NCJ Number
216780
Journal
The Police Chief: The Professional Voice of Law Enforcement Volume: 73 Issue: 12 Dated: December 2006 Pages: 87-91
Date Published
December 2006
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This article describes the Community Safety Zone Project, a crime prevention and neighborhood revitalization strategy of the Baltimore City Police Department.
Abstract
Following the 2005 implementation of the 4-week Community Safety Zone Project in five of Baltimore’s most distressed neighborhoods, homicides and shootings decreased 86 percent compared to the 6 month period prior to program implementation. Following the failure of traditional enforcement strategies to reduce crime and stabilize Baltimore’s high crime neighborhoods, the Baltimore City Police Department created a comprehensive neighborhood stabilization program. The Community Safety Zone Project has several complimentary components: (1) redirection of nonresidential traffic; (2) coordination of targeted city resources; (3) deployment of social outreach teams; (4) police-sponsored community events; and (5) a violence intervention program. First, police officers barricaded the neighborhood and allowed only residential and business traffic through, effectively wiping out the open air drug market that operated in the area. Next, city resources were targeted to clean up the neighborhood by removing graffiti, repairing street lights, removing trash and debris, boarding and securing vacant buildings, and installing an overt police camera system. Private and non-profit organizations were clustered together to form Social Outreach Teams that were deployed to the five neighborhoods. These Social Outreach Teams offered various services to residents, such as lead paint testing, drug treatment, job placement, and child mentoring. Police-sponsored community events were also held in the neighborhoods during the 4-week Community Safety Zone Project and consisted of job resource fairs, youth nights, and health fairs. The final component of the Community Safety Zone Project is a police-based violence intervention program for high-risk juveniles in the Safe Zone neighborhoods. The violence intervention program involves community relations education, a team-building ropes course, career development, bereavement counseling, films, and job skill training and educational development. Based on the success of the program, the Community Safety Zone Project has become a citywide strategy in Baltimore. Figure