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U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Shay Bilchik, Administrator

From the Administrator

For the past 4 years, the Office ofJuvenile Justice and DelinquencyPrevention has been promoting acomprehensive strategy as the bestway to respond to juvenile violencein communities throughout the UnitedStates. In 1994, Allegheny County,Pennsylvania, took steps to replacethe community’s fragmented responseto juvenile violence with a collabora-tive and coordinated approach.

The Allegheny County comprehen-sive antiviolence mobilization effortinvolves the law enforcement commu-nity, public and private agencies,grassroots organizations, and indi-vidual citizens. It recognizes thatjuvenile crime is a societal problemthat can be solved only with thecooperation of the entire community.

The county is already seeing positiveresults from this coordinated approach.From 1994 to 1995, the overall numberof juveniles arrested and the numberarrested for violent crime declined inAllegheny County—declines thatexceeded those recorded statewide.

While Allegheny County works tomeet the challenge of sustaining thelong-term commitment necessary forcontinued progress, other communi-ties considering new ways to reducejuvenile violence will surely find bothinspiration and practical lessons fromthe approach described in thisBulletin.

Shay BilchikAdministrator

June 1997

FPO

Allegheny County, PA:Mobilizing To ReduceJuvenile CrimeHeidi M. Hsia, Ph.D.

Juvenile crime and its immediate andlong-term economic and human costshave become a national concern. Programsto prevent and reduce delinquency havedeveloped across the country. Amongthem, what has taken place in AlleghenyCounty, Pennsylvania, exemplifies a large-scale, comprehensive, and proactiveeffort to mobilize the community to achievea collaborative and coordinated anti-violence approach. After 2 years, systemimprovements, including increased andcoordinated services for juveniles at highrisk of engaging in juvenile crime, haveled to a corresponding reduction in juve-nile crime, including violent crime. ThisBulletin describes the background andthe development of the communitywidecollaborative process in Allegheny County,documents examples of the accomplish-ments resulting from this process, andexamines the reasons for success. It alsoconsiders the broad juvenile justice con-text in which the community effort hastaken place and concludes with lessonslearned and future challenges.

BackgroundAllegheny County, which includes the

city of Pittsburgh, has a population of1,336,450 and is the second most popu-lated county in Pennsylvania. From 1989

to 1993, when the county’s overall crimearrest rate declined and the overall juve-nile crime arrest rate remained relativelystable, the rate of juvenile violent crimearrests—murder, manslaughter, forciblerape, robbery, and aggravated assault—increased dramatically. In response tothis increase in juvenile violent crimeand the resulting public concern, a

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countywide comprehensive antiviolenceeffort was launched to:

◆ Mobilize the law enforcement commu-nity through Law Enforcement AgencyDirectors (LEAD) meetings.

◆ Mobilize public and private agencies,grassroots organizations, and individu-als through the Youth Crime Preven-tion Council (YCPC).

◆ Mobilize citizens through mass com-munity education.

The mobilization process can best becharacterized by extensive and steadfastcoordination, collaboration, and involve-ment of all parts of the community, result-ing in positive systemic changes and col-laboration across socioeconomic, ethnic,and political lines.

Law Enforcement AgencyDirectors Meetings

LEAD meetings began as periodic gath-erings of Federal law enforcement agen-cies to address issues of public safety. Bythe end of 1993, these meetings had beenexpanded to include 17 Federal, State,county, and local law enforcement lead-ers, each dedicated to aggressively over-coming turf issues through informationsharing and intensive collaboration. TheU.S. attorney for western Pennsylvania,Frederick W. Thieman, chairs thesemonthly meetings. (See table 1 for mem-bership listing.) Through LEAD, a central-ized and coordinated effort was estab-lished in Allegheny County to target toughlaw enforcement interventions on those

individuals and entities that exposeyoung people to violence, guns, anddrugs. It was also through LEAD that theleaders of the law enforcement commu-nity agreed that youth violence is not justa law enforcement issue but a societalone. Therefore, these law enforcementcommunity leaders have become not onlya unified force for tough law enforcementbut also a strong voice for comprehen-sive, communitywide prevention effortsdesigned to reduce youth violence. Inter-agency task forces were formed underLEAD to address a variety of law enforce-ment issues, including youth violence.

Youth Crime PreventionCouncil

In May 1994, the U.S. attorney’s officehosted a 11/2-day retreat in which 42policymakers representing a broad crosssection of Allegheny County convened toaddress youth violence. At the retreat itbecame clear that the community’s re-sponse to youth violence was fragmentedand that a community collaborative andcoordinated approach was criticallyneeded. YCPC, also chaired by the U.S.attorney, was established in June 1994.YCPC has an 8-member steering commit-tee and a 21-member action committee.(See table 2 for membership listing.)The Council consists of leaders from lawenforcement, government, juvenile jus-tice, education, the faith community, themedia, and health and human services,and also includes grassroots communityactivists, neighborhood representatives,

families, and youth. The Council meetsmonthly to work on jointly developing ayouth crime prevention plan and per-forms the following functions:

◆ Assessing community needs: YCPCstudies the crime trends in AlleghenyCounty, identifies the level of juvenileviolence, and analyzes issues underly-ing juvenile crime to reach consensusabout the needs to be addressed in thelocal community.

◆ Developing strategies: YCPC creates aunified strategy to address local juve-nile crime, emphasizing tough law en-forcement and community-driven pre-vention efforts.

◆ Establishing implementation plans:YCPC identifies potential initiativesand prioritizes them for implementa-tion. These initiatives reflect the fol-lowing activities that the county is un-dertaking to reduce juvenile crime:

❖ Afterschool safe places. Createa network of safe places with con-structive activities for youth in high-risk neighborhoods.

❖ Sports leagues. Create sports pro-grams in at-risk neighborhoods.

❖ Jobs. Create and find jobs for youngpeople.

❖ Family support centers. Provideprevention, healthy child develop-ment, and economic self-reliancesupport for at-risk families.

Table 1: Membership of Law Enforcement Agency Directors (LEAD) Meetings

◆ Allegheny County police department

◆ Allegheny County sheriff’s department

◆ Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms

◆ City of Pittsburgh police department

◆ District Attorney of Allegheny County

◆ U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration

◆ Federal Bureau of Investigation

◆ U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service

◆ U.S. Internal Revenue Service, CriminalInvestigation Division

◆ Office of the United States Attorney (Chair)

◆ Pennsylvania attorney general’s office

◆ Bureau of Narcotics Investigation/Drug Control

◆ Pennsylvania State police

◆ U.S. Customs Service

◆ U.S. Marshal’s Office

◆ U.S. Postal Inspection Service

◆ U.S. Secret Service

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❖ Mentoring. Increase the number oftrained volunteer mentors to meetthe demand.

❖ Head Start/day care. Increasethe enrollment of underprivilegedchildren in quality early educationand family support programs.

❖ Juvenile justice. Ensure appropri-ate consequences for serious andviolent juvenile offenders.

❖ Leadership development. Promotethe development of leadership skillsin youth.

❖ Community accountability.Involve community residents indecisionmaking about the youthcrime reduction strategies for theirneighborhoods.

❖ Gun proliferation. Stop the spreadof illegal guns and target law en-forcement efforts against thosewho make guns available to youth.

❖ Health/wellness. Promote healthybehaviors through home visitation,pre- and postnatal training, andother means.

❖ Inschool activities. Encouragestudents to participate in existinginschool activities and provideschool-based probation and otherservices within more schools.

❖ Substance abuse. Develop publiceducation campaigns to spread sub-stance abuse prevention and inter-vention messages.

❖ Police response. Expand commu-nity oriented policing emphasizingprevention, problem solving, andintervention.

❖ Domestic violence prevention. In-crease countywide shelter capacityfor domestic violence victims andevaluate the local impact of domes-tic violence on juveniles.

In addition, a strategic plan for a com-munity antiviolence effort is establishedeach year.

◆ Implementing initiatives: For eachinitiative, YCPC brings together a teamof collaborating agencies that worktogether to coordinate resource-seeking and program developmentefforts. The Council continues to coor-dinate the efforts of these groups.

Table 2: Membership of Youth Crime Prevention Council (YCPC)

Steering Committee:

◆ The Chair County Commissioner

◆ The vice president of a major public utility company,who also serves as president of the board of directorsof the Pittsburgh Urban League

◆ The chairperson of one of the largest locally basedfoundations in the country

◆ The president and CEO of Pittsburgh’s public televisionstation

◆ The mayor of the city of Pittsburgh

◆ The United States attorney (Chair)

◆ A leading officer of one of Pittsburgh’s major corporations

◆ The bishop of the Catholic diocese of Pittsburgh

Action Committee:

◆ The executive director of the largest female offendersprogram in Pittsburgh

◆ The director of intergovernmental relations for the cityof Pittsburgh

◆ An assistant U.S. attorney

◆ The president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Urban League

◆ The deputy mayor of the city of Pittsburgh

◆ The director of the family division of the Court ofCommon Pleas of Allegheny County

◆ The president of a local television station

◆ The president of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation

◆ The retired president and CEO of a major Pittsburghcorporation

◆ The director of the National Center for Juvenile Justice

◆ The vice president for program and policy of the PittsburghFoundation

◆ The secretary for pastoral life of the Catholic diocese ofPittsburgh

◆ The president of the Allegheny Policy Council

◆ The president of United Way

◆ The director of the County Mental Health, MentalRetardation, Drug and Alcohol, and Health and HumanServices Program

◆ The senior program officer for a major local foundation

◆ The community relations consultant for a local televisionstation

◆ A pastor of a large Baptist church and former president ofthe Pittsburgh chapter of the National Association for theAdvancement of Colored People (NAACP)

◆ The executive director of the Allegheny County Conferenceon Community Development

◆ The vice president of the Pittsburgh chapter of theNAACP

◆ The district attorney of Allegheny County

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◆ Leading and coordinating communityefforts: YCPC performs an umbrellaleadership role, serving as a clearing-house to coordinate community effortsregarding young people and ensuringgrassroots participation.

Mass Community EducationYCPC representatives have been in-

strumental in pursuing methods of masscommunity education designed to reachevery individual in the community, topresent a realistic picture of youth crimein the county, and to mobilize the entirecommunity to be actively involved inraising its children and ensuring publicsafety. The county intends to continuethese large-scale and ongoing communityeducation efforts to involve all citizens inthe effort to reduce youth violence.

Examples ofAccomplishmentsin Local Initiatives◆ Turf issues have been reduced through

information sharing as the countystrives for a unified approach to re-duce youth violence. For example, ashared data base of drug investiga-tions, shared radio frequencies, jointreview of crime trends, and sharing of

gang intelligence among law enforce-ment agencies all significantly facilitatecoordinated drug investigations andantigang strategies.

◆ LEAD has established six task forcescomposed of officials from various lawenforcement agencies. Coordinationamong the task forces occurs throughthree channels: monthly LEAD meet-ings; unofficial case discussions andinformation sharing among the agentswithin a task force or an agency, andacross task forces and agencies; andthe use of the Drug Enforcement Coor-dination System (DECS). DECS, whichbecame operational in mid-1995, is alocalized and individual-based informa-tion system maintained by the U.S.Drug Enforcement Administration(DEA). When a law enforcement agencydevelops a drug crime suspect profile,that agency’s DECS coordinator sub-mits the suspect’s name, address, andany additional information to DECS. Ifmore than one agency submits infor-mation about the same suspect, DEAlinks the involved agencies for a col-laborative and coordinated investigation.

The work of the task forces has beenimpressive. For example, the GreaterPittsburgh Violent Crime/Gang TaskForce is staffed by agents from the

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),the Pennsylvania State attorney gen-eral’s office, the Pennsylvania Statepolice, and the Pittsburgh city policedepartment. This effort was respon-sible for breaking up a bank robberygang that had committed 15 armedrobberies in western Pennsylvania.The task force recently focused onjuvenile gangs.

At times, the task force coordinates itsactivities with the Violent TraffickersProject (VTP) Task Force, which isstaffed by personnel from the Pitts-burgh police, Allegheny County police,Allegheny County sheriff’s office, Penn-sylvania State police, PennsylvaniaState attorney general’s office, the FBI,and DEA. In late 1996, the Gang TaskForce, working in conjunction with theVTP Task Force, indicted 45 membersof Pittsburgh’s most notorious streetgangs in a 120-count Racketeer Influ-enced and Corrupt Organizations(RICO) Act indictment.

The Western Pennsylvania FirearmsTrafficking Gun Task Force is com-posed of three Alcohol, Tobacco andFirearms agents; two city of Pittsburghdetectives; and one Allegheny Countydetective. Depending on the location ofthe investigations, the task force issupplemented by three detectives fromoutlying counties (Westmoreland andFayette) and one investigator from theState attorney general’s office. Thistask force also coordinates its activi-ties with the city of Pittsburgh GunTask Force. In 1995 and 1996, the GangTask Force, together with the city ofPittsburgh Gun Task Force, broughtcharges against 58 street criminals andgun dealers who had been stealingguns and selling weapons to youthgangs.

The Weed and Seed Task Force II, work-ing in conjunction with Pittsburghpolice, arrested 400 individuals whopreyed upon young people and othervulnerable residents in public housingcommunities located in Weed and Seedneighborhoods. All of these task forcesare consistent with the key initiativesestablished by YCPC.

◆ Four new Allegheny County family sup-port centers (now totaling 22) wereestablished. These centers housecommunity-based and community-driven programs designed to offer

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support to area families while theirproblems are in the early stages. Spe-cific services provided are parentingand childhood development education,healthcare, childcare, and social andrecreational activities.

◆ Sports leagues were started in 12 com-munities. These programs provideyouth in high-crime neighborhoods,who are involved in gangs or at risk ofgang involvement, with supervised flagfootball, basketball, hockey, softball,volleyball, and track programs. Someof these leagues are coeducational andsome are for girls only. They provideyouth with constructive alternatives togang and delinquent behaviors, en-courage positive group interaction,promote teamwork and good sports-manship, enhance skill development,and provide age-appropriate fitnesstraining. Training and employment op-portunities are also provided in theareas of coaching, officiating, andsports photography. Educational sup-port is provided through tutoring, aca-demic skill-building classes, and 2-yearscholarships to local community col-leges. An average of 3,200 youth par-ticipate in these sports leagues eachyear. Juvenile offenders also have beenreferred to the leagues, with 60 court-referred juveniles currently enrolledunder the Great Start Program.

◆ YouthWorks, a campaign for summerand year-round jobs, placed 2,448 highschool students in private and non-profit sector jobs in 1996. The job pro-gram includes mentoring and leader-ship training to expose the studentsto role models in the workplace andencourages their career aspirations.

◆ Three communities planned and imple-mented Communities That Care, aneighborhood-based antiviolence anddelinquency prevention initiative.These communities assessed their ju-venile crime prevention needs and de-veloped and implemented plans to re-duce juvenile crime that meet theirunique local needs. Under this initia-tive, the Hosanna House in Wilkinsburgtrained 5 young African-American mento serve as advocates and role modelsfor 50 boys in grades 1 through 6 at theWilkinsburg Kelly School. These menteach students positive social skills,help them examine and predict the

consequences of their choices, and pro-mote a desire for academic achieve-ment. As a result of this individualizedapproach, in the first year of the pro-gram the grades of 47 of 48 participat-ing students improved and absentee-ism decreased by 50 percent. Throughthe East End Cooperative Ministry,adult outreach workers work individu-ally with 15 to 20 high-risk children inLincoln Elementary School to buildrelationships, encourage school atten-dance, teach conflict resolution, andprovide afterschool support for home-work completion and other educa-tional and recreational opportunities.

◆ New youth leadership developmentmodels were established to recognizeand develop valuable leadership skillsand to guide youth to use these skillsin positive and productive pursuitssuch as violence prevention.

◆ In March 1995, a television programentitled “It Takes a Whole CommunityTo Raise a Child,” produced with thePittsburgh Urban League, featured sto-ries about citizens in the communitywho had done something to reversethe cycle of violence. Simultaneouslyaired without commercial interrup-tions on all western Pennsylvania tele-vision stations, the program resultedin a great deal of press coverage, en-thusiastic community response, andfollowup activities to further commu-nity education efforts.

◆ YCPC has become a well-known andhighly respected leader of youth crimeinitiatives in the county. Consequently,YCPC’s support and endorsementare sought by programs presentingproposals and grant requests. The col-laborative effort fostered by YCPC hasalso facilitated grant applications, at-tracted private funds, minimized dupli-cation of effort, and prevented isolatedand uncoordinated efforts. With eachfunding opportunity, such as the Officeof Juvenile Justice and DelinquencyPrevention’s (OJJDP’s) Title V Commu-nity Prevention Grants Program, thecounty has furthered its collaborativeprocess through the use of YCPC.YCPC ensures that the proposed pro-grams are within the scope of its prior-ity initiatives and that they comple-ment existing programs as envisionedby all stakeholders.

Reasons for Successof the CoordinationProcess◆ Leadership. The U.S. attorney’s office

has effectively mobilized the lawenforcement community and thecommunity at large. Locally there aremany leaders in the juvenile justiceand human services fields, and alsoin the business, religious, ethnic, andgrassroots communities, who are com-mitted to collaborative and coordinatedefforts in reducing youth violence.Many of these leaders serve on theCouncil and its committees. As a re-sult, leaders of virtually all segments ofthe community are represented in thiscommunity mobilization effort.

◆ Thoughtful selection of Council mem-bers. At an early stage, it was recog-nized that youth crime is a societalproblem that has an impact on the en-tire community, that existing efforts toreduce youth crime had been frag-mented, and that one agency could notdeal with it effectively alone. As a re-sult, two themes emerged in member-ship selection:

❖ Inclusiveness. YCPC membershipincludes government officials, foun-dation members, business and reli-gious leaders, community leaders,

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and the media. Each member isactive in the community and, byvirtue of his or her position, is ex-pected to make a significant andunique contribution to the workof the Council. The bishop of theCatholic diocese of Pittsburgh,for example, “lends both a spiritualperspective and a vast networkof churches with considerableresources” (Certo, 1996). Themembership is also balanced interms of gender and ethnicity.

❖ Top-down and bottom-up method.Council members include leaders invarious fields who can get thingsdone with their power of persuasionand position and grassroots activ-ists with credibility in the neighbor-hoods. For example, the effort tocreate jobs for youth is led by agroup of prominent businesspeople.Their advocacy within their owncompanies and networking with CEO’sand presidents of other companiesgreatly facilitate the creation of jobsfor youth. On the other hand, youthjob placement and support arecoordinated within neighborhoodnetworks of community-based orga-nizations, schools, and residents.

◆ Active solicitation of youth participa-tion. This exhaustive effort was evidentin the initial needs assessment work ofthe Council and continues with later

projects. For example, to develop astrategy for the Youth Leadership De-velopment Skills Initiative, the presi-dent of the Jewish Healthcare Founda-tion, who heads the initiative, solicitedinput from 20 youth organizations ata retreat and from 50 youth in 5 focusgroups and involved 30 additionalyouth to review the draft strategy—all in a concerted effort to ensure thatthe final product was representative ofand responsive to the needs of youth.Similarly, the Council’s annual strategicplans rely heavily on the testimony ofyoung people, parents, and communityleaders in the 88 city neighborhoodsand 130 municipalities in the county.

◆ YCPC as the umbrella coordinatingbody for youth violence reductionefforts. YCPC is recognized in AlleghenyCounty as the coordinator and endorserfor youth-supporting activities. Forexample, members of LEAD (the U.S.attorney, the district attorney, headof the local office of the FBI, and citypolice chief) are active in YCPC, andYCPC has members representing themedia (the president and CEO ofPittsburgh’s public television station,the president of a local television sta-tion, and the community relations con-sultant for a local television station).With such overlapping memberships,coordination and collaboration are en-sured across both prevention and lawenforcement activities and also in thepublicity they generate.

◆ Persistent followthrough. Both YCPCand LEAD meet monthly. These meet-ings serve as forums for followingthrough on issue discussions and taskimplementation. At these meetingsleaders of initiatives and task forcesreport on progress and solve prob-lems. Members are encouraged by thereported progress, and momentum forcontinuing the effort is maintained.Similarly, mass community educationis not conducted as a one-time energiz-ing event, but as an integral part ofYCPC’s yearly strategic plans and on-going efforts.

Broad Juvenile JusticeContext

To truly assess and appreciate AlleghenyCounty’s extraordinary efforts in reducingjuvenile crime, one must also examine the

broad juvenile justice context withinwhich the community mobilization effortsdescribed above occur.

First, Allegheny County is home to theNational Center for Juvenile Justice(NCJJ), the University of Pittsburgh, andCarnegie Mellon University, all of whichare prestigious institutions with renownedscholars in the juvenile justice field. ThePittsburgh Youth Study on the Causes andCorrelates of Delinquency at the Univer-sity of Pittsburgh, supported by OJJDP,has followed 1,500 boys in grades 1, 4,and 7 since 1987. It includes site-specificstudies at Pittsburgh on the prevalence,frequency, and onset of delinquent behav-ior; mental health and family factors ofpredelinquent and delinquent behaviors;and various forms of substance abuse anddrug dealing. This longitudinal study in-formed OJJDP’s Comprehensive Strategyfor Serious, Violent, and Chronic JuvenileOffenders (Wilson and Howell, 1993) andhas guided program development for thispopulation nationwide. The Pittsburgh-specific element of the study has enableda greater understanding of juvenile crimeproblems in Allegheny County and hasinformed and influenced its policies, pro-cedures, and program development ef-forts in the juvenile justice area. NCJJ hasestablished an Allegheny County-specificdata base that includes several years ofarrest data and juvenile court case dispo-sition data by census tract and neighbor-hood. The Center has served as a valu-able resource for the county in itsprogram planning and evaluation efforts.The county’s proximity to CarnegieMellon University helps the county keepabreast of the findings of the National In-stitute of Justice-funded Youth Violence,Guns, and Links to Illicit Drug Marketstudy. All three institutions and their re-searchers are rich resources for reliabledata to enable the county to make in-formed decisions in reducing juvenilecrime.

Second, there is a strong State, county,and private commitment to, and invest-ment in, reducing juvenile crime in Alle-gheny County. For example, AlleghenyCounty has been called the “family sup-port capital of the Nation.” Its 22 familysupport centers, with State, local, andprivate funds, provide intensive preven-tive and supportive services to nearly2,000 families in high-risk neighborhoodseach year through parenting and child

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development support, home visitation,and case management to increase paren-tal competence and the families’ ability toutilize other community resources.

Thousands of children and adults eachyear benefit from other programs offeredby the centers, such as parent supportgroups, health education, mentoring, andtutoring. The Health Education Center, anot-for-profit affiliate of Blue Cross ofWestern Pennsylvania, in collaborationwith the Girl Scouts, the American RedCross, Blue Cross, the city housing au-thority, and the city parks department,facilitates health promotion and life skillsactivities for girls and young women ineight western Pennsylvania public hous-ing communities. In January 1995, theFemale Outreach Collaborative (FORCE)was launched with collaborative founda-tion funding. Outreach workers providesupport and positive reinforcement to at-risk and delinquent 12- to 18-year-old girlsin five high-crime areas in Pittsburgh’sEast End and in Wilkinsburg and referthem to appropriate education, employ-ment, and health services. FORCE seeksto intervene early in delinquent behaviorsof girls and interrupt the cycle of violencein which girls and young women are oftenboth victims and offenders. Hundreds ofgirls have been served by this program.

Local foundations have also supporteda strategic planning process for the Mayor’sYouth Initiative for Serious Offenders. Thestrategic planning process involved themayor of Pittsburgh and his youth policy

staff; juvenile court, law enforcement, andschool officials; health and human ser-vices providers; and community leadersin designing an intensive and mandatory6-month to 2-year probationary programfor Pittsburgh-area youth who return totheir home communities from secureinstitutional or other residential place-ments. The initiative is being implementedwith both public and private funds.

Programs such as Hosanna House andthe East End Cooperative Ministry arealso examples of ongoing collaborativeefforts among all sectors of the commu-nity, including church, government, busi-ness, and education. By involving thesesectors, the community is better able tomeet its need for a special focus on fami-lies and youth.

Third, Allegheny County is an activeparticipant in many federally fundedinitiatives that empower communities,promote positive and healthy child devel-opment and economic self-sufficiency,prevent exploitation of children, andstrengthen families. Examples are theU.S. Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment’s Enterprise Communities,National Youth Sports Program, PublicHousing Drug Elimination Program, andYouthBuild; the U.S. Department of Healthand Human Services’ Community Partner-ship Demonstration Program and HealthyStart sites; the U.S. Department of Labor’sJob Corps and Youth Fair Chance; andthe Corporation for National Service’sAmeriCorps program. The community

mobilization efforts led by YCPC coordi-nate with and build upon these federallyfunded initiatives.

Fourth, significant improvement in lawenforcement and in the juvenile justicesystem has occurred in Allegheny Countyas a result of targeted efforts funded bythe U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Inthe past 2 years, a total of about $15million in DOJ grant funds has enabledimportant system improvements in lawenforcement and juvenile justice in Al-legheny County. Examples include thefollowing:

◆ Community Oriented Policing Ser-vices (COPS) Grants. From fiscal year(FY) 1995 until early FY 1997, AlleghenyCounty received about $7.7 million tohire more than 118 officers with COPS–Phase I; COPS AHEAD (AcceleratedHiring, Education, and Deployment);COPS FAST (Funding Accelerated forSmaller Towns, specifically, those withpopulations under 50,000); and COPSUniversal Hiring Grant funds. COPSMORE (Making Officer RedeploymentEffective) grants of more than $4.5 mil-lion will help automate the county’srecords management system, whichwill result in the redeployment of ap-proximately 180 officers. A COPS Com-munity Policing to Combat DomesticViolence Grant will enable the countyto employ community policing to en-hance police response to domestic vio-lence. With this sizable increase of newofficers, community oriented policinghas been expanded in neighborhoodswith high crime and gang activities. Inneighborhoods with public housing,city and housing authority police willwork together in community policing.Particular attention will be paid to cre-ating alternatives to gang membershipfor youth. The city of Pittsburgh’sCOPS program has undertaken a“Scared Straight” project, in whichyouth displaying early delinquent be-havior visit adult prisoners to help theyouth foresee the consequences ofcriminal behaviors, with the goal ofsteering them away from lives of crime.A long-range strategy is to incorporatetraining for community oriented polic-ing into formal police training pro-grams, thereby equipping all policeofficers with new problem-solving andcommunity organization skills.

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◆ Balanced and Restorative JusticeProject (BARJ). Allegheny County waschosen as one of the first three sitesto receive OJJDP-supported intensivetraining and technical assistance underthe BARJ program, including guidelinematerials to assist in implementingmajor changes in the juvenile justicesystem. The county’s juvenile justicesystem has worked toward emphasiz-ing offender accountability, communityprotection, and competency develop-ment to address the needs of victims,communities, and offenders. For ex-ample, the Community Intensive Super-vision Project (CISP) of AlleghenyCounty works with juveniles to buildstrong community bonds by structur-ing community service activitiesthrough which they can pay the com-munity back for crimes committed.Specifically, the juveniles planned anddeveloped a garden in a once-blightedarea in their neighborhood and sharedtheir produce by cooking and deliver-ing meals to homeless people. “Sincethe first harvest, participants havebeen hired for their gardening skills forother public gardens in the city [ofPittsburgh] and find great potential fortheir work. Allegheny County is alsoinvolving their community in planningfor a restorative juvenile justice sys-tem. Committees are being organizedcomprised of staff and communitymembers to look at competency devel-opment, community protection andoffender accountability” (Balancedand Restorative Justice Project Update).The BARJ project is now in its thirdyear and is a significant force in thereform of the county’s juvenile justicesystem.

◆ Accountability-Based Community(ABC) Intervention Project for Seri-ous, Violent, and Chronic JuvenileOffenders. Funded by OJJDP, AlleghenyCounty’s ABC Intervention Project isan effort to implement a plan for asystemwide strategy of intervention,treatment, and rehabilitation for seri-ous, violent, and chronic juvenile of-fenders that combines accountabilityand sanctions with increasingly inten-sive community-based intervention,treatment, and rehabilitation servicesif a juvenile reoffends. Componentsinclude victim assistance and victimawareness, parental responsibility,

healthcare, education, substance abuseand violence prevention, restitution,and personal accountability. Accom-plishments to date include a compre-hensive assessment of the county’sjuvenile court and available interven-tions, enhancement or establishmentof juvenile court linkages with thelarger county community, completionof courtwide strategic planning, devel-opment of a new mission for the juve-nile court, critical assessments of thejuvenile court’s case management pro-cesses and aftercare capacity, anddevelopment of effective interventionsfor African-American offenders, gang-involved youth, and female offenders.

◆ Allegheny County Minority Community-Based Prevention/Intervention Initia-tives. In 1991, the Center for JuvenileJustice Training and Research wasawarded OJJDP funds through theState to conduct the minority process-ing research project, The Role of Racein Pennsylvania’s Juvenile JusticeSystem. The study confirmed that“minority youth were over-representedamong referrals to Pennsylvania juve-nile courts and that African Americanyouth constituted the actual majorityof placements in the State” (Williamsand Spangenberg, 1996). Subsequently,minority community-based prevention/intervention initiatives were launchedin different communities to reduce theflow of minority youth into the juvenilejustice system and reduce their num-bers in secure confinement. In AlleghenyCounty, the following programs havebeen implemented:

❖ The Great Start Program, sponsoredby the Boys & Girls Clubs of West-ern Pennsylvania.

❖ Project Africa and Operation Ham-mer, sponsored by the East LibertyConcerned Citizens.

❖ Targeted School-Based Outreach,sponsored by the YMCA of Pitts-burgh.

Together, these three community-basedprograms provide 140 African-Americanyouth each year with culturally compe-tent programming in the areas of partici-patory sports; mentoring and tutoring;socialization and cultural enrichment;job readiness, part-time employment,and career guidance; nonviolent conflictresolution; healthy recreation; pregnancyprevention; life skills classes; family ac-tivities and counseling; and educationtrips.

Finally, the Weed and Seed Demonstra-tion Project in Allegheny County, fundedby the Executive Office for Weed andSeed, has conducted a comprehensivemultiagency program since 1992 to coor-dinate the delivery of criminal justice andsocial services to eliminate violent crime,drug trafficking, and drug-related crime;provide positive youth activities; renovatebuildings; and beautify sites. The demon-stration began in the Hill District and waslater expanded to the Hazelwood and GlenHazel neighborhoods of the city and alsoto the Homestead and West Homesteadneighborhoods in the county. In theseWeed and Seed neighborhoods, commu-nity policing is embraced by rankingmembers of the police department and isconceptualized as a generalized technique

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that demands the involvement of all offi-cers. All hotline calls regarding drug activ-ity and all drug arrests are entered intothe D-Map System, a computerized crimetracking location data base. The D-MapSystem enables accurate and up-to-datetracking of the “hot spots” of drug activityin the target area. The 13 police officers inthese neighborhoods also work closelywith community groups and have jointlyestablished programs such as BlockWatch Crime Prevention Programs; BlueBuddy Program (officers participate incommunity events to establish a positiveimage of the “uniform” in the eyes of thechildren); Police Explorers Program (offi-cers work with high school students whoare interested in law enforcement careers);Leaders in Training for Tomorrow (a lead-ership development program); and HealthSafety Day and the Keystone Aquatics(programs in which children are taughthealth and safety awareness and skills).

The positive impact of the community-oriented effort in the Weed and Seedneighborhoods is demonstrated by thefact that in the second quarter of 1996,

increased patrols in the Hazelwood targetarea resulted in 75 arrests, 90 percent ofwhich were for drug-related offenses, andin confiscation of drugs, beepers, andcellular phones. Residents in the commu-nity observe that the Hazelwood area hasappeared to be “calmer.” Examples of pre-vention, intervention, and treatmentprograms include the Young Fathers Pro-gram, which works to instill in young fa-thers the responsibilities of parenthood;the Youth Employment Program, throughwhich more than 300 youth have foundjobs; and a string orchestra and a bannerproject that offer arts exploration foryouth. Results of beautification projectsin the form of Earth Day, the Bricks andMortar Program, and gardens developedin previously high-crime areas are evidentthroughout these Weed and Seed sites.Most notably, all of these initiatives havebeen part of the coordinated efforts un-der the umbrella of YCPC and have con-tributed significantly to the county’s pre-vention, intervention, and law enforcementcapacities.

Table 3: Juvenile Arrests in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania Statewide(1992 to 1995)

County/State Types of Arrests 1992 1993 1994 1995

Allegheny County Number of persons under 8,701 8,398 9,190 7,95218 years old arrested

Number of persons under 593 608 730 51518 years old arrested forviolent crime*

Population under 18 290,748 293,507 293,392 290,857years old

Pennsylvania Number of persons under 95,864 96,003 107,772 105,249Statewide 18 years old arrested

Number of persons under 5,181 5,791 6,275 5,68518 years old arrested forviolent crime*

Population under 18 2,806,909 2,881,032 2,881,142 2,887,142years old

*Violent crime includes murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.

Sources: Pennsylvania State Police; Pennsylvania State Data Center.

Lessons Learned andFuture Challenges

It requires a great deal of energy andperseverance to bring so many peopleand organizations to the table to reachconsensus and to implement key initia-tives. In addition, tension and conflict arebound to occur between policymakersand citizens and among various groups.Sensitivity to these issues, and tact andskill in dealing with them, are all criticalin keeping the group focused on produc-tive work. Further, a community’s readyaccess to leading experts and institutionsin the juvenile justice field provides use-ful information and technical assistancein its policymaking along with planningand implementation of initiatives to reducejuvenile crime. This in turn enhances thecredibility of the community mobilizationefforts within the community and withvarious funding sources. Allegheny County’sdemonstrated ability to garner significantFederal, State, local, and private fundingbespeaks the importance of establishingand maintaining collaborative relation-ships between community practitioners

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and university researchers. Future chal-lenges for Allegheny County remain insustaining and building upon the momen-tum of this community mobilizationeffort.

Reductions in juvenile crime, as mea-sured by consistent reductions in thenumbers of juveniles arrested over time,are the ultimate indicators of the successof Allegheny County’s community mobili-zation efforts. The 1995 juvenile arrestdata from the Pennsylvania State policeshow a significant decline from 1994 inAllegheny County as compared with thestatewide data (see table 3). Specifically,there was a 13-percent decline in theoverall number of juveniles arrestedand a 30-percent decline in the numberof juveniles arrested for violent crime inAllegheny County from 1994 to 1995; thepercentages of decline statewide were2 percent and 9 percent, respectively.These reductions occurred within a con-text of generally increasing numbers ofoverall juvenile arrests and juvenile ar-rests for violent crime, both in AlleghenyCounty and statewide, from 1992 through1994, and within a stable juvenile popula-tion in Allegheny County and statewidefrom 1992 through 1995. It should benoted, however, that juvenile crime is a

multifaceted societal problem that re-quires concerted efforts on the part ofeveryone in the community for a longperiod of time. At present, one can con-clude that Allegheny County’s coordinatedeffort to reduce youth violence has shownencouraging signs of success. Given moretime, and provided that the community-wide collaborative and coordination pro-cess continues, recent reductions in juve-nile crime are likely to continue and belong lasting.

For Further InformationTask Forces of the Law EnforcementAgency Directors (LEAD)

◆ John McIlwainGroup Supervisor, Pittsburgh Field

Office IRoom 2104, Federal Building11000 Liberty AvenuePittsburgh, PA 15222412–395–6911412–395–4613 (fax)

Youth Crime Prevention Council ofAllegheny County, PA

◆ Robert Nelkin, Coordinator412–624–7425412–624–1187 (fax)

For written inquiries:The United States AttorneyWestern District of Pennsylvania633 United States Post Office and

CourthousePittsburgh, PA 15219

Law Enforcement CoordinatingCommittee

◆ William Coe, ManagerThe United States Attorney’s OfficeWestern District of Pennsylvania633 United States Post Office and

CourthousePittsburgh, PA 15219412–644–6700412–644–4549 (fax)

Balanced and Restorative Justice Project(BARJ)

◆ George Kinder, Program CoordinatorCommunity Intensive Supervision

Project519 Penn Avenue, Second FloorPittsburgh, PA 15221412–243–6886412–243–6950 (fax)

Accountability-Based Community (ABC)Intervention Project for Serious, Violent,and Chronic Juvenile Offenders

◆ Douglas Thomas, Research AssociateNational Center for Juvenile Justice710 Fifth Avenue, Third FloorPittsburgh, PA 15219412–227–6950412–227–6955 (fax)

Community-Based Juvenile DelinquencyPrevention/Intervention Programs

State Contact

◆ Mary Ann RhoadsDelinquency Prevention SpecialistPennsylvania Commission on Crime

and Delinquency (PCCD)P.O. Box 1167Federal SquareHarrisburg, PA 17108–1167717–787–8559717–783–7713 (fax)E-mail: rhoads@pccd.state.pa.us

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Youth Crime Prevention CouncilIntervention Committee

◆ James AllenYouth Policy DirectorOffice of the Mayor, City of PittsburghPublic Safety Building100 Grant Street, Suite 732Pittsburgh, PA 15219412–255–2258412–255–8663 (fax)

Weed and Seed Demonstration Project

◆ Dave Farley, Project DirectorOffice of the Mayor512 City County BuildingPittsburgh, PA 15219412–255–4765412–255–2687 (fax)E-mail: farley@infobahn.icubed.com

ReferencesBalanced and Restorative Justice Project

Update. Winter 1996. Vol. 1, No. 2. St. Paul,MN: Center for Restorative Justice andMediation, University of Minnesota.

Certo, T. 1996. Primary care. Pittsburgh(February): 54–59.

Freivalds, P. 1996 (July). Balanced andRestorative Justice Project (BARJ). Wash-ington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice andDelinquency Prevention, Office of JusticePrograms, U.S. Department of Justice.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delin-quency Prevention is a component of the Of-fice of Justice Programs, which also includesthe Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureauof Justice Statistics, the National Institute ofJustice, and the Office for Victims of Crime.

This Bulletin was prepared by Heidi M. Hsia,Ph.D., State Representative, State Relationsand Assistance Division, OJJDP.

Nelkin, R., ed. 1997. Youth Crime Pre-vention Council 1997 Strategic Plan. Pitts-burgh, PA: U.S. Attorney’s Office, WesternDistrict of Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania State Police Arrest Re-ports for Allegheny County, 1992–1995.

Rhoads, M.A. 1997 (March). “AlleghenyCounty Minority Over Representation Ini-tiative.” Juvenile Justice and DelinquencyPrevention: Project Summary and Analysis.Pennsylvania Commission on Crime andDelinquency.

Thieman, F.W. 1995. Allegheny CountyAntiviolence Initiative: A Community Re-port. U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western Dis-trict of Pennsylvania.

Williams, R.R., and C. Spangenberg.1996 (March). 1996 Update of Penn-sylvania’s FY1994–1996 Three-Year Juve-nile Justice and Delinquency PreventionPlan.

Wilson, J.J., and J.C. Howell. 1993 (De-cember). Comprehensive Strategy for Seri-ous, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offend-ers. Program Summary. Washington, DC:Office of Juvenile Justice and DelinquencyPrevention, Office of Justice Programs,U.S. Department of Justice.

The World Almanac and Book of Facts.1994. Mahwah, NJ: Funk & Wagnalls.

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Washington, DC 20531

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