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Project Sentry/Juvenile
Project Sentry Initiative from Maine
Maine 's Project Sentry Coordinator will provide an overview of the youth and school gun violence reduction programs implemented in the District. The work of two grantees funded through PSN Maine's competitive bidding processes will also be highlighted. Students from Yes! to Youth, an afterschool media communication program designed for students in grades 4–12, developed a three-part video series of youth panel discussions on bullying, teen dating violence, and weapons in school. Maine high school students participated in and produced the videos, which aired on a local television network and later served as a centerpiece for a Youth Summit hosted in the fall of 2004, also to be discussed. Add Verb Productions developed and piloted a "Play-in-a-Box" for youth action groups which includes a performance piece focused on school gun violence issues, a training and implementation guide and a post-performance guide which provides action steps and community strategies. In addition, the Project Sentry Coordinator will discuss some of the challenging aspects of putting together a program.
Session: 90 minutes
Speakers are all actively involved in these initiatives.
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Sharing Information on Youthful Offenders and At-Risk Youth: Overcoming Obstacles
The juvenile arena is unique, and by nature additional barriers exist that make it more difficult to share information about the small group of offenders that commits a large amount of the violent crime. Privacy restrictions in place to protect juveniles make it problematic to identify and intervene with emerging violent offenders, while at the same time the sharing of information held by the diverse agencies and service providers is critical to such intervention. The panelists will discuss ways to overcome some of the barriers to sharing information about juveniles including how to garner cooperation among the various entities. The speakers will discuss how they have made shared information more accessible through the development of a database that makes juvenile information accessible to all stakeholders as appropriate.
Session: 1 hour
Speakers include federal and state representatives.
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Gang Reduction Program—Community-Based Gang Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression
The Gang Reduction Program is designed to reduce gang activity in targeted neighborhoods by incorporating a broad spectrum of research-based interventions to address the range of personal, family, and community factors that contribute to juvenile delinquency and gang activity. The program integrates state-of-the-art practices in gang prevention, intervention, and suppression strategies. Communities identify and coordinate the current resources, programs, and services that address known risk factors in the community and fill gaps to address risk factors for delinquency across the broadest possible age spectrum. An overview of the Gang Reduction Program framework, including coordinating these activities, will be provided. Following the overview, project coordinators and Assistant United States Attorneys from two sites—Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Los Angeles, California—will each discuss specific activities in their localities and the role and contribution of the federal prosecutor in the Gang Reduction Program.
Session: 90 minutes
Speakers include Department of Justice and State and local experts in this program.
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Project Sentry: Promising Strategies
Project Sentry programs from the District of South Carolina and the District of New Jersey will be highlighted. The District of South Carolina uses the Pledge Against Gun Violence as a cornerstone of its Sentry efforts but, in addition to the Pledge, the District attempts to keep the idea of gun safety in the minds of the students throughout the year with a variety of other program elements. These elements include the Annual Project Sentry Logo Contest and the South Carolina Youth Court program. The New Jersey Approach includes Project Phoenix, the Paterson and Mercer County Village Initiatives, G.R.E.A.T. and partnership with Council for Unity. Through these programs, the District's Project Sentry efforts aim to reduce and replace the need for gangs in the lives of young people. Both of these Districts' programs will be discussed as well as the South Carolina Youth Court program.
Session: 1 hour
Speakers are from the District of South Carolina and New Jersey.
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Helping America 's Youth Initiative
This presentation will describe the President's Helping America's Youth Initiative led by First Lady Laura Bush. The presentation will focus on the online Community Guide to Helping America's Youth that includes steps for forming partnerships, coordinating community resources, identifying priorities, and identifying programs that have proven effective in addressing a wide range of needs. The HAY program database includes over 180 tested programs that cover such topics as gun violence prevention and intervention, gang prevention, drug prevention, and more general delinquency prevention.
Session: 1 hour
Speakers are from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and Helping America's Youth.
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New Mexico's Comprehensive Youth Gun Violence Prevention and Safety Awareness Program
Representatives from the District of New Mexico will discuss the development of their three pronged Comprehensive Youth Gun Violence Prevention and Safety Awareness Program. The three-prongs are comprised of: a school-based instruction and learning program (Media Literacy and Options, Choices and Consequences (OCC)), a youth development component, and a family and community involvement element. Media Literacy is designed to help sixth to eighth grade students develop critical thinking skills specific to gun violence in the media. The OCC anti-gun violence prevention/intervention curriculum follows the Media Literacy program and strives to further educate students about the realistic medical and legal consequences of using or possessing guns. The Youth Development component consists of peer education and youth advocacy programs in Weed and Seed site cluster high schools. Students involved in the Youth Development component then apply their recently acquired skills as part of the third prong, the family and community involvement component. Students network with the family and community organizations in the Weed and Seed sites to plan and implement community-based activities aimed at providing support and educating families and communities on strategies to reduce the tragedies of youth violence.
Session: 1 hour
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Taking Prevention and the PSN Message to the Kids: North Carolina's Hoops and Hope and Public Housing Authority State Athletic Conference (PHASAC) Programs
Focusing on at-risk youth, ages 14–18, the “Hoops and Hope” basketball tournament is a vehicle to achieve the ultimate prevention mission—changing a young life. The tournament's five goals promote a message of a positive lifestyle against guns, drugs, and gangs; raising the self-esteem of the participants; exposing the youth to a college environment to encourage the idea of higher education; providing an alternative positive venue to interact with law enforcement; and only lastly engaging in healthy positive athletic competition. The event was highly successful and is being expanded through partnership with the Public Housing Authority State Athletic Conference (PHASAC). Instead of a single tournament, PHASAC/Hoops and Hope expect to have a ninety game season between eight teams culminating in district and then state tournaments. The organizers have also planned pre-season workouts and a cheerleading competition. As before, the games will be run as professionally as possible but will primarily act as a vehicle for achieving the important goals noted above. Funding for the program has been garnered from a variety of sources.
Session: 1 hour
Speakers are actively involved in the programs.
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The Gang Resistance Education and Training (G.R.E.A.T.) Program
The (G.R.E.A.T.) program is a law enforcement officer-instructed classroom curriculum. The program's primary objective is prevention and is intended as an immunization against delinquency, youth violence, and gang membership. G.R.E.A.T. lessons focus on providing life skills to students to help them avoid delinquent behavior and violence to solve problems.
Session: 1 hour
Speaker is from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
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