Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiative in Albuquerque: Project Activities and Research Results

• NCJ Number: 220486
• Author(s): Paul D. Steele Ph.D.; Lisa Broidy Ph.D.; Jerry Daday Ph.D.; Nell Damon M.A.; Kristine Denman M.A.; Kerry Edwards M.A.; Colin Olson M.A.; Teresa Schellhamer M.A.; Lisa Ortiz B.A.; Vanessa Salazar; Salim Khouyami
• Date Published: April 2005
• Length: 333 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2001-IJ-CX-K001
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description

Annotation

This report describes the development, implementation, and results of Albuquerque's Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiative (SACSI), a federally led coordinated effort to reduce and prevent firearm and firearm-related violent crime.

Abstract

The featured program intervention by a working group of Federal, State, and local representatives was "Turning Point" (TP), a program that targets violent repeat felony offenders who are under community supervision as probationers or parolees in the Albuquerque area. The program relies on positive support resources and sanctions in order to achieve greater compliance with probation/parole conditions and achieve lower rates of criminal reoffending. These measures include service delivery from selected providers, close monitoring, and rigorous response to probation violations and reoffending. Since the TP is in its initial stage of implementation, the only program component that has been fully implemented is the initial TP session, in which representatives from neighborhood groups, criminal justice and service provider agencies, and others present information to probationers/parolees. Probationers/parolees complete questionnaires and meet service program staff. It is too early in the program's implementation to estimate its effectiveness or impact; however, it is unlikely that the program will have a positive effect on public safety unless substantial changes are made. It must involve more probationers/parolees in order to have an impact among violence-prone probationers. Further, since only a portion of firearms-related crimes are committed by those who are, or have been, on probation, TP would have to saturate the target population in order to have a discernable reduction of violent crime. Recommendations are to implement all aspects of the TP model, maximize deterrence through program credibility, address human resource issues, improve the sharing and use of critical information, maintain and expand research activities, and expand the TP program to all eligible probationers. 35 tables, 159 references, and appended data-collection instruments