Each agency and community are different, requiring a comprehensive approach that is customized to agency and community dynamics, demographics and needs. Services would include an assessment of current processes, procedures, policies, staffing and other resources along with community demographics to include the level of firearm-related crimes. Research would be performed to identify potential technological and manpower solutions as needed along with the potential for cross-jurisdictional strategies with neighboring communities. A comprehensive plan would be developed having short-term and longer-term strategies and goals to include identifying and implementing forensic, technological and resource needs for budgetary considerations.
As much as possible, the initial goal would be to use existing resources, reallocating them as needed for a more efficient and effective approach. In this way, processes can be tested and refined, showing success on a smaller scale before extending the plan to a larger scale in which additional resources may become necessary. It should be stressed that firearm-related crime has a significant cost to the local community which includes costs to deal with the consequence of such crime and the potential loss in the tax base resulting in a circle feeding the escalation of crime rather than deterring it. Often times, the solutions to preventing the next homicide or assault from happening are less than the costs of dealing with the consequences of that homicide or assault.