Project Exile Case Study

The Problem and Target The Project I will be focusing on is Project Exile, which started in Richmond, Virginia in 1997. In Richmond, the national murder rate had increased in the early 1990s; many of these murders were due to gun violence (Bialik, n.d.). Young men primarily between the ages of 15 to 34 were the main targets of this gun violence both as the victims and offenders. The mayors and police chiefs were looking for a way to reduce this violence (Bialik, n.d.). Project Exile sought to stop gun violence. Instead of cases which involved illegal firearms going to a state court which was what usually occurred, they were sent to federal court where offenders were less likely to receive bail and more likely to receive a mandatory minimum

Richmond Virginia was stricken with high levels of murder due to illegal guns being carried by criminals and ex-cons (Bialik, n.d.). Due to the high frequency of these murders, Project Exile was implemented with the main goal of taking illegal firearms off the streets. This program not only brought cases to the federal court, which resulted in mandatory minimums given out to the accused, instead of bail but also had a main focus on media and advertisements. There were billboards, add on and in buses, TV commercials, traffic reports and shopping bags, which advertised Project Exile (United States House of Representatives House Judiciary Committee, 2000). This project had a very important goal of letting the public know that the laws for carrying an illegal firearm were harsh and inevitable. The more the public was aware of this program, the more the police departments hoped that the violent gun crimes would diminish. Success to the police department and Mayor would be that crimes involving illegal firearms would be severely lessoned, and hopefully even fully

The project is very transferable and can be used by different police departments. These police departments would have to change the plan to assist their specific needs. Project Exile was seen as very successful in Richmond and has been implemented in different cities along the United States. According to the U.S. Attorney, Boston was another successful city in which the program was implemented. Virginias Governor also announced the introduction of Project Exile in 1999, although their plan involved a three-year mandatory minimum as opposed to the five years (Schiller, 1997). It was recommended to eh U.S. Treasury Secretary that Project exile be expanded and implemented into 150 cities by October 1, 2003 (Burke,