Paul Bass Photo
Vazquez, Asst. Chief Anthony Campbell, Esserman, & Grady.
City lawmakers learned that New Haven’s signature gang-violence-fighting program has led 10 young men to obtain job training … in Bridgeport.
That number emerged at a public hearing at City Hall Tuesday night on the progress of Project Longevity, the ambitious effort aimed at identifying the networks of young men responsible for most shootings in town and then steering them to more productive lives through some tough love.
The Board of Alders Public Safety Committee invited top cops to offer a status report and answer questions about results of the project, which launched in November 2012. The project spread to Bridgeport, where it has produced publicly released statistics and results. No similar numbers were available yet for New Haven’s program.
Under the program, university researchers help cops identify networks of young people involved in gun violence. City, state and federal law-enforcement agents build criminal cases against the targets. Together with community social-service agencies, they then invite the groups in for “call-ins” where they’re offered help going straight — through counseling, job-training, housing help, school — or else face serious jail time if they continue committing violence. (The video at left features one of the community leaders describing the message, at the project’s 2012 rollout.)
Police Chief Dean Esserman told the alders at Tuesday’s hearing that Project Longevity has been one reason (not the only reason) that violent crime has dropped steadily and dramatically in New Haven the past three years. He also noted that the project has spread to other cities in Connecticut and across the country, with which New Haven is sharing lessons.
“We’re constantly learning from each other,” Esserman said. “We’re at the leading edge of some progressive work.” Project Longevity, he said, is “making a difference.”
(In an interview Thursday with the Register, the Rev. William Mathis said he recently quit as the New Haven program’s director because of concerns over the project’s finances and direction.)
Most Avoid Trouble, For Now
Annex Alder Al Paolillo Jr. (at left in photo, with committee Chair Brain Wingate) asked the four assembled top cops for some numbers detailing the fate of the approximately 500 members of “several dozen” gangs and “groups” identified as subjects of the New Haven project.
Charles Grady responded by passing around a report with hard numbers — from the version of Project Longevity that rolled out in Bridgeport after New Haven’s got started. Grady, an investigator with the U.S. Attorney’s office, has run the Bridgeport program; he recently was named chief of the statewide Project Longevity organization overseeing the New Haven, Bridgeport, and Hartford editions.
The other two cities haven’t yet produced similar statistics, Grady explained. He said he is working on getting uniform reports from all three cities.
The Bridgeport statistics showed that:
• One Bridgeport homicide victim has been a Project Longevity subject since the program began in that city about a year ago.
• Project Longevity is still working with six of 24 young men invited to the first call-in, in October 2013; 20 of the 24 have remained in compliance with parole and probation and avoided rearrest.
• It is still working with seven of the 25 attendees at a call-in this July; all 25 so far have remained in compliance and avoided rearrest a month later.
• The project overall has had about an 8.8 percent recidivism rate; a 2.5 percent recidivism rate for gun-related crimes.
• Twenty-six young men have asked for help finding jobs; 13 of them got help finding them.
• Seventeen sought help with housing; three got help finding shelter, one of them obtaining a permanent place to live.
• Eleven asked for job training. Seven of those obtained job-skills training; another three signed up for a job readiness program.
• Nine asked for help obtaining a GED or advanced education. Four of them obtained OSHA [federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration] work certification; and one person obtained a GED.
• Three sought substance-abuse counseling, and received it.
After the hearing, New Haven Assistant Police Chief Al Vazquez, who until recently as the department’s major crimes boss oversaw Project Longevity on a daily basis, said the department will provide the alders with similar numbers for New Haven. He said that won’t happen until at least next week because some key officials are out of town at a training program. He said he didn’t have hard numbers Tuesday night on how many Project Longevity members have been involved in new shootings. He said the number of shootings among members of the targeted groups has definitely and definitively dropped as a result of the project.
Metric Limitations
NHPD
Even when those statistics arrive, judging Project Longevity’s by dint of metrics is a tricky proposition.
As Grady noted at the hearing, much of the work in all three cities goes on day in and day out, quietly and unmeasured by numbers, in the cooperation among law-enforcement and community agencies and work, the investigations, and interactions with the project’s subjects, Grady said.
Also, as Esserman noticed, the New Haven cops have instituted many different strategies for fighting crime since he brought community policing back to town in late 2011. Those efforts include the creation of a shootings task force, a revival of walking beats and social-service outreach to people in trouble, the expansion of the ShotSpotter tracking system, stepped-up serving of warrants, and packed weekly “Compstat” data-sharing meetings at 1 Union Ave. that bring probation and parole and corrections officials and community leaders and suburban and state cops and prosecutors together with top city cops to analyze the latest crime statistics and craft solutions to emerging problems. So it’s impossible to apportion which individual strategy, such as Project Longevity, is responsible for which portion of the undeniable consistent drop in shootings and murders since the peak year of 2011.
It’s also difficult to arrive at an independent analysis of the project’s success. Unlike a number of programs run by the New Haven police, which have included building community support through transparency, Project Longevity is quarterbacked by the U.S. Attorney’s office, which doesn’t provide the same opportunities for public observation or analysis of its work beyond press releases and press conferences. Reporters have been banned from the New Haven call-ins, where officials claim gang members are taking the tough-love message to heart, while some connected to the project have privately reported otherwise; the project has drawn criticism from the NAACP and a 2013 mayoral candidate. Recent failed prosecutions of alleged New Haven shooters haven’t helped; a central tenet of Project Longevity is that group-affiliated shooters who don’t straighten up will face certain, extensive jail time.
Political Support
Looking ahead, Chief Esserman told the alders Tuesday night that New Haven and Chicago police have instituted a new phase of Project Longevity: following up group call-ins with visits to individual members’ homes. He also said that he hopes by year’s end to have found a replacement for Rev. William Mathis, who recently quit as the New Haven project’s director. Alders did not probe why Mathis left.
Meanwhile, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has doubled state funding for Project Longevity, making it a centerpiece of his urban agenda as he runs for reelection.
As they headed home after the hearing, alders said they liked what they heard from the cops.
“It’s always good” when “the young people” are getting help, said Fair Haven Alder Ernie Santiago (at left in above photo).
“I didn’t know that we’ve been copied by New Orleans and Detroit,” said Hill Adler Dolores Colon (at right in photo), who has observed a call-in and supports the project. “I’m glad New Haven is at the forefront.”
Paolillo said he “look[s] forward” to “seeing more data” from the cops in the future.