ABSTRACT
In 2006, the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), working with police chiefs and mayors, raised the concern that, following a steady decline in violent crime which began in the early 1990s, the nation’s cities were experiencing an increasingly violent crime trend. A number of potential factors were identified as the possible sources behind an increase but the primary intent of PERF reports and forums had been to draw attention to this possible upward trend in violent crime so that the nation could act in such a way as to prevent this from escalating to a violent crime epidemic such as that experienced in the mid-to late 1980s. In response to these types of concerns, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) requested that the Sagamore Institute conduct a study that could point to promising policing strategies that might inform local, state, and federal policy with the goal of violent crime prevention and control.
