Operation Safe Streets Governor's Task Force: Review and Impact

• NCJ Number: 209144
• Author(s): Richard J. Harris; John P. O'Connell
• Date Published: December 2004
• Length: 47 pages
• Corporate Author: Delaware Statistical Analysis Ctr
• Sale Source: Delaware Statistical Analysis Ctr
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This report describes a policing effort in Wilmington, DE, to decrease the city’s escalating violence and drug-related crime rates.

Abstract

Operation Safe Streets-Governor’s Task Force (OSS-GTF), initiated in May 1997, was a coordinated criminal justice response to the 130-percent increase in the number of shootings in the city. The program was an enhanced law enforcement, probation, and speedy court initiative designed to target high-risk probationers to ensure that they remain crime-free and stay compliant with the conditions of their probation. The OSS-GTF effort involves teams of police and probationer officers who proactively enforce curfews, engage in surveillance, and conduct special investigations in high-crime areas. The rapid court processing of OSS-GTF cases by superior court is the other key element of the program and was designed to make probationers aware that any violation would be met with a swift criminal justice response; most OSS-GTF cases reach final disposition within 24 hours of arrest. The importance of “collateral arrests” to the program success is underscored; collateral arrests are arrests made by OSS-GTF officers that are unrelated to curfew violations and result in new charges. A full 82 percent of arrests attributed to the OSS-GTF program were collateral arrests. While the OSS-GTF program is thought of as a law enforcement strategy, it is also an enhancement to Level III probation in the State, which provides for 8 or more hours of weekly supervision and is used as part of the offender's transition back to the community. Data are offered concerning the impact of OSS-GTF, including criminal history profiles of OSS-GTF probationers, impact on the crime rate in Wilmington, OSS-GTF caseload size and its relationship with curfew compliance, and detention and incarceration patterns. Overall, violent crime in Wilmington decreased 3.5 percent between 1996 and 2002, property crime decreased by 26 percent, and illicit drug arrest were up by 71 percent during the same period. Figures, tables, appendixes