NCJ Number
184956
Date Published
April 2001
Length
59 pages
Annotation
This monograph describes successful community programs to reduce crime and increase public safety.
Abstract
The Comprehensive Communities Program (CCP) is a crime prevention and public safety initiative developed by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The CCP approach emphasizes partnership, collaboration, and shared problem solving. Jurisdictions that use the CCP approach have developed unique interventions involving community prosecution, drug courts, crime prevention through environmental design, and community corrections. Many of the strategies developed and implemented focus on collaborative approaches involving community mobilization, community policing, youth and gang initiatives, community prosecution, and alternatives to incarceration. The document describes promising approaches developed by 14 CCP sites. The report concludes that communities will continue to invest their energies and resources in CCP because it: (1) brings together individuals and agencies affected by crime problems with those who can provide solutions; (2) empowers these individuals and agencies to take an active role in developing solutions through a collaborative process; and (3) is neither particularly costly nor complex, but does require a willingness to meet and communicate, share resources including time, staff, and money, and be open to systemic change.