NCJ Number
85549
Journal
Urban League Review Volume: 6 Issue: 1 Dated: (Fall 1981) Pages: 83-90
Date Published
1981
Length
8 pages
Annotation
The development of community programs for countering crime are essential in high-crime minority communities, including crime watch programs, civilian review boards, victims' assistance and compensation programs, and community tribunals.
Abstract
Crime watch programs organize community members to recognize any criminal or suspicious activities in the community and report them to the police. Crime has been curtailed in communities with such programs. The difficulty of establishing such programs, in minority communities lies in citizen mistrust of the police to the extent that cooperation with the police is a foreign concept. This can be relieved through police initiatives that indicate to residents they care about providing protective services. The development of working relationships between minority communities and the police will also permit the establishment of much-needed but heretofore unacceptable civilian review boards through which civilian complaints against the police could be handled. Victims' assistance programs, initiated at the State or municipal level but operated at the community level, would be most effective at meeting the specific needs of minority victims, whose losses and costs from criminal victimization are comparatively greater than those of other victims. Community tribunals established to assist the judicial system in its work with youths convicted of crimes have also met with success. The function of these tribunals, composed of juveniles and court-appointed supervisors, is to sit as juries to sentence youth who have chosen to face the community tribunal rather than a judge for sentencing. Five references are provided.