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Gang Prevention
Why Municipal Leaders Make Gang Prevention a City Priority
Nothing is more important to municipal leaders than protecting the safety of children and youth. In cities across the nation, violent crime has crept upward in recent years. Recent research shows that gangs are disproportionately responsible for the unacceptable level of violence in our nation's cities and towns. This trend poses a threat to the safety of young people and their families and the overall vitality of neighborhoods and communities.
What Municipal Leaders Can Do to Reduce Gang Violence
As safety is basic to personal and civic health, as gang violence has not only killed and wounded but rendered some communities dysfunctional, municipal leaders are taking a three-pronged approach:
- Stopping the violence and victimization;
- Intervening with those on the edge;
- Preventing gang participation through the development of individual and community well-being.
In jurisdictions where gang and youth violence have been reduced, prevention, intervention, suppression, and a community's moral voice are interwoven, fostering social norms that reduce and prevent gang violence and affiliation.
Goals of the YEF Institute's Gang Prevention Programs
The goal of the YEF Institute's gang prevention initiative is to:
- Reduce gang-related violence and victimization.
- Get in front of the gang issue before policies based on fear divert funds from essential infrastructures (e.g., schools, police, services for children and youth) to corrections.
- Help cities establish or improve collaborations that appropriately blend prevention, intervention, and suppression, and that involve city leaders and community stakeholders.
- Identify and document city responses to key program and policy questions (e.g., essential approaches to anti-gang efforts; what doesn’t work; who must be involved, etc.)
- Forge a vibrant peer-learning network among 13 participating cities.
- Identify state policy and practice that would support effective community practice.
Gang Prevention Staff Contacts
Leon Andrews, Program Director: 202-626-3039 or andrews@nlc.org
John Calhoun, Senior Consultant, and Former President/CEO, National Crime Prevention Council, 703-442-0318 or hopematters@verizon.net
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