NCJ Number
147483
Date Published
1994
Length
39 pages
Annotation
This program summary describes how three cities in Florida, Michigan, and Virginia are coordinating community policing and human service initiatives in troubled neighborhoods.
Abstract
The approaches to service delivery in the three cities complement the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's commitment to a strategy of preventing juvenile delinquency. A fundamental principle of this strategy is the need to address multiple factors that place children at risk. In seeking to ameliorate risk factors, the three programs emphasize families and communities as points of intervention and focus on youth violence and drug use. They include the Neighborhood Resource Team in a Miami suburb; the Neighborhood Network Center in Lansing, Michigan; and the PACE (Police-Assisted Community Enforcement) Program in Norfolk, Virginia. The Florida program focuses on a single public housing project, the Michigan program targets two private housing neighborhoods, and the PACE Program serves six public housing complexes and four private residential neighborhoods. The Neighborhood Resource Team uses voluntary family-centered and community-based interventions. The Neighborhood Network Center uses an interagency approach to intervene with individuals and families that encompasses public and private resources. The goal of the PACE Program is to resolve community problems and improve quality of life through partnerships between city government and residents. Each program is described in terms of operations, results, and costs. Factors contributing to program success are identified, including support from top officials, the delivery of tangible benefits, commitment to empowering residents, and simplicity of organizational and budgetary arrangements. Challenges to neighborhood-based partnerships involving the police, service providers, and the community are also noted, such lack of funding, problem complexity, neighborhood heterogeneity, and staff stress.