NCJ Number
184262
Date Published
October 1999
Length
2 pages
Annotation
National Night Out is program that provides information, educational materials, and technical assistance for the development of effective year-long community-police partnerships to reduce crime, violence, and substance abuse at the community level.
Abstract
Coordinated by local law enforcement and trained volunteers, National Night Out events are designed to engage neighborhoods in local crime and substance abuse prevention activities. The program creates crime prevention awareness in the community through local events, such as block parties, cookouts, parades, contests, youth events, and seminars. The program generates community support for crime and substance abuse prevention activities, as well as a high level of community participation. The presence of police officers in the community under the positive circumstances of a National Night Out allows many residents to meet their police officers on a one-to-one basis. First launched in 1984, the National Night Out program has expanded to include 32 million people representing 9,500 communities in 1999. Project 365 is a target component of the National Night Out program that helps communities identify specific problem areas and then work to resolve these problems over the next 365 days. Continuing goals of the National Night Out program are to refine the nationwide crime prevention campaign, to identify and document successful crime prevention strategies, to expand Project 365, to disseminate information about successful community-based crime prevention strategies, and to provide technical assistance by telephone on crime prevention program development.