Project Summary
New York City Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (NYC-MOCJ) has been awarded a total of $8.3 million by the U.S. Department of the Treasury under the Social Impact Partnerships to Pay for Results Act (SIPPRA).
The award includes:
- $5.7 million project grant.
- $2.6 million for independent evaluation.
Cure Violence expects the new program service areas to experience up to a 40 percent reduction in gunshot wound hospitalizations thereby reducing federal Medicaid spending.
Outcome Goals:
- Reduced gun violence.
- Reduced gunshot victimization.
- Reduced associated medical (Medicaid) costs.
Expand their evidence-based model of violence interruption to eight new program service areas.
NYC-MOCJ anticipates Cure Violence participants will be between the ages of 14 and 25 at the time of the SIPPRA project start date and will be at high risk for involvement in crime.
NYC-MOCJ anticipates serving 75 participants per site per year. Thereafter, they project about 10 new participants per year and 65 returning per site each year for a projected enrollment of 600 in year one and an additional 80 per year in years two through five for a total of 1,000 individuals served.
- Participants will gain meaningful supportive networks.
- Participants will experience an increase in pro-social behaviors.
- Participants and the community will experience a decrease of gun incidents and gun-related violence.
| Role | Entity | Responsibilities |
|---|---|---|
| Local government | Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice | Provide upfront funding for all sites. Oversee partner and service providers during project. |
| Intermediary | N/A | |
| Service providers | Local nonprofits in each catchment area | Establish program office space and implement the full Cure Violence program model. |
| Independent evaluator | NORC at the University of Chicago and John Jay College | Establish research design. Estimate project impacts to evaluate whether performance benchmarks are met. Provide evaluation progress reports. |
| Investors | N/A |
Treasury is scheduled to make a total of five payments annually beginning in 2025. The payment is calculated annually as the estimated effect size of Cure Violence on emergency treatment and hospitalization for Medicaid-eligible victims of gun violence during each outcome period as compared to the comparison sites over the same period.
The project anticipates reducing the federal portion of Medicaid expenditures by $5.7 million over the course of the project.
| Service Delivery | $ 30,000,000 |
| Evaluation | $ 3,000,000 |
| Total Project Costs | $ 33,000,000 |
- Project Period of Performance Start Date: January 2022
- Project Period of Performance End Date: December 2027
- Evaluation Start Date: January 2022
- Evaluation End Date: June 2028
Eligible participants are at high risk for involvement in violence, determined by meeting at least four of the following criteria:
- Thought to be a member of a gang known to be actively involved in violence.
- History of criminal activity.
- Thought to have access to a weapon.
- High-risk street activity.
- Victim of a recent shooting.
- Recently released from prison for a crime associated with violence.
- Between the age of 14 and 25 years of age at the time of the SIPPRA project start date.
Because individuals are identified in response to shootings, and the catchment areas are assigned in response to high frequency shootings (which are not randomly distributed but rather clustered in a small number of locations), neither the individuals nor the geographies can be randomly assigned. Therefore, a randomized controlled trial of the program is not feasible. Instead, a quasi-experimental difference-in-differences evaluation approach will be used.
The Project’s Independent Evaluators will perform site evaluations and gather site-level data about program operations. The evaluators will use a matching strategy to identify areas similar to the intervention sites that do not have the program. The research team will measure the total Medicaid costs related to emergency gunshot wound hospitalizations in the eight intervention sites as well as the comparison sites to estimate the savings from any averted shootings. To most accurately capture the federal savings related to the project, NORC will use the actual federal portion of Medicaid costs during the five-year project period. These data will form a location-month panel used in the quasi-experimental design. Estimating the effects of the eight program sites will involve a difference-in-differences design with a 1-to-1 set of matched comparison areas.
For each evaluation year, an estimate of the treatment effect will be converted into a yearly estimate of the number of prevented shootings. This is then multiplied by the per shooting average medical cost for someone on Medicaid with demographic characteristics similar to those who live in the treatment sites.
The cost estimate per shooting victimization is measured as the total healthcare costs related to a single gunshot emergency room hospitalization, plus the anticipated follow-up healthcare costs (e.g., emergency department, inpatient and outpatient hospital stay, long-term care, prescription drugs, etc.)
Administrative metrics will include police data on gun violence incidents and Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS) hospital admission data, which include inpatient admissions, emergency costs, and outpatient treatment costs.
| Entity | Estimated Savings | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Federal government | $5.7 million | This is the federal portion of the reduction to expected Medicaid outlays. |
| State government | $5.7 million | This is the state portion of the reduction to expected Medicaid outlays. It does not include other possible savings from emergency care, law enforcement, lost economic development, and harm from trauma. |
Further information is available through the official press release and federal registry notice. These documents provide detailed background on the SIPPRA award and program expectations.
- In 2024, NYC-MOCJ, in collaboration with its independent evaluator, reviewed the outcome payment calculation and proposed adjusting the federal savings component from $17,595,545 to $5,695,344. This change was due to a modification in their outcome payment methodology to reflect a shift in geographic focus from precincts to catchment areas and their immediate surroundings. Treasury staff reviewed this adjustment and presented it to the Federal Interagency Council on Social Impact Partnerships, which re-certified the revision in January 2025.
- In 2024, NYC-MOCJ announced its intention to use federal administrative data to support the independent evaluator in assessing the project's performance and outcomes. This marked a change from its original plan, which did not include the use of such data. Treasury staff reviewed this adjustment and presented it to the Federal Interagency Council on Social Impact Partnerships, which re-certified the use of federal administrative data in January 2025.