Dr. Philip Rocco, associate professor of political science in the Klingler College of Arts and Sciences at Marquette University, has been awarded a $217,863 grant from The Joyce Foundation to study local governments’ use of American Rescue Plan funds and other public dollars for community violence intervention strategies.

The project aims to evaluate the barriers to and facilitators of cities’ use of federal dollars to advance the goals of racial equity, violence prevention and criminal justice reform, and particularly whether cities use the funds to simply maintain existing services or launch constructive new programs.

In collaboration with co-principal investigator Amanda Kass, associate director of the Government Finance Research Center at the University of Illinois, Chicago, Rocco will investigate how much money 28 cities ultimately devote to such initiatives, and will also examine how and whether these cities use additional federal grant funds for community violence interventions.

The researchers plan to provide insight on how the cities’ frameworks for using the funds to advance racial equity work in practice, as well as the potential reforms to grant design and local institutions that could strengthen local governments’ efforts to use of federal financial support to advance racial equity in the future.

Additionally, the study will include interviews with key officials and stakeholders from communities directly impacted by violence to understand residents’ needs and the expectations concerning the use of federal aid for these matters. The researchers will collaborate with the Marshall Project through sharing quantitative data and related reports and will meet regularly with the nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization to discuss their ongoing research efforts.

Rocco and Kass plan to produce policy recommendations and lessons on how future federal aid can deployed at the local level to address issues of gun violence prevention, justice reform, and racial equity. A future project-related website will feature blog posts, research findings, and case studies from the project that could help inform policymakers, the public, and media.