NCJ Number
86219
Date Published
1982
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This paper describes the Department of Housing and Urban Development's procedure for developing innovative crime prevention programs for public housing.
Abstract
Typically, a large urban housing project has disproportionate numbers of minorities, single female household heads, adults on welfare, youths at ages associated with crime, and elderly persons. Public housing thus places in close proximity persons at high risk for criminal deviancy and persons with high vulnerability for criminal victimization. The Department of Housing and Urban Development has attempted to deal with this problem through the Urban Initiatives Anti-Crime Program, which establishes a partnership among Federal agencies, public housing agencies, tenants, and local government to deal with crime in public housing. The program's objective is to target resources for 30 to 40 public housing projects which propose the most comprehensive and workable anticrime plans in an open competition among public housing agencies. Program areas specified for development in the competition are (1) improved management of public safety, (2) improvement of physical design to harden targets and discourage crime, (3) expanded and improved tenant organization against crime, (4) increased full and parttime employment of tenants, (5) expanded and improved services for victims/witnesses, (6) better trained police officers, and (7) stronger linkages with local government programs dealing with the public housing development and the surrounding neighborhood. About 65 references are listed.