BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Taking guns off city streets.  Local police officers were honored for fighting crime.

Adam May reports how a program in place for five years is making a difference.

A handful of Baltimore City police officers were honored at headquarters for their work on Project Exile. 

“We’ve achieved the lowest homicide rates and non-fatal shooting rates over the last four years,” said Police Commissioner Fred Bealefeld.

Bealefeld says Project Exile has been a major contributor to that success.  It was launched in 2006.  The goal: combat gun crimes with more jail time.  The strategy: take violent offenders out of state courts and move them to federal court, where sentences are longer and defendants are more likely to testify against others.

“Many of them change their minds so we see an increasing number of cases where we are able to gain cooperation from defendants when they realize they’re facing lengthy federal terms in federal prisons far from home,” said Rod Rosenstein, U.S. Attorney.

Getting that message to criminals on the streets is a major component.  Aside for ads hanging from Central Booking, TV commercials helped spread the word.  But the feds can’t take on every case.  That’s why Bealefeld applauds better monitoring of criminals on parole and probation. 

The number of Exile indictments vary every year but average around 200.

The Exile program was first started in Richmond and is now duplicated in cities across the country.