NCJ Number
149675
Journal
Forum Issue: 25 Dated: (Spring 1994) Pages: 20-24
Date Published
1994
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This article describes an initiative by two government agencies to bring community leaders, youth, and police together in structured interaction that enables them to overcome institutional barriers to cooperation in preventing violence in the community.
Abstract
The program brings youth, police, and community members together to learn about one another and to practice the conflict-resolution skills needed to solve problems. Two-day retreats in rural settings provide participants an environment and a structure for exploring their understanding of real-life challenges that require leadership, group cooperation, and joint problemsolving. In working sessions, participants engage in a series of structured, experiential activities that lead to the development of a common vision of the ideal police-community dialogue and its characteristics. Participants not only confront their differences but also their interdependency as they interact through team activities. Organized in mixed adult-youth groups, they play games that demonstrate how teams of people solve problems most effectively. Participants also discuss issues of racial identity and race relations, as these affect them in their communities. Relationships forged in the retreat make possible the creation of a network of cooperative endeavors to address violence in the community. The experience enables community leaders, youth, and police to develop relationships and skills that facilitate exchanging information, planning and implementing joint projects, dealing with specific situations that arise, and communicating productively during periods of tension.