SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 11, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- PayPal
Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL), along with the Center on Crime and
Community Resilience at Northeastern
University, in partnership with the University of Chicago Crime Lab, today announced
the formation of a research initiative designed to better
understand illegal firearm trafficking and financing in
the United States.
The research initiative, with funding support from PayPal, is
designed to generate actionable insights and guide efforts to
monitor and respond to illegal firearm distribution, with the goal
of combating the illegal sale of firearms. The specific research
proposal further seeks to understand what types of payment methods
are used to finance these illegally-sourced firearms.
"We are working to combat illegal gun trafficking, which will
help to reduce and eliminate firearm-related violence," said
Dan Schulman, president and CEO of
PayPal. "All of us at PayPal are proud of the work we do with law
enforcement officials around the world to assist in efforts to
identify and stop illegal activity from occurring. This research is
an extension of these efforts, and will help law enforcement and
all payment platforms to better understand and address the issue of
illegal firearms trafficking."
The initiative will be led by Dr. Anthony Braga, director of the School of
Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University and director of the Center
on Crime and Community Resilience. Dr. Braga is an
internationally-recognized expert on the subject of gun violence
and reducing illegal access to firearms, and has worked with city
and state governments across the country to combat unauthorized gun
sales to dangerous individuals and criminal networks.
"The United States has a
significant problem with illegal acquisition of guns by individuals
at elevated risk of becoming involved with gun violence. It is
these guns that end up in the wrong hands that lead to serious
violence," said Dr. Braga. "Through this cutting-edge
research enterprise, we hope to advance innovative collaborations
between law enforcement and private industry to understand the
evolving landscape and to generate actionable solutions."
Dr. Braga and his Northeastern team
are joined by experts from the University of
Chicago Crime Lab, the Violence Prevention Research Program
at the University of California, Davis,
led by Garen J. Wintemute, a
professor of emergency medicine, and Philip
J. Cook, a professor of public policy at Duke University and co-director of the NBER Working
Group on the Economics of Crime, to address this complicated and
important issue. Together, these organizations have experience
working on numerous projects related to illegal and underground
firearm markets. PayPal, which has prohibited firearms sales on all
of its platforms and is invested in finding ways to prevent illegal
firearm transactions, is supporting the research.
"Preventing illegal firearms trafficking and violent gun crime
has always been the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives' (ATF) top priority," said ATF Management. "It is clear
from crime guns recovered on the streets every day that we need to
better understand emerging firearms trafficking techniques that
utilize the internet, and disrupt the illegal financing behind
them. To mitigate this threat, ATF welcomes the opportunity to
collaborate with our partners to identify how we can enhance the
security of private businesses and promote public safety."
More information about the research initiative can be found
here.
About PayPal
PayPal has remained at the forefront of
the digital payment revolution for more than 20 years. By
leveraging technology to make financial services and commerce more
convenient, affordable, and secure, the PayPal platform is
empowering more than 300 million consumers and merchants in more
than 200 markets to join and thrive in the global economy. For more
information, visit paypal.com.
About Northeastern University
Center on Crime and Community Resilience
The Center on
Crime and Community Resilience at Northeastern
University partners with governments and non-profits to find
research-based solutions to crime and other complex social
problems. Our projects range from helping community partners
address gang violence, to studying body cameras worn by police, to
working to prevent gun violence through programs that reclaim
firearms from people prohibited from carrying them. Through these
projects and others we focus on the needs and priorities of the
partners and communities we work with, with the goal of bringing
resilience to vulnerable communities. To learn more about the
Center on Crime and Community Resilience, visit
ccresilience.org.
About University of Chicago Crime
Lab
The University of Chicago
Crime Lab partners with policymakers and practitioners to help
cities design and test the most promising ways to reduce crime and
improve human lives at scale. We focus on the most important
criminal justice challenges of our time, including efforts to help
Chicago and other cities prevent
crime and violence from happening in the first place, improve
schooling and income opportunities for those living in communities
most impacted by violence, and reduce the harms associated with the
criminal justice system. To learn more about the Crime Lab,
visit urbanlabs.uchicago.edu/labs/crime.
Media Contacts:
PayPal
Justin Higgs,
408-219-8118
Bernadette Green, 404-210-3322
Tiffany Peng, 669-287-6845
Northeastern
University
Mike
Woeste, 617-373-5471
University of
Chicago
Kim Smith,
773-834-0518
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SOURCE PayPal Holdings, Inc.