Title: BJA Bureau of Justice Assistance Fact Sheet Comprehensive Communities Program: A Unique Way To Reduce Crime and Enhance Public Safety. Series: Author: U.S. Department of Justice Published:December 2000 Subject:Crime prevention, crime control initiatives 7 pages 11,000 bytes ----------------- Figures, charts, forms, and tables are not included in this ASCII plain-text file. To view this document in its entirety, download the Adobe Acrobat graphic file available from this Web site or order a print copy from BJA at 800-688-4252. ----------------- Comprehensive Communities Program: A Unique Way To Reduce Crime and Enhance Public Safety The Comprehensive Communities Program (CCP) is a nationwide crime prevention and crime control initiative established by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) in 1994. The CCP model stresses crime reduction and enhancement of public safety as vital elements to improving the quality of life in our nation's cities. CCP uses a simple approach that --Brings together people most affected by crime problems. --Gives each stakeholder a meaningful role in solving problems. --Applies a deliberate planning and implementation process. CCP's two primary components--community policing and community mobilization--bring together community residents and police officers to develop solutions to local problems. Other components of the program include community prosecution, drug courts, crime prevention through environmental design, youth involvement initiatives, and community corrections. Program Goals CCP provides a framework in which community residents, government agencies, and private organizations can work together to improve the quality of life in a community. The goals of the program are to --Suppress violence and restore the sense of community well-being needed to recapture the security of neighborhoods. --Focus on the problems and concerns of communities and their neighborhoods by initiating comprehensive planning and improving government-community relationships. --Develop a comprehensive, multiagency strategy within each community to identify the causes of violence and to control and prevent violent and drug-related crime. --Use community policing and other efforts to encourage citizens to take an active role in problem solving. --Coordinate and concentrate existing federal, state, local, and private agency resources in the program communities to maximize their impact on crime reduction. Program Principles The following are key principles that underlie CCP goals: --Partnership and collaboration. --Shared problem identification and problem solving. --Commitment to change how public safety works. To date, 15 jurisdictions have participated in this public safety initiative. Although the sites differ in area, population, culture, politics, and resources, they all adhere to CCP principles in tailoring their program to meet their community's needs. Program designers in Hartford, Connecticut, established Problem Solving Committees (PSCs) in each of the city's 17 neighborhoods to reduce crime and enhance the quality of life. Each PSC is composed of leaders of neighborhood groups, congregations, business associations, clubs, and local agencies. Representatives from each PSC participate in the citywide Community Planning and Mobilization Committee, created to share information and promote shared problem solving. The city's community court, which was developed in 1998 and is the nation's second such court, evolved from Hartford's PSC efforts. In Salt Lake City, Community Action Teams (CATs) operate in the city's seven council districts. CATs core groups of government agency representatives meet weekly to address local crime and disorder problems. The diversity of CAT membership and the range of expertise and resources they bring has helped make this problem-solving mechanism an ongoing city function. Critical Elements In addition to its underlying principles, CCP is characterized by certain critical elements: --Strategic planning. Ongoing planning by all key stakeholders is essential for any progress in developing this public safety strategy. --Management and operations. An individual or team coordinator must be given authority to oversee this multifaceted strategy throughout its development. --Evaluation. A sound public safety strategy must include an evaluation component to help determine whether goals are being met and to improve or modify the strategy if needed. --Sustainment. The strategy must be viewed as a long-term effort, requiring ongoing commitment and support from stakeholders. Boston initiated its CCP by engaging neighborhood residents and police officers in a citywide strategic planning process. The focus of this effort is to reduce crime problems that interfere with residents' quality of life. Two significant programs, replicated in other cities, grew out of this joint planning process--the Youth Service Providers Network, which links at-risk youth and their families with social services, and Operation Night-Light, which teams up probation and parole officers with police officers to monitor probationers and parolees. Officials in Phoenix, Arizona, focused on one neighborhood, the Greater Coronado Historical District. Here, community groups, residents, police, and local agency representatives identified local problems and developed solutions. These stakeholders collaborated with the University of Arizona to evaluate local conditions, measuring the fear of crime perceptions of residents before and after CCP activities. The evaluation guided efforts to modify the jurisdiction's crime prevention strategy. A Positive Approach With Positive Results By using the CCP approach, 15 jurisdictions across the country have made great strides in reducing crime, improving the quality of life, and improving the delivery of services in their neighborhoods. They have mobilized community members, police, social service agencies, faith communities, city departments, and a host of other partners to prevent, intervene in, and control crime. Each collaborative was designed for a specific area, showing the flexibility and uniqueness of the CCP approach. Baltimore, Denver, Fort Worth, Hartford, Salt Lake City, and Wichita have witnessed up to 50-percent reductions in violent crime in their CCP neighborhoods. Atlanta, Columbia, the District of Columbia, Oakland, and Seattle have also made measurable progress. The following are some success stories: --Phoenix closed more than 70 drug houses. --Omaha drastically reduced its juvenile truancy problem. --Wilmington initiated a model juvenile drug court. --Boston had only one gun-related juvenile death in a 4-year period. For Further Information The following jurisdictions have implemented and sustained CCP's crime prevention and public safety approach. Arizona--Phoenix Commander Kim Humphrey Arizona Regional Community Policing Institute 2643 East University Phoenix, AZ 85034 602-223-2514 California--East Bay Maria Theresa Viramontes Campbell, Director East Bay Public Safety Corridor Partnership 1222 Preservation Park Way Oakland, CA 94612 510-832-7071 Colorado--Metropolitan Denver Lance Clem, Director Division of Criminal Justice 700 Kipling Street, Suite 1000 Denver, CO 80215 303-239-5717 Connecticut--Hartford Rae Ann Palmer, Director Comprehensive Community Partnership 525 Main Street Hartford, CT 06103 860-543-8681 Delaware--Wilmington Debbie Crisden-Boone, Coordinator Department of Planning and Development Louis L. Redding Building 800 French Street Wilmington, DE 19801-3537 302-571-4178 District of Columbia Dionne Reeder, CCP Coordinator Program Office of Grants Management 717 14th Street NW., Suite 1200 Washington, DC 20005 202-727-6537 Georgia--Metropolitan Atlanta Andrew Copassaki, Director Metro-Atlanta Project Pact 127 Church Street, Suite 270 The Brumby Building at Marietta Station Marietta, GA 30060 770-528-4607 Kansas--Wichita Tom Smith, Grants and Aid Coordinator City Hall 455 North Main Street, 12th Floor Wichita, KS 67202 316-268-4271 Maryland--Baltimore Patricia Smith, Director CCP/HotSpots 10 South Street Baltimore, MD 21202 410-396-4370 Massachusetts--Boston James T. Jordan, Director of Planning Boston Police Department One Schroeder Plaza Boston, MA 02120 617-343-5863 Nebraska--Metropolitan Omaha Mary Lopez, Director Department of Public Administration Peter Kiewit Conference Center 1313 Farnam Street, Room 232 Omaha, NE 68182 402-595-1213 South Carolina--Columbia Roland Smallwood, Community Liaison City of Columbia 1225 Laurel Street Columbia, SC 29201 803-733-8635 Texas--Fort Worth David Garrett, Director Fort Worth Police Department Research and Planning Unit 350 West Belknap Fort Worth, TX 76102 817-877-8067 Utah--Salt Lake City Jeanne Robison, Senior Assistant City Prosecutor Salt Lake City Prosecutor's Office 349 South 200 East, Suite 500 Salt Lake City, UT 84111 801-535-7767 Washington--Seattle Colleen Laing, Director Community Policing Bureau 700 Third Avenue, Suite 540 Seattle, WA 98104-1886 206-386-0057 For additional information regarding BJA programs and initiatives, contact: Bureau of Justice Assistance 810 Seventh Street NW. Washington, DC 20531 202-514-6278 World Wide Web: www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA Bureau of Justice Assistance Clearinghouse P.O. Box 6000 Rockville, MD 20849-6000 1-800-688-4252 World Wide Web: www.ncjrs.org Clearinghouse staff are available Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. eastern time. Ask to be placed on the BJA mailing list. U.S. Department of Justice Response Center 1-800-421-6770 or 202-307-1480 Response Center staff are available Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. eastern time. ----------------- This document was prepared by Criminal Justice Associates, under grant number 95-DD-BX-K017, awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. ----------------- FS 000267 December 2000