PSN Recon

Building on the original mission of the Department of Justice’s Project Safe Neighborhoods (“PSN”) to collaboratively address violence in partnership with state and local enforcement officials, PSN Recon is a criminal intelligence program among the federal and state law enforcement community to work together to identify the most violent and dangerous actors in the city of Philadelphia.

The premise of PSN Recon is that federal law enforcement discretion depends greatly on access to the totality of intelligence to decide what criminals to target for prosecution. Given the immense resource demands of long-term investigations of violent criminal organizations, it is critical that federal agencies select targets that pose the greatest threat to public safety. Such target selection necessitates a combination of all criminal intelligence across the law enforcement community — and depends in particular on the localized insight of Philadelphia Police Department officers who know best the neighborhoods they police and the individuals who harm those communities.

The program therefore assembles the street-level knowledge of local police, the accumulated intelligence of the PPD intelligence office, the electronic evidence and human intelligence developed by the city’s Gun Violence Task Force, and the full array of federal intelligence capabilities: from the intricate data analysis of FBI intelligence analysts to the ATF ballistics intelligence within the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN).

PSN Recon is not an enforcement program that prescribes what violent crime offenses or cases the Department will prioritize for prosecution, but rather is a diagnostic tool for law enforcement to identify the most significant criminal actors that commit violence in the city. Relatedly, the program is also not simply a criminal intelligence clearinghouse (i.e., “Fusion Cell”) insofar as it is led by agents and prosecutors who actively and collaboratively develop the relevant intelligence for specific investigation and prosecution.

PSN Recon is a truly global partnership of all law enforcement agencies committed to the fight against crime in the city of Philadelphia. By working together to not just share historical information, but purposefully and proactively cultivate the best intelligence on who commits violence in the city, federal and state law enforcement are positioned to attack the threat of violence with strength, wisdom, and teamwork.  

The PSN Recon Co-Directors are Assistant United States Attorneys Ashley N. Martin and Robert Eckert.