Building Bridges - Volume I, Number 2, 2001
Leadership Awards
APRI Congratulates the 2001 DOJ-Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) National Community Prosecution Leadership Sites! Denver, CO, Washington, DC, Marion County (Indianapolis), IN, Howard County, MD, Kalamazoo County, MI, Hennepin County (Minneapolis), MN, Kings County (Brooklyn), NY, Multnomah County (Portland), OR, and Travis County (Austin), TX have all been selected to receive up to $200,000 in recognition of the success of their programs and their contributions nationally in promoting community prosecution. The leadership grantees will be asked to continue their outstanding work as role models in the field of community prosecution and as faculty for community prosecution trainings. APRI wishes to thank these offices for the excellent work they have done so far, and we look forward to working with them in the future.
Community Prosecution Grants
On June 5, 2001, BJA released the Competitive Grant Announcement: Awards for Planning, Implementing and Enhancing Strategies in Community Prosecution. Congress appropriated $25 million to support Community Prosecution programs for FY2001. Prosecutors can apply for up to $75,000 to plan community prosecution initiatives, $200,000 to implement community prosecution, or $150,000 to enhance the program in their jurisdiction. Applications should describe how the prosecutor's office will work with the community to prevent crime and violence and improve public safety. Each application should identify:
a mechanism for community participation that allows communities to identify local priorities, engage in problem solving and strategic planning, and communicate directly with the prosecutor's office;
- key partners and their roles in the community prosecution program;
- a proactive approach in the areas of crime prevention, enforcement and community engagement;
- a plan to develop programs, services, and sanctions that restore the victim, the offender, and the community;
- the relationship between the community prosecution initiative and other criminal justice initiatives
To download a copy of the grant announcement and the full application kit, visit our Web site at http://www.ndaa-apri.org For more information about the grants, call BJA at (800) 421-6770. For information on developing a community prosecution initiative, call APRI at (703) 518-4386.
Community Gun Violence Prevention
On May 14, 2001, President Bush announced Project Safe Neighborhoods, a major federal-state-local initiative to combat gun-related crimes and violence in communities across America, modeled after Richmond, VA's highly successful Project Exile initiative. The President stated, "It will involve an unprecedented partnership between all levels of government. It will increase accountability within our systems. And it will send an unmistakable message: if you use a gun illegally, you will do hard time."
The President also noted that this initiative provides unprecedented funding "to hire new federal and state prosecutors, to support investigators, to provide training and develop and promote community outreach efforts." He emphasized that "Federal prosecutors and agents will be trained with local prosecutors and law enforcement in order to promote better collaboration."
Congress appropriated $75 million for FY 2001 to fund approximately 600 state and local gun prosecutors. The program focuses on improving the long-term ability of prosecutors' offices to address the issue of violent firearm-related crimes and deter violent crime through the swift certainty of prosecution. Registration for this program opened on May 15, 2001 and the application deadline is July 20, 2001. For more information and an application, see the BJA website: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/html/cgvpp.htm. This solicitation is entirely electronic.
APRI is currently gathering information on successful community gun violence prevention programs such as Project Exile in Virginia, Automatic FIVE in Baltimore, MD, and SafeCities in Fort Worth, TX, and is creating a curriculum for training prosecutors on community gun violence prevention.
HIGHLIGHT: HOWARD COUNTY'S COMMUNITY JUSTICE PROGRAM
In 1995, the Howard County, Maryland State's Attorney's Office began to examine a new way of looking at how to better serve the community in dealing with public safety, livability, and quality of life issues. Thanks to a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), Howard County's efforts with community prosecution have evolved into a permanent countywide program with many successes. More recently, BJA selected Howard County to receive of a national Community Prosecution Leadership Grant.
Howard County, a mid-sized, suburban jurisdiction located between Baltimore and Washington, DC, has 26 Assistant State's Attorneys to represent a growing population of 247,842 people. State's Attorney Marna McLendon initiated the Community Justice Program to forge closer working relationships with the Howard County Police Department, other county agencies, citizens, educators, business owners, and all those who share the desire to improve the quality of life in Howard County.
To identify the goals of the initiative and outline the direction the program would take, a steering committee was formed. The committee initially included criminal justice partners from the Howard County Police Department, Department of Juvenile Justice, Department of Corrections, Parole and Probation, Department of Citizens Services, citizens, as well as the county council member for the identified area. As the program expanded, so did the list of participants on the steering committee. The committee has diversified and now includes representatives from the Sheriff's Office, Housing, Education, and the Howard County Chamber of Commerce.
Unlike many other community prosecution programs, the Howard County program involves every prosecutor in the office. In addition to regular courtroom duties, each prosecutor is assigned to work with community groups, businesses, and schools in a particular area of the county. The prosecutors are supported by a Community Justice Coordinator who monitors activities in the community, tracks cases that are important to the community, schedules attorneys to attend community meetings, and keeps track of information on community prosecution.
Through daily interaction with police, prosecutors and the community, the Coordinator helps to define community concerns, identify problem offenders, and implement problem-solving strategies.
Some of these problem-solving strategies include implementing School-Based Cluster Meetings, working with Mid-Atlantic Regional Community Policing Institute, educating prosecutors on community issues, and working with neighbors and landlords to evict problem and disruptive tenants.
Five years ago, the Howard County State's Attorney's Office began working with the Howard County School System and implemented School-Based Cluster Meetings in several high schools. The bi-monthly meetings are attended by the area prosecutor, school administrators, guidance counselors, school psychologists, school resource officers, and personnel from the Departments of Social Services and Juvenile Justice. These meetings facilitate the sharing of information regarding young offenders. Through these coordinated efforts, public safety concerns are more effectively addressed and offenders receive the level of attention appropriate to their situation.
Community prosecution initiatives require prosecutors to "think outside the box" and rely on skills not taught in law school. To provide training to prosecutors taking on a non-traditional role, the State's Attorney's Office recently collaborated with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Community Policing Institute and hosted two workshops in Columbia, Maryland. The first training, Connection: Courtroom to Community, was for citizens, prosecutors, and police officers. The second workshop was a follow-up training on leadership and problem solving that included participation from mid-level to senior police managers and prosecutors.
To educate all of the partners involved in the community prosecution initiative on some of the issues facing the community, Howard County prosecutors, police officers, community leaders, representatives from the county council and the local Chamber of Commerce recently took a bus tour around Howard County. The tour, narrated by senior supervisors in the police department, was a vehicle for interagency communication as prosecutors and concerned citizens learned about specific problems faced by particular communities. The tour was a success; as one prosecutor stated, "When you know what is happening behind the scenes you are better able to make your case in court."
The Howard County State's Attorney's Office Community Justice Program is gaining ground in its efforts to improve the quality of life within the county. This process is ongoing and relies heavily on continued community and interagency communication, cooperation and participation.
For more information, call Kim Charity, Community Justice Program Coordinator, at (410) 313-2291, or write: Howard County State's Attorney's Office, 8360 Court Avenue, Ellicott City, Maryland 21043, or e-mail: kcharity@co.ho.md.us.
News In Our Community
- WORKSHOPS: During April and May, 207 people representing 64 jurisdictions participated in three APRI-hosted workshops on how to plan for and implement a community prosecution initiative. The workshops held in Portland, OR, and Denver, CO were sponsored by BJA; the Columbia, SC workshop was sponsored by the National District Attorneys Association's National Advocacy Center. The workshops provided participants the opportunity to learn the basic concepts of community prosecution, including how to select a target area, conduct a needs assessment, solicit community input, evaluate resources, establish and strengthen partnerships, develop and implement effective strategies and evaluate the program's successes.
- SITE VISITS: Since January, APRI staff conducted site visits to South Bend, IN; Gary, IN; Kane County, IL; Cook County, IL; Clackamas County, OR; Multnomah County, OR; Lane County, OR; Olympia, WA; Tacoma, WA; Lacey, WA; Denver, CO's District Attorney's Office; Denver, CO's City Attorney's Office; Pueblo, CO; Fort Worth, TX; Dallas, TX; Richmond, VA; Baltimore, MD; and Albany, NY. The purpose of these visits was to provide technical assistance and assist prosecutors in the planning and implementation of their community prosecution initiatives. If you would like more information on these site visits or how to request a site visit for your jurisdiction, please contact APRI at (703) 518-4386.
- WEB SITE LINKS: For information on community prosecution programs near you, visit the Links section of our Web page where you can connect to community prosecution sites from around the country. If you have a program that is not listed, or have suggestions for the Web site, please let us know. Check back periodically for changes, announcements of upcoming trainings, publications and information on new grant solicitations. http://www.ndaa-apri.org
- EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES: Are you interested in utilizing your community prosecution experience and skills at the national level? APRI is seeking senior attorneys for the community prosecution and community gun violence prevention programs to provide training and technical assistance for prosecutors around the country. Contact Heather Coles at APRI at (703) 519-1680 or heather.coles@ndaa-apri.org
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