NCJ Number
76806
Date Published
1981
Length
45 pages
Annotation
This report presents an assessment of community attitudes in Portland, Oreg., regarding institutionalization of crime prevention programs supported by the Police Crime Prevention Division, emphasizing the role that the community and city agencies plan to play in future crime prevention programs.
Abstract
The Crime Prevention Division of the Portland Police Bureau offers services to Portland residents in five program areas: youth, elderly, commercial, sexual assault, and residential. The division's primary goal is to reduce crime and the fear of crime by actively involving police and citizens in both short- and long-range community-based crime prevention activities and to institutionalize those activities into existing public and private organizations. Interviews conducted with 76 key program participants found overwhelming support of the crime prevention programs but an unwillingness or inability to sustain crime prevention activities independently of the police program. People interviewed staff and volunteers of city agencies which support the crime prevention programs, administrators and staff of community agencies and associations, and teachers and school administrators. Almost without exception, agency staff require assistance from the Crime Prevention Division to continue crime prevention programs. Many agencies neither have the resources nor the initiative to provide crime prevention services. A detailed list of crime prevention programs, the survey participants' responses, and the questionnaires used in the survey are appended. Five references are included.