Probably the single most important challenge we could accept for kids vulnerable to victimization and victimization, kids living in fragile neighborhoods, would be to tackle the braiding/blended funding issue. There must be a comprehensive strategy that involves and moves structures, that influences policies, that changes lives on the street. No city speaks of enforcement alone, rather, “We can’t arrest our way out of this…”. Other cities from California and across the nation seek to join the Network
The California City Gang Prevention Network brings together 13 major cities in California.
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GOALS:
- Reduce gang violence and help build communities that don’t produce gangs
- Create jurisdiction-wide strategies blending prevention, intervention and suppression
- Help create and sustain municipal/community partnerships that change how cities do business
- Create a vibrant peer-learning network of urban leaders–mayors, law enforcement, social service providers, schools, CB and FBO’s and identify and disseminate information of promising programs
- Link city goals to county, state, federal and private resources that would abet local suppression/prevention efforts
- Change regulation and/or law on the state and federal levels to maximize support on the local level
RESULTS AFTER THREE YEARS
- Crime drop in several participating cities
- Comprehensive plans developed by each Network city with offices created in some cities: Office of Neighborhood Services (Richmond), Office of Youth Development (Sacramento) and new ways of doing business, e.g. Neighborhood Teams (police, zoning, child welfare, public health) in San Bernardino
- New initiatives such as Ceasefire, Peacekeepers, Streetworkers, Neighborhood teams (police/zoning/child welfare)
- Tax levies for enforcement/prevention passed and/or sustained in four cities and language shift: no city speaks of enforcement alone, rather, “We can’t arrest our way out of this…”
- Youth involved as part of the solutions: Youth Corps; Townkeepers
- Support from State for each Network city (or Network county) from State Gang and Youth Policy Office
- National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention, modeled on the California Network, launched by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
ESSENTIAL BUILDING BLOCKS FOR SUCCESS:
- The mayor and chief must be together, leading
- Enforcement and prevention/intervention services must not be seen as either/or: they are integral parts of a whole
- A comprehensive strategy blending suppression, intervention and prevention must be developed
- An entity to track strategy progress must be identified or created
- Vibrant working relationship must be established horizontally with all key city departments, vertically, with the county and state and federal law enforcement officials and down into the community, especially those neighborhoods hardest hit by crime
- Families must be supported and young people must have access to positive role models
DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED (no city has all of these but each has one or more):
- Blending federal funding sources (different time lines, objectives, reporting requirements)
- Interweaving prevention (long term results vs the immediate, “Get the crack dealers off the street NOW so my kids can get to school safely”)
- Crafting a comprehensive vision that would involve all stakeholders and alter social norms (easier to have work devolve to program interventions alone), sustaining the effort and integrating prevention into overall plans (e.g. family support, early childhood education, Nurse Family Partnership)
- Lack of strong mayoral leadership on the moral, conceptual and bureaucratic levels
- Mayoral/law enforcement split or leadership uncertainty
- Economic downturn; cuts in essential services—parks, libraries, schools, recreation facilities, infrastructure (potholes, streetlights)
- Flood of returning prisoners especially to already-frail neighborhoods
- Easy access to guns, drugs, liquor
PUBLICATIONS:
Vital Partners: Mayors and Police Chiefs Working Together for America’s Children and Youth (underwritten by the COPS Office); Implementing a Citywide Gang Violence Reduction Strategy; Preventing Violence and Building Communities Where Young People Thrive.
Jack Calhoun is Senior Consultant to the National Forum on Youth Violence of the US Department of Justice whose Attorney General recently pointed to public health strategies as essential to reducing gang violence in the USA. Jack was the Former President and CEO of the US National Crime Prevention Council; Former US Commissioner of the Administration for Children, Youth and Families. Currently Senior Consultant, National League of Cities Institute for Youth, Education and Families for it’s 13 California Cities Gang Prevention Network
