King County, Washington

The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in Washington State will establish a Crime Strategies Unit (CSU) for its “Shots Fired” Initiative aimed at addressing increased firearm violence in the jurisdiction. Members of the CSU include prosecutors, a crime analyst, seven law enforcement agencies, a public health agency, and research partners. CSU’s initial goal is to institutionalize standardized intelligence gathering and sharing to concentrate resources on reducing shots-fired incidents and identifying those involving chronic victims and offenders in "hot spot" locations. Project objectives include: (1) enabling standardized data collection methods and protocols for CSU and partners; (2) training crime analysts in social network analysis (SNA); (3) conducting SNA to identify hot-spots and key victims and offenders;  (4) targeting those actors for aggressive prosecutorial, law enforcement, and/or community-based responses; (5) facilitating collaborative development and execution of evidence-driven strategies aimed at reducing illegal shootings; and (6) assessing the impact in the final project evaluation and adjusting responses accordingly.