Oakland, California: Operation Ceasefire

Researchers at CJP have worked on several projects related to community violence prevention strategies. Our ongoing work in Oakland is based on several of these previous projects, notably Boston’s Operation Ceasefire focused […]

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Building Evidence on Security and Community Resilience in the Caribbean

Reducing crime and violence among youth is a high priority for citizens and governments in the Eastern and Southern Caribbean (ESC). While considerable progress has been made to understand the factors that […]

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Forming Better Police-Community Connections: Body Worn Cameras

We are currently working on three randomized evaluations of programs that study the effects of equipping officers with body-worn cameras. These projects are ongoing with the Boston Police Department, the Las Vegas […]

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Forming Better Police-Community Connections: Procedural Justice

We’re working on several projects that examine the ways in which new policy initiatives could be used to change interactions between police and community members. We are currently collaborating with the Cambridge […]

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