In August, the U.S. Treasury Department released data on how governments around the country are using $350 billion provided by the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds Program (SLFRF) – part of the American Rescue Plan Act – to address a variety of policy problems that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For over a year now, we have been using Treasury data to analyze how state and local governments are using these dollars to support novel responses to gun violence. These programs range from community-based violence intervention programs (CVIs) to long-term violence prevention strategies. Importantly, community violence intervention is, according to the Bureau of Justice Assistance, “an approach that uses evidence-informed strategies to reduce violence through tailored community-centered initiatives.” CVI strategies target a specific type of violence: interpersonal violence that occurs outside the home and excludes nonlethal and nonphysical forms of violence. Within the U.S. context, community violence often takes shape as hyper-localized patterns of gun violence.
In past blog posts, we have cast a wide net—examining how state and local governments across the country have been using SLFRF aid to support community violence interventions (CVI). But in today’s post, we want to zoom in on the efforts of 13 large cities that were part of a White House CVI collaborative. Of the 13 cities, we found that seven are funding CVI initiatives with SLFRF aid. Among those seven cities, the amount of aid devoted to CVI ranges widely from $1.2 million in Newark to $64.5 million in Chicago.
The Community Violence Intervention Collaborative
In June 2021, President Biden called out the need to “support community violence intervention” in combating gun violence and encouraged state and local governments to invest ARPA funds in CVI programs. The importance of CVI in the Biden administration’s gun violence strategy was reiterated a few months later by Ambassador Susan Rice who stated that, “Central to our Administration’s crime prevention efforts is an unprecedented and innovative focus on community violence intervention.” In the same June 2021 remarks, the president also announced that the White House, in partnership with thirteen philanthropies, would be working with 17 jurisdictions* that were going to invest ARPA funds “to build up their community violence intervention programs.”
The initiative President Biden announced in June 2021 came to be the Community Violence Intervention Collaborative (CVIC). The collaborative lasted 18 months and its purpose was to strengthen and scale participating “jurisdictions’ community violence intervention infrastructure to reduce gun crime and promote public safety” through activities like “peer-to-peer learning and community-based evaluations.” Of the 17 members, thirteen are cities, two are counties, and one is the District of Columbia. Today’s post focuses on cities, which include Atlanta, GA; Austin, TX; Baltimore, MD; Baton Rouge, LA; Chicago, IL; Detroit, MI; Los Angeles, CA; Memphis, TN; Minneapolis, MN; Newark, NJ; Philadelphia, PA; St. Louis, MO; and, St. Paul, MN.
We want to focus our attention on jurisdictions participating in CVIC not because they are “typical” of major U.S. cities or counties in any meaningful sense, but because they are atypical. As we reported in an earlier post, CVIC cities experience levels of gun violence that are higher than the national average. Second, cities’ participation in CVIC might be thought of as an indicator both of commitment by local officials and nonprofit organizations to enhancing local CVI work. Third, participation in CVIC may give local officials access to policy knowledge that might allow them to advance CVI work. In short, these jurisdictions should be particularly likely to make robust investments in CVI using SLFRF dollars.
What We Found
As of March 31, 2023, the 13 cities in our analysis reported they were funding 876 unique projects with SLFRF dollars (a dataset with a list of all the projects is available on the blog page). Of those 876 projects, the 13 cities classified 57 under the “Community Violence Intervention” code (Expenditure Category1.11; see our previous post explaining the reporting requirements and categories). The adopted budgets for the projects cities assigned to the CVI Expenditure Category (EC) add up to $198 million. On average, projects coded as CVI account for roughly 3% of these cities’ adopted budgets.
| City | Total SLFRF Allocation | Total Adopted Budget for All Expenditure Categories as of Q1 2023 | Total Adopted Budget for Projects Coded as EC 1.11 Q1 2023 | CVI Budget as % Total Allocation |
| Baton Rouge, Louisiana | $165,443,198 | $165,443,198 | $14,700,000 | 9% |
| Atlanta, GA | $170,928,821 | $93,928,821 | $5,000,000 | 3% |
| Austin, TX | $188,482,478.00 | $188,482,478 | $0 | 0% |
| Baltimore, MD | $641,170,126.00 | $292,249,155 | $20,392,183 | 3% |
| Chicago, IL | $1,886,591,388.00 | $1,886,591,338 | $104,527,226 | 6% |
| Detroit, MI | $826,675,290.00 | $493,026,291 | $7,877,530 | 1% |
| Memphis, TN | $161,061,490.00 | $161,061,490 | $4,800,000 | 3% |
| Minneapolis, MN | $271,192,484.00 | $271,192,484 | $18,823,701 | 7% |
| Philadelphia, PA | $1,395,292,684.00 | $585,000,000 | $0 | 0% |
| St Paul, MN | $166,641,623.00 | $164,941,624 | $0 | 0% |
| St. Louis, MO | $498,076,054.00 | $497,976,020 | $20,741,890 | 4% |
| Los Angeles, CA | $1,278,900,928.00 | $1,258,645,712 | $0 | 0% |
| Newark, NJ | $176,667,606.00 | $150,151,236 | $1,700,000 | 1% |
| Total | $7,827,124,170 | $6,208,689,847 | $198,562,530 | 3% |
When we look more closely at the projects these cities classified as CVI, the picture changes. Using the methodology described here, we assessed whether each project governments classified as “Community Violence Intervention” (Expenditure Category 1.11) proposed investing in community-driven strategies that involve at-risk or high-risk populations to reduce the incidence of interpersonal violence (and gun violence in particular), and in ways that differ from traditional law enforcement approaches. We also we determined whether projects could be classified under the broader heading of community violence prevention (CVP) rather than CVI. Projects that met our criteria were categorized as “CVI-CVP” by the research team. The table below is the result of our analysis and categorization of the 57 projects governments labeled as CVI.
| City | CVI-CVP | Courts | Law Enforcement | Victim Services | Other | Unclear | Total |
| Baton Rouge, LA | $4,250,000 | $500,000 | $9,800,000 | $150,000 | $14,700,000 | ||
| Atlanta, GA | $5,000,000 | $5,000,000 | |||||
| Austin, TX | $0 | ||||||
| Baltimore, MD | $20,142,183 | $250,000 | $20,392,183 | ||||
| Chicago, IL | $64,527,226 | $10,000,000 | $30,000,000 | $104,527,226 | |||
| Detroit, MI | $7,877,530 | $7,877,530 | |||||
| Memphis, TN | $4,800,000 | $4,800,000 | |||||
| Minneapolis, MN | $8,993,595 | $6,330,106 | $3,500,000 | $18,823,701 | |||
| Philadelphia, PA | $0 | ||||||
| St Paul, MN | $0 | ||||||
| St. Louis, MO | $10,621,812 | $6,000,000 | $2,500,000 | $1,620,078 | $20,741,890 | ||
| Los Angeles, CA | $0 | ||||||
| Newark, NJ | $1,200,000 | $500,000 | $1,700,000 | ||||
| Grand Total | $114,534,816 | $16,500,000 | $26,507,636 | $30,000,000 | $3,900,000 | $7,120,078 | $198,562,530 |
Of the 57 projects classified by these 13 cities as CVI, 26 could clearly be categorized as CVI and/or CVP. The combined budgets for those 26 projects add up to nearly $115 million, which accounts for 58% of the total $198 million in planned spending that governments designed as CVI.
Among the projects that did not meet our criteria for CVI-CVP, we classified 7 (representing 15% of planned spending) under the heading of victim services. The City of Chicago accounts for all 7 of the projects we classified as victim services, and most of those projects are for addressing gender-based violence. Although victim services may have some ties to and/or be supportive of CVI efforts, for the purposes of our analysis we separated these initiatives from CVI and CVP programs.
7 projects (representing 13% of total adopted budgets) were focused on support for law enforcement agencies and law enforcement activities, as the table above suggests. Spending on law enforcement agencies ranged from buying new police vehicles to paying for officer overtime. The remaining 17 projects were for criminal court systems, other types of projects, and/or projects in which the descriptions were unclear.
Making Sense of the Numbers
Of the 13 cities that participated in the White House convened Community Violence Collaborative, 7 have committed portions of their SLFRF aid to CVI-CVP projects.
While most of the total adopted budgets for projects cities assigned to the CVI Expenditure Category are for CVI-CVP initiatives it is worth noting that nearly 50% of planned spending is for initiatives that we determined are not CVI-CVP. This aligns, however, with a national pattern we have seen. Once again, we must stress that our analysis does not necessarily imply any intentional manipulation of data by the governments receiving it. Instead, the data could equally stem from genuine confusion regarding how to categorize expenditures.
It is also worth noting that our analysis narrowly examines how cities are using SLFRF aid to support CVI initiatives. The six cities that are not directly using SLFRF aid on CVI projects may be using other revenue sources to support novel CVI programs.
In addition, spending plans can—and do—change. In July 2023, which is after the Q1 2023 SLFRF reporting period, the City of Detroit, launched a new CVI program, ShotStoppers. Under the ShotStoppers program, Detroit will use $10 million of its SLFRF aid to provide grants to six community organizations that will conduct CVI work in targeted areas of the city.
Consequently, the key takeaway from this analysis is that efforts aimed at overseeing the implementation of SLFRF necessitate delving deeper than the superficial Treasury-provided categories. It is essential to scrutinize the actual intentions of recipient governments regarding their utilization of federal funds.
Note
*The original number of participating jurisdictions was 15, but it was subsequently expanded to 17.
Download the data
How are cities spending ARPA funds to address violent crime 