NCJ Number
145071
Journal
Crime and Delinquency Volume: 39 Issue: 4 Dated: (October 1993) Pages: 554- 564
Date Published
1993
Length
11 pages
Annotation
Community Opportunities Program for Youth (COPY Kids), a community policing demonstration project in Spokane (WA) in the summer of 1992, is evaluated.
Abstract
COPY Kids' focus on the city's most economically disadvantaged areas, and served 194 boys and 121 girls, median age 13. The program's mission was to provide these at-risk youths an alternative to drugs, alcohol, and gangs by exposing them to appropriate role models and showing them the breadth of social and economic possibilities that they have. Information was gathered through direct observation of the 8-week program, focus group sessions among selected recipients, and surveys among 47 parents or guardians, and 28 staff members. It appeared that COPY Kids recipients, as intended, learned that productivity leads to reward. All parents and guardians surveyed said they would recommend the program to others, 46 percent of the respondents said it had helped their child develop a better sense of responsibility, and more than one-third of the respondents offered favorable comments about the Spokane Police Department. All COPY Kids staff surveyed said they would participate again, nearly three-quarters of them suggested that the program had positively affected their opinion of youths. 1 endnote and 11 references