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Community Policing: Lower Highlands/Acre Neighborhood

NCJ Number
150805
Date Published
1994
Length
114 pages
Annotation
This grant application seeks $1 million over a 3-year period, targeted to hire 12 sworn officers in the Lowell, Massachusetts, Police Department to expand community policing initiatives in that city.
Abstract
Funds would specifically target the Lower Highlands/Acre neighborhood of Lowell, now a secure operational base for Southeast Asian gang activity. The Lower Highlands/Acre neighborhood houses Lowell's largest refugee community (Lowell itself has the second largest Southeast Asian population in the U.S.) and gangs pose an immediate threat both to innocent citizens living in the area as well as to public safety in other parts of the city. The police department has responded to these conditions, which have posed a severe economic strain on the agency, by integrating law enforcement and problem solving techniques, linking them with ongoing community groups and services to mobilize residents' participation in community policing programs. The grassroots citizens' groups that are already in place provide a basis for strengthening police- community collaboration and for successfully implementing this proposal. 9 appendixes