Section 2. Fiscal Year 2001 Programs (continued)

Community-Based Crime Prevention and Prosecution

BJA’s mission to reduce crime and improve the criminal justice system begins in the community. We have learned that no one program or agency can make our streets and schools safer. The most effective efforts spur collaboration among community residents, faith-based organizations, schools, businesses, and the criminal justice system.

We have also learned, however, that simple collaboration is not enough to solve our most difficult crime problems. To be effective, community-based partnerships must develop and support comprehensive crime prevention strategies that give community members a real opportunity to solve problems and participate in the justice system.

Community Crime Prevention

Although many law enforcement agencies are proficient at responding to crime, few work together to systematically understand a community’s crime problems and develop a strategic plan to reduce them. The Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiative (SACSI) helps U.S. Attorneys, collaborating with federal, state, and local criminal justice agencies, use an information-driven, problem-solving approach to reducing crime. SACSI was first implemented in five pilot cities: New Haven, Connecticut; Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Portland, Oregon; Memphis, Tennessee; and Indianapolis, Indiana. The initiative has since expanded to five additional cities: Albuquerque, New Mexico; Atlanta, Georgia; Detroit, Michigan; Rochester, New York; and St. Louis, Missouri. These cities are employing the principles of SACSI to reduce gun violence. The Department of Justice supports SACSI through the combined efforts of BJA, the National Institute of Justice, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the COPS Office, DOJ’s Criminal Division, the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

BJA also worked with the National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA) to promote comprehensive, community-based justice planning through the Statewide Communities Initiative (SCI). This project, begun in 1998, integrates state, local, tribal, and community justice system priorities to create meaningful, comprehensive strategies that address state and local crime problems. SCI’s four key elements are community-based, locally driven planning, stakeholder involvement, capacity building, and coordinated, leveraged resources.

In 2001, BJA, NCJA, and the states collaborated on an indepth analysis of how selected states conduct strategic planning, with an emphasis on the interaction of each state government with its local and tribal governments. From this analysis, BJA and NCJA identified potential states for implementation of community-based planning initiatives. SCI projects also included the development of a curriculum at the Pickett Institute to improve the strategic planning and problem-solving skills of state agencies that administer OJP funds and the development of strategies within OJP to coordinate SCI programs, policies, and implementation.

BJA Funding In Focus

Police-Community Partnerships New Jersey’s police-community partnerships were created to coordinate comprehensive quality-of-life improvement strategies in three cities: Bayonne, Belleville, and Paterson. The partnerships, funded through Byrne, have emerged as models of interagency planning and cooperation by focusing on four critical areas: community policing, violent offender removal, safe havens for area youth and residents, and neighborhood revitalization. Their success is a testament to the effectiveness of coordinating federal, state, and local resources. In Bayonne, New Jersey, for example, neighborhood revitalization has been key to the success of the city’s policecommunity partnership. Bayonne’s Quality-of-Life Initiative has led the city to pass ordinances related to graffiti, noise, garbage collections, shopping carts, tobacco sales to youth, use of public parks, and curbside tree maintenance. The city also instituted a 24-hour, 7-days-a-week Quality-of-Life Hotline to give residents around-the-clock responses to emergency and quality-of-life issues. In Kansas City, the KC Safe City Initiative, funded by the Local Law Enforcement Block Grants Program, brings together teams of law enforcement officials, emergency service providers, neighborhood groups, and prevention and early intervention experts to work at the city, neighborhood, and block levels. The initiative builds on earlier LLEBG-funded programs, including the Neighborhood Preservation Program, the Drug Abatement Response Team, juvenile arts programs, and the Volunteer Dispute Resolution Program. The initiative’s goal is to reduce crime and the fear of crime by engaging citizens and public safety officials in neighborhood-focused efforts to tackle the roots of safety problems before they require emergency responses. Neighborhood projects are supported with equipment, technology, and other resources from the KC Safe City Initiative Center for Excellence in Safety, housed in the city manager’s office.

One of the nation’s most prominent neighborhood crime prevention initiatives is National Night Out (NNO), a BJA-funded, yearlong campaign coordinated by the National Association of Town Watch. Through National Night Out, neighborhoods develop yearlong partnerships to reduce crime, violence, and substance abuse. These partnerships have proved to be one of the nation’s most effective vehicles for fighting crime, violence, and illegal drug use. In 2001, the National Association of Town Watch responded to more than 6,000 requests from America’s communities for technical assistance on crime prevention. A record 33 million people in nearly 10,000 communities nationwide participated in National Night Out 2001, the largest turnout in the history of the campaign.

The BJA-funded National Citizens’ Crime Prevention Campaign is one of the leading catalysts to citizen action to fight crime and fear of crime in the United States. Launched in 1979 to change the public attitude that crime is inevitable and preventing it is solely a job for the police, the campaign has mobilized and trained America’s citizens for 20 years.

A cooperative effort of the National Crime Prevention Council, BJA, the Crime Prevention Coalition of America, and the Ad Council, Inc., the campaign’s award-winning public service ads urge Americans to invest in youth and do something about violence, crime, and illegal drug use. NCPC advertising appears on television, radio, billboards, and posters; in newspapers and magazines; and now through web site banners in cyberspace. This successful media effort generates $100 in donated advertising space for every dollar invested by the Department of Justice, reaching more than 150 million households each year. McGruff, with his challenge to “Take A Bite Out of Crime,” remains one of America’s most recognized symbols of safety and crime prevention.

In response to the September 11 terrorist attacks, NCPC supported efforts by the White House and BJA to make America safer by getting citizens involved with neighborhood watch programs and other volunteer initiatives. The campaign’s public service announcements invite Americans to get a copy of the Citizens’ Preparedness Guide. The guide will be distributed nationally in 2002 and will appear on the Citizen Corps web site, www.citizencorps.gov.

The Department of Justice and NCPC have also begun a partnership to promote model faith-based programs in communities across America. This important work will identify effective grassroots efforts in some of the toughest neighborhoods in America and support their replication in other communities.

BJA Funding In Focus

Domestic Violence Community Education Inspired by a project in Anderson, Indiana, criminal justice planners in Kansas City use a portion of the city’s Local Law Enforcement Block Grant to fund an innovative domestic violence prevention effort. An advocate and a police officer go door to door in targeted areas of the city speaking to people and distributing information about stopping domestic violence. This door-to-door approach is especially effective in addressing domestic violence because victims do not have to risk further abuse by initiating action or being singled out. As part of the effort in both cities, local police departments have established partnerships with shelters for battered women. According to organizers in Anderson, Indiana, the project has reduced domestic violence calls by 50 percent.

In April 2001, NCPC and the Youth Crime Watch of America’s annual youth conference attracted more than 1,500 youth to Dallas. The conference’s workshops and national speakers encouraged young people to become a part of America’s solution to crime, violence, and drug abuse. In October, NCPC hosted the Power of Prevention National Conference in Washington, D.C. The conference’s 1,400 participants examined best practices from every discipline in the crime prevention movement.

Community Prosecution

Community prosecution is a key element of community justice, a movement that has improved the quality of people’s lives through partnerships of citizens, police, prosecutors, and courts. These groups have begun working together to identify and solve local crime problems. Neighborhood prosecutors can be more effective than traditional prosecution efforts when dealing with low-level, quality-of-life crime because they emphasize community-focused crime strategies, working directly with a neighborhood’s residents, public and private organizations, and businesses.

In December 2001, BJA announced community prosecution grants to 75 communities, with awards totaling more than $10 million. Currently, BJA funds 180 community prosecution grants in 125 jurisdictions.

As part of BJA’s FY 2001 community prosecution initiative, nine jurisdictions began work as leadership sites or learning laboratories for other communities planning to implement community prosecution strategies. The sites are Denver, Washington, D.C., Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Brooklyn, Portland (Oregon), Austin, Howard County (Maryland), and Kalamazoo County (Michigan). These leadership sites will host regional community prosecution workshops in FY 2002.

The American Prosecutors Research Institute provided technical assistance for prosecutors throughout 2001 and convened a meeting of the leadership sites in early 2002 to discuss the role of BJA and OJP in the development and support of community prosecution.

BJA has also initiated an evaluation plan for the community prosecution programs it funds. In February 2001, the Crime and Justice Research Institute (CJRI) completed Evaluating Community Prosecution Strategies. This publication identifies the key elements of community prosecution strategies and provides a framework for measuring program implementation and impact. In FY 2002, CJRI and the Institute on Crime, Justice and Corrections at The George Washington University will provide onsite technical assistance to grantees as they develop performance measures.

Community Courts

A second vital tool BJA funds to address crime problems at the neighborhood level is the community court. In January 1998, New York City’s Midtown Community Court was the only community court in the United States. Midtown Community Court succeeded by asking a new set of questions about the role of the court in a community’s daily life. What can a court do to solve neighborhood problems? What can courts bring to the table beyond their coercive power and symbolic presence? And what roles can community residents, businesses, and service providers play in improving justice?

To date, 16 community courts have opened across the country in cities in California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas. The courts that followed Midtown are answering these questions in different ways, but they also seek a set of common, important goals. All have implemented a new way of doing business that imposes immediate, meaningful sanctions on offenders, truly engages the community, and helps offenders address problems that are at the root of their criminal behavior. BJA funds the Center for Court Innovation to assist these courts with publications on planning and promising practices, onsite training, and the center’s innovative web site, www.communityjustice.org.

In 2001, BJA published Developing an Evaluation Plan for Community Courts: Assessing the Hartford Community Court, which describes Hartford’s adaptations of the Midtown model and outlines an evaluation plan for assessing its progress and impact.