Program helps reduce nonfatal shootings in city by 56%, Manchester police say
Feb. 8—Manchester police say a program aimed at reducing gun violence through community outreach in the city has reduced nonfatal shootings by 56%, while the number of overall incidents of gun crimes and gunfire rose.
The program, dubbed Project Safe Neighborhoods, uses data and social network analysis to identify groups that are behind a majority of city shootings. Through investigations, officials attempt to connect the dots and map out relationships between people and groups, identifying 'influencers' within those groups.
"The results are promising, but we still have a lot of work to do," said Lt. Matt Barter, chief of staff to Police Chief Allen Aldenberg. "It's not perfect. There were setbacks, but overall we're seeing some decent success here."
In 2022, Manchester police reported 198 gun incidents and 76 situations where a gun was fired. That was up from 137 gun incidents and 76 situations in which a gun was fired in 2021. In 2020, the number of gun-related crimes topped 200.
The percentage of gun crimes involving actual gunfire topped 40% in 2021.
Police say data helps identify a core group of potential shooters with 4% of the people whose names come up during shooting investigations — either as victims, witnesses or shooters — connected to 63% of shooting cases.
Police said data shows one network or gang known as Da Real Savages (DRS), played a key role in gun violence in the Queen City, involved in 10% of reckless conduct incidents — the majority of which were shootings.
"It was evident that this network, and specifically those involved in DRS had significant involvement in violence in Manchester," Barter writes in a report detailing the work behind Project Safe Neighborhoods. "The top influencers within the network were identified and police used this list to prioritize both enforcement actions and coordination with partners like the County Attorney's Office. The strategy was to focus on these influencers to break up the network, thereby reducing the incidents of violence the entire group was involved in."
Manchester police partnered with My Turn, a local nonprofit, to head up street outreach efforts to members and "influencers" within the groups.
Allison Joseph, executive director of My Turn, said her group worked to connect members of groups like 'DRS' with resources promoting life outside of gangs.
"We have the youth center where we work with young people to keep them out of the justice system altogether, or we also work with young people involved with the juvenile justice system," said Joseph. "We work with them to improve credit scores, help obtain driver's licenses, housing, vehicles, anything to help provide a better life."
Joseph said police provided My Turn with names of individuals who appeared to be involved in some of the violent activity.
"We did targeted outreach to them," said Joseph. "It was cold-calling, and I was upfront that we had received their names from the police, which gave them some pause in coming into work with us. But we were able to connect with some of their older siblings. Once we had buy-in from some of the key players it was easier to branch out and work with the larger network."
Barter said while the street outreach program was underway — from January to September 2022 — nonfatal shootings were reduced by 56%.
"We think this shows street outreach helped prevent individuals from getting involved in crime in the first place," Barter said.
Data shows the total number of gun crimes increased consecutively during each phase of the Strategy, Barter's report shows. During the enforcement phase, gun crime was up approximately 12%, which can be attributed in part to an increase in proactive work by Manchester police. During the street outreach phase, gun crime was up by 52% compared to the pre-intervention period.
The number of gunfire incidents citywide also increased during the intervention period. Incidents of gunfire increased by 50% during the proactive enforcement phase, and nearly doubled during the street outreach phase, increasing by 96% compared to the pre-intervention period.
Manchester police are hoping to identify funding to keep the program going beyond the end of this year.
