APRI Highlights - Winter 2003

Community Prosecutors and National Night Out

Michael Kuykendall

Director, National Center for Community Prosecution

For the past 19 years, thousands of communities across the country have celebrated National Night Out on the second Tuesday evening in August. National Night Out (NNO) was created to increase community-driven crime prevention awareness, build partnerships between the community and law enforcement officials, and send a strong message to criminals that citizens are united in their determination to make their neighborhoods safe. Reportedly, 33.3 million people participated in this year’s event, held on Tuesday, August 6, 2002.

The partnership and prevention goals of NNO are consistent with the goals of community prosecution. In fact, many jurisdictions with community prosecution initiatives took part in NNO activities. For example:

Representatives of the Brooklyn, New York District Attorney’s Office participated in Child ID fingerprinting, pony rides, and an award ceremony honoring District Attorney Charles J. Hynes for sponsoring the Red Hook Youth Baseball League. Specialists with the Community Relations Bureau distributed literature and answered questions from the community at all police precincts and two Public Service Area Housing Authority Precincts. They also marched with residents in parades to symbolize their community’s effort against crime.

In Dallas, Texas, two homeowner associations that previously worked independently of each other, instead collaborated for the first time in a joint National Night Out. Neighborhood residents paraded through one of the high-crime streets, chanting “Action, Action, we want Action!” A.C.T.I.O.N., or “All Coming Together In Our Neighborhood,” is the acronym for the Dallas City Attorney’s Office’s meetings with key stakeholders in the community, including residents, neighborhood associations, crime watch groups, groups that plan National Night Out, local businesses, faith-based organizations, medical professionals, and social service agencies.

Still other examples include the following:

• All seven members of the Sacramento, California District Attorney’s Office Community Prosecution Unit attended events throughout the city, meeting with community members and participating in fingerprinting and photographing children for identification folders.
  
  
• In Kalamazoo, Michigan, neighborhood prosecutors, police officers and residents organized music, games and giveaways in eight separate neighborhoods. McGruff, the crime dog, made appearances as well.
  
  
• Members of the Minneapolis, Minnesota Prosecutor’s Office attended a potluck block party, bike decorating, bingo, a dog show and litter pickup.
  
  
• In Howard County, Maryland, the state’s attorney and seven members of her staff participated in more than 15 neighborhood activities.
  
  
• In Indianapolis, Indiana, members of the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office - Street Level Advocacy Unit attended 35 different National Night Out events.

As a community prosecutor in Sacramento observed, “It is wonderful out in the neighborhoods—people really do like having us there!”

Next year’s National Night Out is scheduled for Tuesday, August 5, 2003. For details, please contact Matt Peskin, National Project Coordinator at the National Association of Town Watch (NATW), at (800) 648-3688, (610) 649-7055 or info@natw.org. To pre-register your area/community for next year and get on NATW’s mailing list, go to www.nationalnightout.org.

For more information about community prosecution, please contact NCCP at (703) 549-4253 or communityprosecution@ndaa-apri.org.