Why Engage the Community?
Historically, criminal justice agencies did not involve the community in their efforts, and United States Attorneys did not regularly engage community groups in their work. In the early 1990s, however, this began to change with initiatives like Weed & Seed, Operation Ceasefire, and SACSI.1 In many jurisdictions, success has hinged on community involvement not only in clarifying the extent and nature of the crime problem, but also in developing solutions.
Community Engagement Trends in Criminal Justice
Shifts toward greater community involvement can be seen across government over the past 60 years. In the 1950s and 1960s, communities began to demand that their needs be considered—for example, during the planning process for urban renewal projects.2 Planning that came “solely, or almost solely, from the head of the planner,” who then imparted the vision to the community, gave way to a “more modern view . . . that good plans spring from the community itself.”3 Active citizenship was also vital to social reforms in other areas, including civil rights and equality for women.
Benefits of Community Engagement for Analyzing Violent Crime
A major lesson learned from the SACSI projects was that official data alone did not provide enough information about the dynamics of violent crime problems. Arrest data suggested that in many of the SACSI cities, gun homicides were similar, in that most were committed by young men in specific inner-city areas. But data from non-traditional sources produced a more complete understanding of the problem. Patrol officers, community groups, detectives, and even offenders "proved much more revealing of the motives and nature of the events."
For example, about 60 percent of homicides in Indianapolis involved loosely organized gangs, while in Rochester, 40 percent were associated with drug house robberies and about half involved arguments and disputes that were not gang-related. The SACSI projects learned that "it is in the underlying patterns where opportunities for intervention were to be found."
Source: Erin Dalton, Targeted Crime Reduction Efforts in Ten Communities: Lessons for the PSN Initiative
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Over the last 30 years, the U.S. Department of Justice has invested significant resources in community engagement to prevent and address crime. Community engagement can also be seen with respect to victims of crime. Increasingly, all criminal justice agencies have been called upon to consider what is best for the victim, and to involve crime victims in the justice process. The public expectation today is that criminal justice agencies will continue to shift their thinking, processes, and structures to better support what is best for the community, and to involve the community in determining what that is.
Perhaps the most notable change in criminal justice has been law enforcement's widespread acceptance of community policing. In the 1970s, police realized that communities needed to share responsibility for preventing crime, but beyond Neighborhood Watch, there were few means through which this could be accomplished. Influential police chiefs, researchers, and community activists began advocating a problem-solving approach that let residents and police work together to address the conditions that allowed crime to take hold.4 In addition to problem solving, community policing—an integral component of Weed & Seed—includes patrol officer assignments to specific neighborhoods, school resource officer programs, police advisory committees representing diverse interest groups, and partnerships with community organizations. Although approaches vary, a large majority of police departments report that they participate in some form of community policing.5 In many jurisdictions, community policing offers untapped resources for engaging the community in PSN. Local prosecutors involved in community-based prosecution may also be helpful in linking PSN task forces to the community.6
Benefits of Community Engagement for PSN
PSN task forces understand community engagement generally, but the advantages of applying the concept to PSN are not necessarily obvious. Because a United States Attorney's Office (USAO) covers many local jurisdictions, it can be hard to define the relevant “community.” Many PSN task force members have organizational mandates to investigate and prosecute gun crimes (with success measured primarily by numbers of arrests or prosecutions, not by evidence of community engagement). Often, they have not yet been asked to focus on PSN objectives for sustaining reductions in gun crime over the longer term, or to fully consider what roles the community should play in PSN. Before investing time and energy in this direction, PSN task forces want to know more about the benefits they can expect to see for their efforts to involve the community.
What PSN Task Forces Are Saying
In December 2004, the U.S. Department of Justice convened a working group of PSN task force representatives7 to discuss their community engagement experiences—how they got started, how they achieved success, and the benefits of community engagement in their districts. The consensus of this group was that (1) all PSN task forces that have successfully engaged the community have been backed by the United States Attorney's strong commitment to the concept, and (2) for that to happen, the results and benefits of community engagement must be clear “up front.” The examples and discussions that follow in this guide address “how to” questions. The benefits are clear. Community engagement:
- Instills greater willingness among citizens to report crimes and cooperate with investigations
- Allows for the collection of data and information that has practical value for developing investigative and prosecution strategies
- Provides an effective means for addressing issues of cultural sensitivity and diversity
- Involves family members, clergy, and community groups who can be positive influences on youth and ex-offenders
- Provides opportunities to prevent misunderstandings about the targeting of specific neighborhoods or groups by PSN
- Creates the capacity to dispel misconceptions about the overall purpose and objectives of PSN, generating wider general support
- Opens the door to corporate and other funding for PSN
- Provides greater understanding by the community of the responsibilities, priorities, resources, and statutory limitations of the USAO
- Increases personal and job satisfaction.
Why Community Engagement Matters
Community ownership of, and involvement in, PSN's agenda is key to establishing the legitimacy of the initiative.8 As earlier discussions suggest, there are several straightforward reasons why:
- As in virtually any other endeavor, people will support what they help create.
- Although public support for PSN is substantial, targeting specific neighborhoods or groups for intervention strategies is not always well understood or accepted.
- The community has information and resources that can make PSN more effective.
- The public wants to be involved with criminal justice agencies to reduce violence and build healthy communities.
1 Supported by leadership and resources from United States Attorneys, these initiatives have engaged communities in a variety of ways. For example, 40 percent of Weed and Seed steering committee members are expected to be community representatives. Operation Ceasefire in Boston included extensive analysis of gun homicides, new partnerships with probation and parole, and a substantial role for the TenPoint Coalition, an ecumenical organization. Through SACSI (Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiative), the Department of Justice sought to replicate the collaborative process Boston used to achieve a dramatic reduction in youth homicides (from an average of 44 a year between 1991 and 1995 to 15 in 1998).
2 “Overview of Community Based Planning,” The Pickett Institute Training Curriculum: Building Capacity for Community Based Strategic Planning (Module 3), Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 2004.
3 John M. Levy, Contemporary Urban Planning, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1991, p. 82.
4 See H. Goldstein, "Improving Policing: A Problem-Oriented Approach," Crime and Delinquency, Vol. 25, 1979. Today, police typically are trained in some variation of the SARA problem solving process—Scanning (problem identification), Analysis, Response, and Assessment—originally developed as part of early research on police problem solving. See J. Eck and W. Spelman, Problem-Solving: Problem-Oriented Policing in Newport News. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 1987.
5 By 1999, all police departments serving 1 million or more residents, and 90 percent of departments serving populations of 25,000 to 999,999 reported using community policing officers. See M. J. Hickman and B.A. Reaves, “Community Policing in Local Police Departments, 1997 and 1999,” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2001.
6 In 2000, forty-six percent of local prosecutors reported they were involved in community prosecution. Strategies include assigning cases based on geographic (neighborhood) areas, opening neighborhood offices, and contributing legal expertise (for example, in applying nuisance abatement or landlord-tenant law) to help community groups solve crime-related problems. See R.V. Wolf and J. L. Worral Lessons from the Field: Ten Community Prosecution Leadership Profiles, Alexandria, Virginia: American Prosecutors Research Institute, November 2004.
7 The working group was convened by DOJ in conjunction with the Institute for Law and Justice (ILJ) and the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC), PSN's community engagement technical assistance partners.
8 “Project Safe Neighborhood Technical Assistance Project Focus Group Report: Community Outreach Strategies,” Bureau of Justice Assistance and American University, August 2003.
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