Solving Youth Violence: Partnerships That Work.

MENU TITLE: Solving Youth Violence
Series: NIJ Research Report
Published: 1994
159 pages
331,540 bytes

National Conference Proceedings
Washington, D.C.
August 15-17, 1994

National Conference
Solving Youth Violence: Partnerships That Work 

Sponsored by: Janet Reno

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Secretary
Donna E. Shalala

U.S. Department of Education Secretary
Richard W. Riley

U.S. Department of Labor Secretary
Robert B. Reich

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Secretary
Henry G. Cisneros

U.S. Department of the Treasury Secretary
Lloyd Bentsen

Office of National Drug Control Policy
Director
Lee P. Brown

This project was supported by Contract No. OJP-94-
C-008 awarded to the Institute for Law and Justice
by the National Institute of Justice, Office of
Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The
Assistant Attorney General, Office of Justice
Programs, coordinates the activities of the
following programs, offices, and bureaus: Bureau of
Justice Assistance, Bureau of Justice Statistics,
National Institute of Justice, Office of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the Office
for Victims of Crime. Points of view in this
document are those of the authors and do not
necessarily represent the official position or
policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Table of Contents

Keynote Speakers and Opening Plenary Session,
Monday, August 15, 1994

Madeleine Kunin, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department
of Education, Washington, D.C.

Peter Edelman, Counselor to the Secretary, U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services,
Washington, D.C

Laurie Robinson, Assistant Attorney General, Office
of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice,
Washington, D.C.

Janet Reno, Attorney General, U.S. Department of
Justice, Washington, D.C.

Ralph Green, Corrales, New Mexico

J. David Hawkins, Director, Developmental Research
and Programs, Inc., Seattle, Washington

Concurrent Workshops: The Individual and the
Community

Developing Responsibility
Youth Development Programs I
Youth Development Programs II
Mentoring
Youth Involvement and Participation
Community Service
Community Health and Community Mental Health
Approaches

Concurrent Workshops: Home and Family

Domestic Violence
Child Abuse and Neglect
Family Support and Preservation
Out-of-Home Youth
Sexual Assault
Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programs
Media Literacy and Advocacy

Keynote Speakers and Afternoon Plenary Session

Hillary Rodham Clinton, First Lady of the United
States

Deborah Prothrow-Stith, Assistant Dean, Harvard
School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts

Plenary Panel: Comprehensive Community Planning
Strategies for Solving Youth Violence

Keynote Speakers, Tuesday, August 16, 1994

Kelly Zimmerman, National Youth of the Year,
National Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Orrville,
Ohio

Ernesto Cortes, Jr., Director, Texas Industrial
Areas Foundation Austin, Texas

Concurrent Workshops: Schools and Communities

Safety and Security
Education and Skills Development
Home/School/Community Partnerships
Improved School Climate
Information Sharing Issues in School-Based
Coordinated Programs
Alternative Development Programs for Adjudicated
Youth
Substance Abuse Prevention

Concurrent Workshops: Community and Neighborhood

Community Policing
Increasing Employment
Community Development
Juvenile Justice Programs
Weed and Seed
Reducing Gun Violence in the Community and the Home
Hate Violence

Keynote Address and Town Hall Meeting

Albert Gore, Jr., Vice President of the United
States (Transcript of Presentation)

Bill Clinton, President of the United States
(Address via Video)

Town Hall Meeting

First Panel
Second Panel
Third Panel

Plenary Address: Report on Comprehensive Community
Planning Sessions, Wednesday, August 16, 1994

John A. Calhoun, Executive Director, National Crime
Prevention Council, Washington, D.C.

Plenary Panel: Youth Reporting from Caucus Meetings

Plenary Panel: Addressing Concentrated Poverty and
Crime

Closing Speaker

Carl Upchurch, President, National Council for
Urban Peace and Justice, Newark, Ohio

APPENDIX A, Speakers

APPENDIX B, Conference Planning Committee

APPENDIX C, Executive Summary: Community Planning
Sessions

------------------------------------------

Keynote Speakers and Opening Plenary Session,
Monday, August 15, 1994

Madeleine Kunin, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department
of Education, Washington, D.C.

Governor Kunin noted that partnership is the key
word in this conference title since seven Federal
agencies have come to the conference to work
together to help the children of America. Those
involved in solving youth violence can succeed only
by working together.

Governor Kunin described the purposes of the
conference as (1) showcasing what works, so
different parties can learn from each other, and
(2) collaborating. Solutions to problems will come
from all of the participants, not just from
Washington. She implored attendees to generously
share their spark of success with others. She then
urged the passage of the pending Crime Bill. She
said the country cannot reach its educational goals
unless children learn that it is worthwhile to grow
up and to work.

She concluded that this conference, where five
cabinet secretaries, the Vice President, and the
First Lady would speak, has the tools, the will,
and the talent to address these critical issues.
 
Peter Edelman, Counselor to the Secretary, U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services,
Washington, D.C.

Mr. Edelman said that he and the other
representatives of the Federal Government are
looking forward to learning from attendees during
the conference and that he hoped the violence that
is gripping the Nation's communities and literally
killing its children could be stopped. 

According to Mr. Edelman, three critical elements
emerged. The first is clear pathways. Children
entering their teen years should be able to see a
clear pathway to the future--to a job or to
college. If they don't see opportunities, they will
choose alternatives, such as gangs or drugs. It is
important for children to have safe and stimulating
places to go to after school. Schools should
consider using their facilities as community
centers.

The second critical element is full community
involvement. There is not enough money in the Crime
Bill, in the Federal Government, or in all
government to solve the problem of youth violence.
Mr. Edelman believes the solution requires the
involvement of business, labor, charities--such as
the United Way--and other parties.

The third critical point is youth responsibility.
Children themselves must seize opportunities, take
leadership and responsibility, and say, "Enough!
The violence must stop!"
 
Laurie Robinson, Assistant Attorney General, Office
of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice,
Washington, D.C.
 
Success in preventing youth violence requires the
cooperation of Federal and State agencies, local
government, businesses, and communities, Ms.
Robinson said. The Office of Justice Programs (OJP)
is working to help local communities get the
necessary money for programs that help kids stay
out of trouble.

OJP is also working on Project PACT--Pulling
America's Communities Together. OJP has also
created the Partnerships Against Violence Network
(PAVNET) to help PACT and others link up with
Federal information resources. PAVNET's resource
guide describes programs to prevent violence that
have been developed by organizations across
America.

Ms. Robinson reminded participants of Attorney
General Janet Reno's admonition that Washington
does not have all the answers. The Federal
Government needs community residents, law
enforcement officials, social service agencies, and
others to work toward solutions.
 
Janet Reno, Attorney General, U.S. Department of
Justice, Washington, D.C.

Attorney General Reno noted that something exciting
is happening across America today and that we
conference participants are on the forefront of
that effort. People are coming together in their
communities to make a difference in the lives of
the children. This is government by the people.

The Attorney General also stated that we must take
this spirit and make it a reality for all America.
We must listen to people. We must talk to young
people who have told her, "I'd have avoided trouble
if there had been something to do and somewhere to
go--someone to talk to me, respect me, and give me
discipline."

The Attorney General noted several ingredients for
success. First is partnership. Lawyers, doctors,
community groups, and others can come together to
help the youth, rather than try to help them in
isolation.

The second ingredient is focusing efforts on a
narrow group and providing a holistic approach to
changing the lives of these youngsters. She
described a woman who has volunteered at her church
school and sticks with the kids over the long term.
Such individuals recognize that real change is not
going to happen overnight. These people are the
heroes and heroines of this Nation, and their
approach has greater impact than spending one year
with one program and another year doing something
else.

The third ingredient is starting early. Children
must be given a good foundation to grow from age
zero to three, she said. Elementary and teen
programs are already too late to being.

Together, she said, we can begin to make a
difference. It is not enough to end with a dialogue
between Head Start programs and the elementary
schools; we have to give teachers the support
necessary to do the job. Communities need to have
positive after-school programs for youths who have
no parent at home to supervise them. In high crime
areas, youths who are struggling for identity must
have access to jobs that enable development of
skills to earn a living wage. Unless we start
investing in children now, she emphasized, we will
not be able to build our way out of the problem
with prisons.

Political rhetoric has clouded the issue, but the
American people know better. We can fight crime,
she said, with a balanced plan of punishment,
policing, and prevention. Let the political
wrangling stop so children can have a better
future.
 
Ralph Green, Corrales, New Mexico

Note: Ralph Green, 17, was shot in the back while
walking to see his grandmother in the Bedford-
Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, N.Y. Now he is a
prizewinner in the Special Olympics.]

Mr. Green noted that youth violence has changed the
world dramatically. Ten- and 11-year-old kids carry
guns now. We have to control it, he said, before it
affects the next generation. When someone shoots
somebody, he shoots that person's family and
friends, too.

We may not be able to stop youth violence, he
added, but we can decrease it. This year, several
of Mr. Green's friends were killed by other youths.
The young men who shot Mr. Green and his friend
were sentenced to 7 years; so after about 2 years,
he will become eligible for parole. "Do you think
that's enough," he asked, "for someone who almost
killed two people?"

Why do youths do this? They think they can get away
with murder. It would be better to steer youths'
desire for violence in legal directions: Let them
become boxers or join the military.

The sort of violence that happened to Mr. Green can
happen to anyone. "But look at me," he invited, "I
am living proof that you can do anything if you
just keep your head up."
 
J. David Hawkins, Director, Developmental Research
and Programs, Inc., Seattle, Washington

Prevention of violence and substance abuse must
begin with the family, noted Dr. Hawkins. He said
he has committed himself to all of America's
children, regardless of race and culture.

As a former probation officer, he met people for
whom stealing was rewarding but school a place of
alienation. A judge once said that running a
juvenile court is like running an ambulance service
at the bottom of a cliff. "You can patch the kids
up," he said, "but people keep coming over the
cliff." They must be stopped before they go over
the cliff. That is why Dr. Hawkins has switched his
focus to prevention.

It is important that violence prevention, like
medicine, do no harm. A successful strategy must do
more good than harm.

Youth violence is like a medical problem in another
way, too. Since many factors cause cardiovascular
disease, many people now avoid those factors.
Similarly, he said, we must identify the factors
associated with youth violence, reduce them, and
create barriers against them. Among the factors
that influence youth violence are availability of
drugs; availability of guns; laws and norms
favoring drug use, guns, and crime; media portrayal
of violence; transitions and mobility; low
neighborhood attachment and community
disorganization; and extreme economic deprivation.

When we increase attachment to neighborhoods, said
Dr. Hawkins, crime goes down. Knowing what their
kids are doing and with whom they are doing it
makes a difference to parents.

Excessive and inconsistent punishment of children
increases their risk of substance abuse. Teachers
can contribute to violence by failing to reach out
and engage all students. The earlier children start
risky behaviors, such as drug use or fighting, the
greater the likelihood that they will do it over
time. It is important at the very least to delay
such behaviors.

Forty-five percent of African-American children are
reared in poverty, compared to 15 percent of
European-American children. Poverty is a risk
factor.

Dr. Hawkins also noted that there are several
protective factors. Individual characteristics,
such as a resilient temperament, great
intelligence, and a good attitude, can make a
difference. Bonding insulates kids against other
risk factors--even in high-risk areas. People shine
when someone takes an interest in them. Healthy
beliefs and clear standards, when held by adults
with whom kids are bonding, are also protective
factors for the kids. Those beliefs and standards
include, for example, the beliefs that children
should finish school and should not drink alcohol.

We have had a change in norms that has reduced high
school marijuana use, he pointed out, but we have
not had a change of norms regarding violence. The
community, including the media, must disapprove of
violence and restrain itself from violence.

This is a war against drugs and violence. This is a
war for bonding children with adults who hold
healthy beliefs.

Bonding to a group requires three necessary
conditions: opportunities for active involvement,
such as responsibilities at school, at home, and in
the community; the skills to be successful; and a
consistent system of recognition or reinforcement
for skillful work, celebrating kids' successes, not
just punishing their failures.

Dr. Hawkins stated that the key prevention
principles are: addressing known risk factors;
enhancing protective factors; addressing risk
factors at appropriate developmental stages;
intervening before behavior stabilizes, including
interventions with those at high risk--even
targeting high-risk individuals and community
areas; addressing multiple risks with multiple
strategies; and reaching the diverse races,
cultures, and classes in the community.

"Our job," he said, "is to reinvent communities as
protective enclaves for children. I challenge all
of you to lead that work."

Concurrent Workshops: The Individual and the
Community Developing Responsibility

Moderator: The Reverend Alicia D. Byrd, Project
Director, Leadership Development and Theological
Education Programs, Congress of National Black
Churches, Washington, D.C.

Panelists: William Damon, Professor and Director,
Center for the Study for Human Development, Brown
University, Providence, Rhode Island

Lori Clarke, Director, Home-Based Services, Home
Start, San Diego, California

Fran V. Donelan, Project Director, Youth Outreach,
American Friends Service Committee, Mid-Atlantic
Region, Baltimore, Maryland

The Reverend Dr. Alicia Byrd introduced the
panelists, noting that Dr. Damon would focus on
strategies for promoting moral development in
children; Ms. Clarke would discuss an innovative,
in-home approach to working with families; and Ms.
Donelan would discuss middle-school support groups
for children affected by homicide, AIDS, and other
tragedies.

Dr. William Damon said his emphasis is on
aspirations, hope, and positive engagement.
Emotional dispositions, for example, dispositions
toward empathy and sympathy, are present in
everyone at birth. These dispositions are part of
each person's "emotional legacy." Children seek
regularity; they are looking for rules. Children
also want to construct a positive self-identity;
they want to contribute to society and avoid being
stigmatized. All children seek rewards and avoid
punishment. All of these things dispose people to
pro-social behavior.

Violence today is alarming, but people should not
feel too defeated. Many things can be done by
following some key principles required to encourage
positive development.

Young people need to develop two different types of
cognitive and behavioral systems. First, children
need good beliefs and good attitudes. They need to
believe in something beyond the self, something
that is dedicated to other people. Second, children
need good habits, for example, the habits of acting
kindly and resolving conflict quickly and
nonviolently. 

How do adults encourage this development? They must
build relationships through a "process of
respectful engagement." The guiding adults set
limits and encourage three important character
dispositions: truthfulness; diligence, or the
ability to work past frustration; and a sense of
humility, a sense of one's place in the community.

While adults must do things that children think are
authentic, constructive attitudes or bridges must
also lead somewhere beyond what children like or
dislike. Youth need to see a consensus in the
community, such as agreement on truthfulness and
good habits.

Youth are in trouble in all settings, not just in
the inner city. Politics and education do not mix
when it comes to encouraging constructive youth
development. Church, family, schools, peers, and
others need to come together. Too much time is
spent on professional infighting, and too little
time is spent helping youths develop core values.
Youths need to hear the same basic messages in all
settings.

Lori Clarke discussed Mano a Mano, one of five
federal demonstration projects in San Diego that
are funded by the Department of Health and Human
Services, Family and Youth Services Bureau. The
program goals are to empower children, families,
and communities and to build resiliency, especially
in the face of drugs and violence.

As noted by Herschel Swinger, referring to the
effects of the Los Angeles riots on children, there
is no "post" in "post-traumatic shock" syndrome.
The continuing effects have been psychological,
physical, and spiritual. 

The Mano a Mano program site is Barrio Logan in San
Diego, where there are 45 known gangs involving
5,400 members, most of whom are between the ages of
14 and 26. There, Perkins Elementary School is
served by two social service agencies: Home Start,
which administers Mano a Mano; and the San Diego
Youth and Community Service Neighborhood Outreach
Program.

The Mano a Mano program focuses on early-childhood
development, not on problem behaviors. It starts
with all kindergarten children at Perkins and
provides "multi-systemic" services. Staff look at
family situations and peer groups to identify
community systems that may be resources for the
family. The provision of in-home services is key to
making other community services more accessible.
These services range from helping with
transportation problems to dealing with violence
issues. Staff help parents apply and internalize
what they hear in parenting classes.

Ms. Clarke said it is important to provide concrete
resources, such as emergency food, clothing, and
shelter. The program's strength-based approach
begins with an assessment of family resources. She
added to Dr. Damon's description, saying that Home
Start and Mano a Mano want to build a consensus of
values. The program conducts community meetings and
children's workshops in the schools. Trust,
however, is first built one-on-one during the in-
home encounters.

Fran Donelan discussed several programs sponsored
by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in
the mid-Atlantic region. One program is a
nonviolence course she has conducted over Baltimore
County teachers over the past 14 years. She said
children are no longer safe in schools but noted
that there are many violence-reduction and
prejudice-reduction approaches being implemented
around the country. 

The Help Increase the Peace (HIP) effort in
Syracuse is a 3-day, in-school conflict-resolution
program focusing strongly on taking responsibility.
But youths must also be given opportunities to take
responsibility.

In West Virginia, the College Scouts program trains
volunteers to motivate families to send their
children to college. Volunteers also help families
fill out college application forms and submit them
on time. Another program is Fighting Fair for
Families, which is designed to address domestic
violence issues. The underlying philosophy of these
programs is to empower adults by drawing on what
they already know. "Everyone is an agent for social
change," Ms. Donelan said.

Another AFSC program is Rising Stars, a Baltimore
city theater project that has been operating for
the past 6 years. Fifteen teenagers write and
perform their own material. All group members have
to keep up their grades, and all 15 of this year's
members are going on to college. Recently, the
group opened in a Gladys Knight concert.

The AFSC also conducts grief sessions for middle
school students. Often, families do not talk about
grief issues. For example, one boy's mother was
dying of AIDS but no one told him. As part of the
program approach, youths create memory books
containing drawings and poems about their loved
ones who have died, often by violence.

Reverend Dr. Byrd said the Council of National
Black Churches brings together clergy and lay
leaders. Through its fellowship program, ministers
work part-time for various agencies. For example,
working for the Centers for Disease Control gives
clergy and lay leaders a closer look at health
issues and a chance to assess how churches can
address these issues. Other projects relate to the
following: building self-esteem; resolving
conflicts; producing The Enlightened Male's Manual,
based on the concept of rites of passages; and a
national anti-drug campaign. Reverend Dr. Byrd
believes that churches can provide forums for
listening to youth, and she noted that the CNBC's
national conference this year is entitled "Creating
Hope and Healing in the Midst of a Violent
Society."

Youth Development Programs I

Moderator: Merita Irby, Program Officer, Academy
for Educational Development, Center for Youth
Development and Policy Research, Washington, D.C.

Panelists: Ruben Chavez, Deputy Director, Outreach
Services, Youth Development, Inc., Albuquerque, New
Mexico

Colberson Atole, Peer Advocate, Youth Development,
Inc., Albuquerque, New Mexico

Frances Kunreuther, Executive Director, Hetrick-
Martin Institute, New York, New York

Howard Phengsomphone, Project Director, City of
Providence, Rhode Island

Frances Kunreuther spoke of the Hetrick-Martin
Institute, a national education and social service
agency in New York that serves lesbian, gay, and
bisexual youth. Since 1983, Hetrick-Martin has been
a leader in the field of HIV and AIDS education and
prevention among adolescents. 

The Institute provides a variety of services, such
as after-school programs, counseling, alternative
schooling, working with homeless youth, and
guidance and technical assistance to teachers and
social workers.

Adolescents who are "coming out" are very
susceptible to violence because they are not seen
as "normal." They are attacked within the family,
the school system, and in the community. The youths
may believe they need to return violence in kind. 

Unfortunately, too many of these adolescents cannot
cope with their difficult circumstances and attempt
or commit suicide. These adolescents are also
targets of gay bashers, pimps, and other criminals.


Institute programs are based on the belief that
everyone needs family and community. The youths in
the Institute's residential programs need to be
supported so they can go back to their families and
the community. Many of the Hetrick-Martin staff
become role models to these youths.

Over the years, the Institute has changed its
policy from one of protection to one of
involvement. Youth clients are involved in peer
orientation at intake, paid internships, and given
membership in the youth council. Additionally, the
Institute has two youth board members.

Ruben Chavez of Youth Development, Inc. (YDI), in
Albuquerque, described its anti-gang violence
program. The 10-week program is directed at youths
who are court-ordered into the program. The youths
come from any gang throughout the city. However,
YDI attempts to balance the gang affiliations so
that no gang is dominant.

A key element of the YDI program is meaningful
parent involvement. At least six sessions involve
both the youth and parents. Early in the program,
the youths are all brought together to help them
understand the rules, encouraging strong ritual
bonds. 

The organization stresses respect for each other's
cultures, spiritual institutions, and traditions. A
portion of the program involves performance by each
youth or group of some form of community service,
such as feeding the homeless and giving assistance
to the handicapped. The key to success is common
sense, bonding, caring, an array of alternative
program services, and a committed staff.

Mr. Chavez introduced Mr. Atole, a gang member who
has been through the program. Mr. Atole indicated
that the YDI program makes individuals feel
important and allows gang members to talk as
equals. Young people are not "talked down to."
Program staff listen and do not judge. Most justice
practitioners do not know how to handle gang
members. The prevalent "lock them up" philosophy
does not solve the problem.

Howard Phengsomphone described the Southeast Asian
Youth and Family Development Project, which is a
gang prevention and violence reduction program in
Providence. The city has had a substantial influx
of immigrants from Southeast Asia (Cambodian and
Laotian).

There is a major difficulty in assimilating these
new arrivals into the prevalent culture and
democratic institutions. The city joined forces
with the Southeast Asian community and formed an
integrated structure of councils and projects
directed at early identification of Asian youths
who are gang members or at risk of becoming gang
members.

The key to the program is working with the youth
and their parents, the youth's first role models.
Other local agencies and organizations serving
these populations are brought into the relationship
in the next phase. Working only with the youth
would not have lasting impact.

The Southeast Asian Youth and Family Development
Project is involved in both prevention and
intervention activities. Mr. Phengsomphone finds it
important to sit down with other agencies and
institutions delivering services to the at-risk
population in the community to jointly design a
program that covers necessary areas. This
collaboration can be used to address the problems
of selected project clients.

Youth Development Programs II

Moderator: Michele Cahill, Director, Youth
Development Institute, and Vice President, Fund for
the City of New York, New York

Panelists: Ozelious J. Clement, Executive Director,
Jackie Robinson Center for Physical Culture,
Brooklyn, New York

Tyrone Brown, Assistant to the Director, Marching
Band, Jackie Robinson Center for Physical Culture,
Brooklyn, New York

Luis Garden Acosta, Chief Executive Officer, El
Puente, Brooklyn, New York

Carla Sanger, Executive Director, LA's BEST, Office
of the Mayor, Los Angeles, California

Michele Cahill heads New York City's Beacon
Program, which is a network of after-school safe
havens. Youth development activities do not work,
she observed, unless they engage children, interest
them, give them an opportunity to contribute
something, and have long-term continuity.

Ozelious Clement said the Jackie Robinson Center
operates at a disadvantage. The center is thought
of as a program, but it has been designed to
operate as an institution that would affect other
institutions for young people. The center's
mission, he stated, is to strengthen the
institutions of school, family, and community.
That, he said, is a comprehensive strategy that can
work.

The trend toward putting more and more resources
into punishment is a negative approach that will
never fully solve the problem of violence.
Objections to the preventive route may arise from
the idea that prevention has been rather vague in
the past. With an institution like the Jackie
Robinson Center to represent prevention,
legislators may feel more comfortable supporting
the preventive approach to ending violence.

Among the key features of the Jackie Robinson
Center are medical care and exams for youth, job
assistance, and a youth tribunal whereby the
center's young people themselves can discipline
offending youngsters.

Mr. Clement said several studies have cited the
Jackie Robinson Center as very good, and he offered
to share the center's methods with others.

Tyrone Brown noted that his marching band travels
around the country representing the Jackie Robinson
Center. Student involvement reduces violence
overall, he said, benefiting not just the students
involved, but the entire community.

Regarding the youth tribunal, he observed that
adult counselors yell at misbehaving youth to no
avail, but when a kid is up before the youth
tribunal, he really listens. Mr. Brown stressed
that the 6,000 kids in the Brooklyn center are
learning peer mediation, conflict resolution, and
how to avoid trouble.

Luis Garden Acosta recalled that, in 1981, the
south side of Williamsburg, a section of Brooklyn,
was a killing field. That year, in that small area,
48 young people were killed, mostly because of gang
activity. Mr. Acosta, who was then in charge of the
local hospital's emergency room, saw the bodies
come in and felt helpless to stop the flow. The
experience galvanized him.

Mr. Acosta wondered what could be done about the
violence. He described neighborhood meetings that
included anyone who wanted to end youth violence.
Everyone thought in terms of categories with which
they were familiar. Some people blamed the schools;
some blamed early sex; and some blamed robbery of
old people, purse-snatching, chain-grabbing, or the
lack of places for young people to hang out. Mr.
Acosta said he agreed with everyone. The problem is
all those things. He said that to segregate body,
mind, spirit, and community is impossible.

The people at those meetings decided not to wait
for government to help out. They checked among
themselves for resources and found plenty: graphic
designers, sports organizers, and people with other
helpful specialties. The group built what Mr.
Acosta called a bridge of support and empowerment
named El Puente, Spanish for "the bridge."

About four years ago, the area served by El Puente
lost 23 young people to measles. Calling that sort
of loss insane, Mr. Acosta said the young people in
the community decided to go door to door, asking
whether people wanted to be immunized. The young
people themselves influenced many of their peers to
be immunized. Health hazards, Mr. Acosta noted, are
now being handled through a new family health
clinic in the area.

Carla Sanger described LA's BEST, an anti-violence
program in Los Angeles that is funded primarily by
community redevelopment money. In 1988, she said,
the mayor created a legal mechanism for using
redevelopment money for the local school system and
then arranged the general fund for LA's BEST. That
program is a 501(c)3 independent nonprofit, which
happens to be housed in the mayor's office.

LA's BEST is an after-school program whose staff
members are trained by the best people it can find.
The staff tries to find the most teachable moments
with children. Ms. Sanger said the organization
works hard to teach the teachers that what they do
is less important than the effect it has on the
kids. If those kids are not interested in the
program, they will simply not show up.

The program recently sponsored a talent show in
each school. Each act had to decry violence. In
keeping with its after-school setting, LA's BEST
also includes homework and nutrition segments among
its activities.

Ms. Sanger said the organization contracts an
independent evaluation of the program. It is
expensive, she said--about $50,000--but appeals to
donors. A recent evaluation showed that more than
75 percent of the children in the program like
school more now than they did before entering the
program. One reason, she speculated, is that the
children come to school better prepared and there
is less fighting on the way to and from school.

In closing, Ms. Sanger issued a call for
development of more after-school programs.

Mentoring

Moderator: Marc Freedman, Director of Special
Projects, Public/Private Ventures, Berkeley,
California

Panelists: Michael Johnson, Project Coordinator,
Project RAISE, Baltimore, Maryland

James Lewis, Kids Grow Program, Project RAISE,
Baltimore, Maryland

Clifton Simmons, Urban Resources Initiative,
Project RAISE, Baltimore, Maryland

Leon Franklin, Youth Development Specialist, The
Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Project Choice,
Kansas City, Missouri

Over the past decade, a new movement to provide
volunteer mentors to young people, particularly
those living in poverty, has emerged in cities
across the United States. Marc Freedman questioned
the audience. Why is mentoring so popular? What
will it do for communities? Can it deliver?

Mr. Freedman spent five years studying mentoring.
He found that a large number of programs have been
started since the 1980s by organizations such as
the Rainbow Coalition, Xerox, IBM, Procter and
Gamble, and private foundations. The Clinton
administration has also included new initiatives on
mentoring.

The failure of society to support young people may
be the reason for such an interest in mentoring.
Today, one-half of children are growing up in
single parent homes. Since 1970, the average
American has been working more hours and has less
time to help young people make the transition to
adulthood. In the schools, staff members are
overwhelmed with too many students. People no
longer know their own neighbors.

In the past, social scientists focused on the
failure of individual youths. More recently, they
are looking at the other side: why individuals
succeed.

Michael Johnson told the audience that his project,
Raising Ambition Instills Self-Esteem (RAISE), is a
public-private partnership begun in June 1988, when
the City of Baltimore was looking for an
imaginative way to decrease the dropout rate and
improve the life chances of inner-city public
school students.

RAISE began with seven sets of sixth graders, who
were followed until they completed high school. A
second stage of the program (RAISE II) began in the
fall of 1990, with three groups of second graders,
one group of fifth graders, and two groups of sixth
graders. The RAISE II children are assigned mentors
and participate in program activities for 7 years.
Each child completing high school is guaranteed
funding for college or technical training.

Mr. Johnson emphasized that the program provides
sustained caring connections of three types: a
school-based advocate, a sponsoring organization,
and one-on-one mentors. Mr. Johnson serves as a
school-based advocate and is part counselor, part
friend, and part role model to 63 students. He
monitors attendance, grades, and behavior; builds
trust with the students and their families; and
acts as liaison to the mentors.

Mentors represent caring connections for the
students. Individual mentors are asked to commit to
1 year. They are expected to meet face-to-face with
their students at least every other week and to
periodically attend training workshops. Currently
44 mentors are assigned to 63 students. Forty-one
of these mentors have been with the program for 6
years. 

Mr. Johnson trains the volunteer mentors in 2-hour
workshops that cover communication skills,
parenting skills, and cross-cultural differences.
Mentors and students complete surveys to determine
areas of interest and expectations. Meetings are
held with families to see how they would feel about
a mentor coming into the family circle. There is
usually some apprehension, but Mr. Johnson said
that he urges them to give it a try because
adjustments can always be made later.

The founder and lead supporter of RAISE has been
the Abell Foundation, providing over $4.5 million
since 1988. The Fund for Educational Excellence
operated RAISE until the Baltimore Mentoring
Institute was created in January of 1990 to
administer the RAISE I and RAISE II projects as
well as the Mentoring Resource Center. The resource
center is a clearinghouse of information about
mentoring models and provider of technical
assistance and training. Other sponsoring
organizations are varied in composition and
mission, ranging from church groups to businesses
and colleges. In addition to providing funding,
these organizations recruit mentors from their
ranks and sponsor various other activities. These
organizations commit to support the program for 7
years.

Mr. Johnson said the program works. Students need a
person they can depend on and trust. Mentors
provide an alternative caring relationship that a
young person may not be able to find anywhere else.

Mr. Johnson indicated that a breakdown in
communication often gets him involved in the
schools. Sometimes, for example, students do not
understand how to solve problems. He has helped
students and administrators improve relationships
through communication without anger. He has also
helped youths deal with authority without
hostility. Many times these young people need role
playing and other training to figure out how to
express needs. 

Mr. Johnson has worked with parents and students to
understand the Baltimore school system. For
example, what specialty education is available?
This opens the door to educational opportunities. 

Project RAISE also helps students find ways to give
back to the community. For example, participants in
the project taught young children Chinese in short
sessions. Working with the Yale University Forestry
Program during the summer, young people had the
opportunity to learn environmental science. The
mentoring programs stress academic, social, and
cultural education.

Clifton Simmons has had a mentor for six years. He
admitted that during that time, he has had ups and
downs. With the help of his mentor and Mr. Johnson,
he believes he has grown up with a positive outlook
and hope for the future.

Mr. Simmons told the audience that he wrote and
implemented a business plan and is currently
running his own vending business. He had dropped
out of high school, but he is taking a course to
get a GED. He plans to attend college to major in
architecture. When he entered RAISE, he completed a
survey and expressed an interest in art. He was
paired with a mentor who owns an art gallery. Mr.
Simmons said his mentor has given him opportunities
that he would never have had before.

An audience member asked whether the cross-cultural
match was difficult, because Mr. Simmons is
African-American and his mentor is white. Mr.
Simmons reflected that when he was first assigned a
white mentor, he had a lot of negative thoughts,
but it did not take him long to see that color does
not matter when it comes to mentoring ability.

James Lewis told the audience that he attends a
Baltimore city public high school and is studying
electronic engineering. His mentor, who has helped
him academically to attain a B+ average, takes him
on business trips, helps him understand what is
needed to prepare for college, and tutors him in
math. His goal is to be an aerospace engineer.

Mr. Lewis met his mentor when he was entering sixth
grade. Despite a cross-cultural match, Mr. Lewis
felt that his mentor was someone who accepted him
and was always there to help.

As part of the RAISE program, Mr. Lewis reported
that he served as a junior counselor in a "Kids
Grow" summer camp. He led a group of 10 youths in
the exploration of forestry, environmental, and
natural concerns. They found a polluted stream and
contacted the United States Environmental
Protection Agency to initiate action.

Leon Franklin explained that in 1989, Project
Choice was founded as a dropout prevention program
by The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas
City. The program was initiated in Westport High
School. To be part of the program, students agreed
to remain drug free, avoid pregnancy, and enter the
program in their freshman year of high school.
College funding is the reward for those who
succeed.

Mr. Franklin works with students during their high
school years. He was first seen as simply another
authority figure, but after hours of walking the
halls, attending extracurricular activities, and
making himself available to get to know the
students, a dialogue was opened.

Mr. Franklin admitted that it takes persistence to
work with students. He had to get to know their
families and neighbors. He is now in a position to
see the positive impact of mentoring youths.
Project Choice places two staff persons in a
school. These staff members also serve the families
of the youth. A post-secondary staff takes over for
the college students. There is an 800 number to
help communication.

Mr. Freedman said that during his research, he
interviewed 300 mentors and students. He found that
making the right match is very difficult. A good
match is particularly difficult in cross-cultural
situations, often due to communication problems.
The strongest relationships are usually created
between those with the same ethnic background.

Mr. Freedman advised those involved in mentoring
programs to realize that youths may need more than
one mentor. As young people grow and change, each
stage of development may require different
mentoring skills and abilities. The most effective
programs offer a variety of support.Youth
Involvement and Participation

Moderator: Ann Rosewater, Deputy Assistant
Secretary, Policy and External Affairs,
Administration for Children and Families, U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services,
Washington, D.C.

Panelists: Jenna K. Thomas, President, Serious
Teens Acting Responsibly (STAR), Hardeeville, South
Carolina

Augusto Rodriquez, President, Board of Young Adult
Police Commissioners, New Haven Department of
Police Services, New Haven, Connecticut

Michelle Edwards, Vice President, Board of Young
Adult Police Commissioners, New Haven Department of
Police Services, New Haven, Connecticut

David Reliford, Youthline Listener, NYC Youthline,
Department of Youth Services, Brooklyn, New York

Ann Rosewater stated that it is impossible to talk
effectively to youth about violence prevention and
consequences of violence without hearing from them.
Furthermore, it cannot be done without creating
opportunities for youths to teach adults lessons
about young persons' lives and to contribute to the
plans made for them. Ms. Rosewater introduced the
presenters on the panel as youths who have been
instrumental in designing and operating
organizations that give themselves and other youth
opportunities for leading constructive lives.

Jenna Thomas described Serious Teens Acting
Responsibly (STAR) as an organization for youth
operated by youth. Whereas many youth organizations
are operated by adults, STAR is operated solely by
young people, with only advisory functions for
adults. Unlike other youth programs, STAR's goal is
to prepare youths for long-term success, not for a
specific skill.

STAR began as a group formed for a few girls and
evolved into an organization with more than 400
members, ages 13 through 19. In many communities,
members are mostly boys. Through STAR, youths can
be placed in paid internships in good companies.
The companies are paid by STAR, so the youth work
without expense to the company and receive
professional experience.

There are several chapters in the States of South
Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Connecticut, and North
Carolina. STAR has addressed such issues as teenage
pregnancy, AIDS awareness, drug abuse prevention,
violence prevention, high school dropouts, college
preparation, career awareness, environmental
justice, multiculturalism, African-American history
and culture, and mentoring for younger children. 

Ms. Thomas maintained that STAR members prefer to
work with youth. Indeed, it is STAR policy. She has
found that adults are not accustomed to working
with youths as authority figures, so adults may
ultimately want to control too much. STAR prepares
youths for leadership based on the premise that
youths must be given responsibility if they are to
become responsible.

Augusto Rodriquez attends high school in New Haven,
Connecticut, which, he pointed out, is the seventh
poorest city in the country. Mr. Rodriquez
described several of the serious violent
altercations he has witnessed, including a
homicide, and the impact of these experiences on
his outlook. He told how his brother, mistreated by
a police officer, finally reached the point of
intolerance and went to the police department to
request a meeting with the chief to talk about his
concerns. He was not only granted the request, but
was also asked to join the Board of Young Adult
Police Commissioners (BYAPC), an organization
chartered in May 1991.

The BYAPC consists of 22 members, six of whom are
elected from each of the city's six high schools
and 16 of whom are appointed by the mayor. The
Board members represent a full cross-section of New
Haven's population. The Board does not have formal
policymaking power, but sets its own agenda and
gives advice directly to the chief of police. The
Board is now actively interviewing the 60 community
policing recruits who will be joining the
department next year. The Board also plans fund
raising events, such as a Holiday Jam for youths
that raised more than $800 for an AIDS hospice last
year. Mr. Rodriquez is convinced that the young
adult commissioners' involvement in the process
"helps us bridge the gap between police and youth."


Mr. Rodriquez had praise for Chief Nicholas Pastore
and referred to him as a friend of youth.
"Together," he said, "we are improving life in New
Haven for everyone. We are ready to spread the
solution and are available."

Michelle Edwards also lives in New Haven,
Connecticut, where she attends high school, is a
National Honor Society member, is captain of the
volleyball team, and holds a part-time job. Ms.
Edwards has witnessed or has knowledge of many acts
of violence by students that have disrupted and
destroyed social and educational opportunities at
school. Students, teachers, and other school staff
have been attacked, and many teachers lock their
doors out of fear.

Ms. Edwards was elected to the BYAPC by students at
her high school. She was at first critical of the
board and thought it was only symbolic, not active.
Now that she is a member, she recognizes its
accomplishments and sees the board as a viable
place for youth to participate in decisionmaking.

She cites as an example the board's standing
committee on residential drug treatment for
adolescents, which was formed in 1991. The purpose
of the committee is to try to help provide
education, prevention, and treatment for drug abuse
among youths in New Haven. The committee conducted
a study and discovered that only 110 residential
treatment beds for adolescents are available in the
entire state of Connecticut, only 20 of which are
available for non-insured persons. The study also
found that the cost of jailing someone for 1 year,
approximately $42,000, is far more expensive than
putting someone in residential treatment, which
costs about $24,000. 

The committee resolved to advocate more treatment
beds for adolescents, and they were able to obtain
2,000 signatures of students on a petition in
support of increased availability of treatment
beds. The petition was presented to the Connecticut
General Assembly's appropriations committee. In the
annual budget, however, no beds were added, but 10
beds for youths were eliminated. After an appeal to
the co-chairperson of the assembly's appropriations
committee, the 10 beds were reinstated.

The BYAPC board is committed to the position that
residential drug treatment is the best transition
from a negative environment involving drug abuse
and crime to a positive one that is drug and crime
free. The board recently hired two consultants from
Massachusetts to assist with needs assessment,
strategic planning, documentation, and fund
raising. The consultants were funded in response to
a proposal submitted to the Center for Substance
Abuse Prevention in September 1993. The consultants
will assist the board in improving its standing
with the community, national linkages, fund
raising, and community and police relations.

David Reliford is a listener with the NYC
Youthline, a 24-hour, toll-free national phone
service staffed by youth for youth. He pointed out
that Youthline is a phone service that gives youths
an opportunity to talk if they need someone to
listen to them. The line is anonymous and
confidential, unless a caller indicates that a
homicide or suicide may occur or has occurred.

Youthline counselors make referrals to a wide range
of services including family planning, job
listings, and health care. Youthline uses a
geographically based computer system and maintains
a database of more than 9,000 youth programs and
services.

The staff of Youthline are paid youth listeners who
receive 90 hours of training in a variety of areas,
including gay and lesbian issues; counseling in
cases of child abuse, rape, or death and
bereavement; and school safety and listening
skills. The youth staff are supervised by
professionally trained adults. An effective system
has been established for situations in which youth
listeners are unsure of how to handle a call. The
youths have three flags to choose from to get an
adult supervisor's attention: a yellow flag
indicating need for information, a green flag
indicating the caller is abused or a runaway, and a
red flag indicating the call involves a homicide or
suicide. Mr. Reliford said that most of the calls
are about relationships. 

Youthline is based in New York, but will soon be
started in San Francisco also. It is so successful
that the Federal Government is considering
establishing it nationwide. Mr. Reliford predicted
that one day it would be international, because
youths everywhere have the same problems.Community
Service

Moderator: Shirley Sagawa, Executive Vice President
and Managing Director, The Corporation for National
and Community Service, Washington, D.C.

Panelists: Rick Collins, Deputy Director, Delta
Service Corps, Little Rock, Arkansas

Michael Canul, Vice President of Operations, Public
Allies, Washington, D.C.

David Medina, 1993-1994 Public Ally, Public Allies,
Washington, D.C.

Ira Harkavy, Director, Center for Community
Partnerships, University of Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania

Shirley Sagawa explained that The Corporation for
National and Community Service (AmeriCorp) gives
communities a resource other than money or
mandates--people to solve problems. The motto of
AmeriCorp is "getting things done," and its first
priority is to make a real difference in the
community. Ms. Sagawa reported that programs under
AmeriCorp have demonstrated an impact on crime
prevention. 

The Delta Service Corps (DSC) was one of the
original national demonstration models selected in
1991 by the Commission on National and Community
Service. DSC serves 132 counties at over 200
independent service opportunity sites in Arkansas,
Louisiana, and Mississippi. Rick Collins stated
that DSC's purpose is to promote an ethic of civic
responsibility and to provide a structure in which
citizens can serve their communities.

The DSC recruits members for full- and part-time
service. Applicants must be 17 years of age at the
start of training, must be citizens of the United
States or have a permanent residence visa, and must
have a high school diploma or obtain a GED during
the service period. 

As an AmeriCorp program, DSC has an impact on three
areas. First, it affects communities "through
direct and demonstrable services." Second, the
impact "on communities [is made] by strengthening
and affecting lasting and constructive changes."
This is done with the Golden Triangle concept of
bringing other institutions and organizations
together to cooperate on common goals. Third, the
program affects participants "by developing
leadership skills, fostering active, productive
citizenship, and enhancing educational
opportunities."

Mr. Collins identified four national priorities
that DSC incorporates into its program.

The education component emphasizes school readiness
programs, such as Head Start, which foster early
childhood development, as well as school success
programs, such as after-school tutoring.

The public safety element stresses crime prevention
and crime control strategies, such as numbering
houses to improve the response time by criminal
justice services.

Human services focuses on both health and home
care, such as community-based health care and
neighborhood rebuilding.

The environmental component emphasizes both
neighborhood and natural conservation, restoration,
and maintenance programs.

Mr. Collins reported that full-time DSC
participants receive $7,662 for 9 months of
service, health care, and $4,725 in educational
benefits. Part-time participants receive $4,050 for
900 hours of service that may be completed in up to
a 2-year period, liability coverage while on site,
and $2,363 in educational benefits.

Public Allies began as a grass roots project only 2
years ago, but it is now a "direct and demonstrable
service." 

Michael Canul stated that participants of Public
Allies, who are between the ages of 18 and 30,
serve an apprenticeship during a 10-month term.
They work 4 to 5 days a week in a nonprofit entity
or government agency providing a direct service,
such as tutoring or managing programs.

Public Allies promotes social responsibility with
service projects that have a lasting effect and
explore the participants' potential for advancement
and leadership. Public Allies invests in training
for each of its members.

Two years ago, David Medina "was doing what every
youth does--trying to make a living." He was on his
own at age 16 and had to support himself. Last
year, he noticed that the people with whom he
associated would eventually get him into trouble.
He said he was "given the light" when a
dissatisfied drug dealer in Boston told him that a
change in his life would take him to better places.
That change was Public Allies.

Mr. Medina stated that Public Allies gave him
insight on how youth can make a difference. "No
matter what work you do --lawyer, cook, custodian;
you have to give something back," he said. He
stated that he wants to help people, regardless of
race or sex, even if it is "just a little
something. . . ."

As a youth counselor, Mr. Medina developed self-
esteem and leadership skills in his clients. One
youth he was counseling is now in jail for murder.
He expressed remorse that this youth's once bright
future is now gone. He is determined not to let
that happen again.

Mr. Medina stressed the importance of telling
people they are cared for. Even those who are
underprivileged must give back to those who are
less fortunate.

Mr. Canul stated that violence among youth is a
type of a social disease. It has identifiable
symptoms, it can spread and overcome communities,
and yet, it is treatable as well. He emphasized
that professionals must be willing to "get [their]
hands dirty" and become involved in service
opportunities to prevent violence.

Dr. Ira Harkavy introduced the concept of
university-assisted schools that are comprehensive
centers designed to involve the community in
education, service, and neighborhood improvement
activities. The West Philadelphia Improvement Corps
(WEPIC) is an example of such a program that links
the University of Pennsylvania with the
Philadelphia community.

This strategy uses university resources and
involves students, families, and communities. The
public school cluster (elementary, middle, and
senior high schools) has been shown to represent
the most appropriate combination of institutions
from which to build effective youth violence
prevention and intervention programs.

WEPIC offered a summer institute where 60 youths
studied nutrition with medical students and
undergraduates. The college students taught
nutrition to the middle school students, who used
this knowledge to inform the rest of the community
through flyers and newspapers. Youths also worked
in hospitals. As a result, the university became a
wellspring of learning for the entire community.

Dr. Harkavy emphasized that rather than expecting
government to solve community problems, the
community must combine the talents and resources of
faculty, students, staff, and institutions to
become catalysts with the government for community
improvement. Community service is at the heart of
effective change.Community Health and Community
Mental Health Approaches

Moderator: Diane Doherty, Director, Children's
Safety Network, National Center for Education in
Maternal and Child Health, Arlington, Virginia

Panelists: Michelle S. Hassell, Coordinator, PACT
Training, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio

William H. Wiist, Administration Manager, Houston
Department of Health and Human Services, Houston,
Texas

Janice Hutchinson, Acting Administrator, Child and
Youth Services Administration, Department of Human
Services, Washington, D.C.

Diane Doherty said the Children's Safety Network
(CSN) was affiliated with Georgetown University and
the Maternal and Child Health Board. CSN fosters
the development and inclusion of injury and
violence prevention strategies into maternal and
child health services, programs, and organizations.
CSN seeks to reduce the mortality and morbidity
associated with unintentional injuries and violence
among children and young adults.

CSN holds regular meetings on developing strategies
against youth violence. A recent campaign from the
Carter Center in Atlanta had the theme, "Not Even
One." This campaign was focused against gun
violence. Ms. Doherty said that 85 percent of youth
homicides are gun-related. Contra Costa County in
California has passed a resolution calling for
public-private prevention projects aimed at
securing safe homes, communities, and schools.

Dr. Michele Hassell directs the Positive Adolescent
Choices Training (PACT) project. This is a
culturally sensitive training program developed
specifically for African-American youths to reduce
their disproportionate risk of becoming victims or
perpetrators of violence. 

Seventh and eighth grade students are referred by
teachers to attend 26 hours of sessions. The PACT
program is not part of a disciplinary process and
is presented to the youths as a club, part of the
physical education curriculum. It has been very
well received by the students. They use team names
and colors and have competitions and role-playing
situations. 

Dr. Hassell showed part of a video depicting
African-American youths in different anger-
producing situations. The PACT training system uses
a three-pronged approach, how to "give it," how to
"take it," and how to "work it out." The videos are
designed to be culturally specific and to help
develop particular anger management skills in young
people. An evaluation was conducted from 1989 to
1993 involving 130 students who received
intervention and a control group of 111 students.
Juvenile court records were checked on both groups
during the follow up. Only eight percent of those
who received the training appeared in the juvenile
court records, compared to 21 percent of the
control group.

Dr. William Wiist represented the Houston Violence
Prevention Program, begun in 1992. It is a 5-year,
cooperative community-based violence prevention
program backed by participating organizations,
including The Tejano Center for Community Concerns,
Texas Southern University, Houston University, the
local health department, and the local school
district. Funding is provided by a cooperative
agreement with the National Center for Injury
Prevention and the Centers for Disease Control.
Geographic areas were selected based on ethnic mix
(80 percent African-American and Hispanic),
quantity of discipline problems recorded, and
economic factors. The Tejano Center provides
materials in Spanish as well as English. The goal
of the project is to reduce mortality and morbidity
due to violence among African-American and Hispanic
adolescents in large cities with high homicide
rates. 

The intervention consists of (1) an educational
program to prepare sixth grade peer leaders in
violence prevention and to train high school youths
to serve as mentors, (2) organizing community
leaders to develop local violence prevention
strategies, and (3) training block leaders to serve
as neighborhood violence prevention advocates. 

Youths who have been identified by their peers as
influential are enrolled in the program and given
training in leadership, interpersonal
communication, conflict resolution, and educational
subjects. They also receive other social guidance
or advice through the mentorship, such as movie
monitoring. These youths participate 2 to 3 hours
per week year-round, and are involved in many
recreational activities such as camping. Parent
participation has been somewhat weak. Other
components of the Houston program also establish
neighborhood violence prevention advocates to
conduct meetings, locate resources, and lobby.

Dr. Janice Hutchinson began her discussion by
pointing out that the District of Columbia has
three times the national rate of teen violent death
and truancy from school. She said children are
often abused early in life and exposed to violence
about which the parents may be unaware. Dr.
Hutchinson spoke about the D.C. Youth Trauma
Services Team that works at scenes of violent
street incidents, offering counseling to youths who
are involved in or who witness these events. The
trauma team operates from 6:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m.
Thursday to Saturday each week. They also offer
training to police officers and provide links to
other community services. 

The prostitute intervention program, Helping
Individual Prostitutes Survive (HIPS), is sponsored
by the University of the District of Columbia and
offers counseling and support to prostitutes in
Washington, D.C. 

Many of the prostitutes are very young, and they
sometimes engage in this trade for the sake of
addicted parents. The team offers coffee,
chocolate, condoms, and free shelter to those they
are able to approach. In the 10 months the program
has existed, staff have counseled 400 young women
and men. The team coordinates with shelters,
private homes, and women's organizations. Although
there has been community resistance to HIPS due to
the mistaken idea that it supports prostitution,
the program has succeeded in safely getting young
people off the street and out of that lifestyle.

Concurrent Workshops: Home and Family
and Domestic Violence

Moderator: Anne Menard, Director, National Resource
Center on Domestic Violence, Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania

Panelists: Marlies Sudermann, Director, London
Family Court Clinic, London, Ontario, Canada 

David S. Lee, Teen Program Education Coordinator,
Battered Women's Alternatives, Concord, California

Nancy V. Neylon, Executive Director, Ohio Domestic
Violence Network, Cleveland, Ohio

Anne Menard defined domestic violence as the use of
violence, threats, or coercive tactics against a
partner. Most domestic violence involves a man
committing acts of violence against a woman. It is
reported that 2 to 4 million women are abused by
their male partners every year and that 1,400 to
2,000 of these women are murdered. Research on the
extent of violence in dating relationships has only
just begun. In addition, 3 million children are at
risk of witnessing domestic violence each year.
This has a serious impact on the children.

Dr. Marlies Sudermann stated that "we live in a
world where youth are bombarded with violence in
the media." She reported that the rates of violence
on TV are high, with five acts of violence per
prime time hour and 20 to 25 acts of violence per
Saturday morning cartoon hour. She illustrated her
point with slides of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
cartoons, a Freddy Krueger television series, video
games and CD covers that depict a woman being
raped, and a T-shirt that shows a man holding a gun
to a woman's head.

Dr. Sudermann stated that wife assault is a major
criminal and social problem. In November 1993
statistics, Canada found that 50 percent of women
over the age of 18 in Canada reported an assault
incident. In addition, severe, repeated violence
occurs in 1 out of 14 marriages. It was also
reported that domestic violence is the leading
cause of injuries to women--more than car
accidents, muggings, and rape combined.

Dr. Sudermann asserted that the biggest predictor
of whether a man will abuse his partner is whether
the man has witnessed violence in his own family.
Seventy-five percent of men who abuse have, as
children, observed violence between their parents.
A London Family Court Clinic study found that boys
from violent homes have higher rates of violence in
general.

Children who witness domestic violence have
adjustment problems comparable to those of children
who are abused. Serious behavioral and emotional
problems are 17 times higher for boys and 10 times
higher for girls who have observed domestic
violence in comparison to those who have not. It
has been predicted that 150,000 to 250,000 school-
aged children have been exposed to domestic
violence. This translates into two to five children
per classroom.

Dr. Sudermann stated that only long-term prevention
tactics can be effective against violence. One such
tactic is "A School-Based Anti-Violence Program"
(ASAP) sponsored by the London Family Court Clinic.
ASAP's goal is to increase violence awareness,
confront and challenge attitudes, and develop
action plans at the individual and school level.
This program stresses staff development and
training, community involvement, student programs,
and information sessions for parents. 

The London Family Court Clinic's evaluation of this
school-based program shows measurable effects.
Before the program was implemented, 19.6 percent of
males thought it was permissible to rape a girl if
she led him on, 17.5 percent thought it was
permissible if she sexually excited him, and 8.1
percent thought it was permissible if she had dated
him for some time. After the program, the percents
dropped to 15.6, 15, and 5.9 percent respectively.
The study also showed, however, a slight increase
in the number of males who thought it was
permissible to rape a female if he spent money on
her or if he was drunk. 

David Lee stated that the Battered Women's
Alternatives (BWA) program provides services, such
as a 24-hour hotline, shelters, crisis counseling,
a transitional housing program, job training, a
legal program, and treatment programs, for those
affected by domestic violence. Although services
are necessary, prevention strategies should be
emphasized. For instance, the Teen Program promotes
violence prevention workshops, sponsors youth
leadership development programs, and provides
resources to other organizations.

Mr. Lee maintained that the Teen Program assumes
that everybody is born a loving, intelligent, and
capable human being. However, as children grow up,
they are exposed to pervasive images of violence
that encourage the socialization of violence as a
norm. In addition, he noted that domestic violence
must be seen in connection with sexism, racism,
homophobia, and devaluation of others.

Alliances such as the Teen Program need to be
formed to help children resist oppressive
situations. In addition, Mr. Lee noted that
prevention must begin at home. If children are
exposed to violence in the home, they are more
likely to accept and repeat the violence. 

Although adults play a critical role in marketing
CDs, television shows, and clothing that may
encourage violent acts, teens are the ones who are
blamed and devalued. Mr. Lee stated that adults
must give up some of their power and help to create
a change in society in order to hear and respect
the voice of youth. The Teen Program encourages
youths to prevent violence through youth leadership
development programs. These programs stress peer
advocacy, conflict management, and training of
youths to become spokespeople in the community.

Mr. Lee trains in San Francisco's Men Overcoming
Violence and organizes men to speak out against
domestic violence. He stated that supportive men
can help to stop violence against women by becoming
allies and organizing with women against those men
who assault women.

Nancy Neylon is the Executive Director of Templum
House, which offers both prevention and
intervention programs for youths who have witnessed
or experienced domestic violence. Research has
shown that witnessing family violence can have an
adverse effect on the behavioral and emotional
development of children.She stressed that children
as young as two years can clearly verbalize
violence they have seen in their family.

Ms. Neylon identified four problems in current
intervention strategies. First, there is a lack of
coordination among services. Second,
compartmentalism of service delivery exists so that
programs work with only one problem and do not draw
a connection to other affected areas. Third,
children are not empowered. Pedophobia, which does
not endow children with rights or voices, is
prevalent in our society. Finally, current service
delivery approaches do not acknowledge that
children will usually continue their relationship
with an abuser. The services, therefore, do not
provide adequate safety programs.

In designing an effective intervention program, it
is important to frame a goal that defines what will
be changed. Support and resources in the community
need to be identified and analyzed. How broad an
effort the program will encompass should be
decided. Community leaders who might be willing to
get involved for the long term should be
approached. Finally, it is important to get
feedback from the community to assess the program's
impact. Groups, such as the local and federal
juvenile justice systems, court-appointed
guardians, and battered women's organizations, may
help with evaluation. 

An effective program needs a philosophy of
empowerment to encourage people to make their own
decisions. Domestic violence programs must also be
connected to other problem-solving efforts in the
community, especially against violence in general.
A high level of coordination between agencies helps
to facilitate change.
Child Abuse and Neglect

Moderator: Cathy Spatz Widom, Professor, Criminal
Justice and Psychology, State University of New
York at Albany, Albany, New York

Panelists: Susan J. Wells, Director, Research on
Children and the Law, American Bar Association,
Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Deanne Tilton Durfee, United States Advisory Board
on Child Abuse and Neglect, El Monte, California

Pat Stanislaski, Executive Director, National
Center for Assault Prevention, Sewell, New Jersey

Susan Wells noted that 23 percent of reports on
abuse and neglect to child protective services
(CPS) are made by educators and 16 percent are made
by law enforcement. States differ regarding who
should receive child abuse reports. Thirty States
specify CPS, and 19 States require CPS to notify
law enforcement in certain types of cases. But
responses to these reports soon involve many
agencies.

The role of law enforcement is relatively clear in
child homicide and sexual assault cases, but there
are debates about professional roles and
responsibilities in other situations. CPS/police
response teams offer several advantages: they help
team members understand each others' perspectives,
the police can prevent the perpetrator from leaving
the scene, the police can protect the CPS worker,
and the law can be a motivator for treatment. 

The past 20 years have seen a shift in the CPS role
from a family-oriented agency to a "law enforcement
investigative arm" and back again. Law enforcement
agencies often say they do not get called enough.

There are several different types of teams:
diagnostic and treatment, investigative, and
review. Teams often suffer from lack of funds, turf
wars, lack of mutual respect, personality clashes,
and time constraints. Even when funding is
available, teams often have difficulty writing
proposals because of these problems. Teams can be
strengthened and maintained by commitment to a
mutual goal and joint training. 

Deanne Durfee noted that a 1974 act of Congress
created the National Center for Child Abuse and
Neglect, and a 1988 amendment created an advisory
board for the Center. Ms. Durfee serves on that
advisory board, which comprises 15 members who
serve 4-year terms. In 1990, the board declared
child abuse and neglect a national emergency and
issued a report with 31 recommendations. However,
good data on child abuse and neglect is still
lacking.

There was no national agenda for child abuse and
neglect through the 1950's. In the 1960's, research
by Halfer and Kemp called attention to the battered
child syndrome, and a 1962 paper dealt with
inconsistencies between child injuries and parental
explanations for them. By 1974, there were child
abuse reporting laws in all states. Also in the
1970's, family-child sexual abuse was "discovered."
The problem was found to cross class lines, and
programs were developed to address it. 

In the 1980's, child sexual abuse began to receive
attention, and society realized that interventions
by public health workers, friends and family,
mental health professionals, law enforcement, and
others were necessary. The 1990's have included a
focus on child abuse fatalities and how to prevent
them. In 1978, the Los Angeles County Child Abuse
Fatality Review Team found that these fatalities
usually occurred in the third or fourth child of a
parent who started having children as a teenager.

Finally, Ms. Durfee pointed to the power of the
media to increase public awareness. Television
dramas, such as the last Marcus Welby episode,
Something About Amelia, Scared Silent, and Oprah
Winfrey's discussion of her own childhood abuse,
generated a tremendous number of calls to service
agencies. Now a backlash exists involving adults
who claim to have been wrongly accused. 

Pat Stanislaski noted that power, or lack of power,
is "at the very root of all violence." Empowerment
is at the heart of necessary solutions. The Child
Abuse Protection (CAP) project began in 1978 after
a second grade girl was raped in Columbus, Ohio.
Program founders were concerned about the avoidance
and victim-blaming they saw. They asked
organizations working with adult victims of sexual
assault to suggest how their work could be applied
to children. 

CAP programs now operate in 32 States and eight
countries. CAP workshops for children give them
solid information about how assaults happen, try to
lessen their isolation, and work to empower them.
Children are told they have the power to make
decisions (for example, about what they do with
their bodies) and that they have a fundamental
right to be safe.

The children are invited to speak after the
workshop. About 5 percent report major abuse they
have never before told anyone. Children's workshops
are adapted for preschool through high school,
including special education classes. CAP also holds
workshops for parents and teachers. About 70
percent of all public schools in New Jersey have
had CAP workshops. New Jersey has seen a 16 percent
decline in child sexual abuse over the past 3
years.

In response to a question about what to do when
children are abused by the criminal justice and
service systems, Dr. Cathy Widom said not all
children are treated the same. People need to
document differential treatment and increase
people's awareness of this issue. Dr. Widom talks
about equality of response at community policing
conferences. She also referred to her recent
research on child abuse and neglect, sponsored by
the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). Using a
prospective cohorts design, she studied a
substantial number of cases, separating abused and
neglected groups and comparing them with a matched
control group. Results are summarized in an NIJ
Research in Brief, The Cycle of Violence.

Family Support and Preservation

Moderator: Layla P. Suleiman, Associate Director of
Programs, Family Resource Coalition, Chicago,
Illinois

Panelists: Maria Elena Orrego, Consultant,
Preservation and Support Services, Commission on
Social Services of the District of Columbia

Susan Kelly, Director, Division of Family
Preservation Services, Michigan Department of
Social Services, Lansing, Michigan

Mustafa Abdul-Salaam, Executive Director, New Haven
Family Alliance, New Haven, Connecticut

Layla Suleiman opened the workshop by reminding
everyone that a consistent principle of social
service is that all families should have access to
resources that meet their needs and desires. In
today's environment, where many families have
trouble staying together, the traditional
approaches to human service delivery are
challenged.

The family support concept seeks to make services
to families more accessible, helpful, and
empowering. It has emerged as a realistic response
to the increasingly complex array of services and
types of support that all families need in order to
raise healthy, productive children.

Ms. Suleiman specifically suggested that successful
family support and preservation programs and
services should consider: (1) the ecological
framework or cultural and social system where the
family exists; (2) the developmental perspective of
the family as it adapts, changes, and grows as a
unit and as individuals; and (3) the issue of
empowerment as it relates to individuals and
families determining their service needs.

Mustafa Abdul-Salaam contended that violence is
rooted in the fact that families have not been
strengthened. Families are the core of communities
and country. They need information and resources to
control their environment. The goal should be to
help them understand responsible power.

When a person feels he or she has no power or
control, hope is lost. In this society, power is
gained through wealth, knowledge, or influence.
Most people do not have particular wealth or
knowledge, but they may have influence. Families
need to understand power and teach their children
about it.

History has clearly documented the power of
violence in civilization. As a tool of power,
violence is witnessed every day in communities,
politics, and corporations. To improve the
situation, people must understand how to create
their own power base.

Mr. Abdul-Salaam stressed that there are only
positive outcomes when communities, families, and
individuals learn to understand and use power.
Communities that control resources have the
healthiest environments. People in such communities
vote, organize, and get action on their concerns.
Communities that organize also institutionalize
leadership--a critical component for future
success.

Resources must be invested in underdeveloped
communities in order to decrease violence. By
emphasizing human and economic development,
focusing on families, and empowering parents, a
high standard of moral behavior for young men and
women can be developed. Community members can be
motivated to gain knowledge and information.

Maria Elena Orrego pointed out that State planning
for family support and preservation is an
opportunity for local communities to build
collaborative and integrated services. Planning
funds are offered by the Federal Government with
the requirement that consumers, such as parents and
families, be involved in the process. The Federal
mandate calls for working in collaboration to
minimize conflict. This is an opportunity to
harness more resources to stop the wave of violence
and destruction.

Ms. Orrego said that, as a consultant to the
District of Columbia, she sees the planning process
following a different route. The District knows
where the problems are and what their dimensions
are. New thinking looks at the many assets and
strengths in the community and determines how best
to build upon those.

She urged professionals in the field to use the
word "participant" rather than "client," because it
will help to build respect. Relationships with
participants should be built on trust, equality,
and respect.

Ms. Orrego concluded by stating that pregnancy
provides a window of opportunity to support
families. During this period, an important dialogue
about parenting takes place. Parents should be
coached and supported during the prenatal stage.
Information and support should continue through the
early childhood stages and into adolescence.
Parents of adolescents often lack support systems
during that critical period. Information and
resources can encourage them to be the best parents
they can be.

Susan Kelly directs the Division of Family
Preservation Services for the Michigan Department
of Social Services. In that capacity, she has also
directed the planning process for family support
services. Funds can only be used for new or
enhanced programs.

Ms. Kelly observed that violence is often tolerated
and condoned. It is not just a "youth" problem. For
example, at least 50 percent of men who batter a
female partner also assault one or more minor
children in the family. She advocated developing a
partnership with families and communities. She
stressed that the problems belong to all,
collectively.

Removing children from problem homes is not the
answer. The first removal usually leads to multiple
placements, an average of five. Last year, $11.9
billion was spent in the United States to remove
children from their homes. Children often do not
understand why they are removed and are emotionally
damaged by the experience.

In addition, Michigan authorities have found that
placing children into restrictive environments
(State facilities) almost guarantees a more
restrictive future placement.

Ms. Kelly showed a video about a young man who
formerly stole cars. He was placed in a State
facility and given technical training as an auto
mechanic. He also was assigned a mentor. The fact
that he was able to change his life proved that
solutions can be found.
Out-of-Home Youth

Moderator: Nexus Nichols, Director, Public Policy,
National Network of Runaway and Youth Services,
Washington, D.C.

Panelists: Eliza F. Greenberg, Adolescent Substance
Abuse Counselor, Bridge Over Troubled Waters, Inc.,
Boston, Massachusetts

Jeffrey A. Fetzko, Executive Director, Somerset
Home for Temporarily Displaced Children,
Bridgewater, New Jersey

Mardia Blyther, Peer Counselor, Sasha Bruce
Youthwork, Washington, D.C.

Nexus Nichols of the National Network of Runaway
and Youth Services began the session by describing
a young woman she had helped who was trying to get
health care. The woman had fled a violent and
abusive home, come to a strange city (Washington,
D.C.), and ended up sleeping on a park bench near
the White House in February. Despite health
problems, this young woman told Ms. Nichols she
wanted, above all else, for the violence to stop.

Eliza Greenberg has served as a counselor at Bridge
Over Troubled Waters, Inc., (Bridge) in Boston for
6 years. Bridge was founded in July 1970 to serve
runaways, homeless youth, and other youth on the
streets. Since then, Bridge has evolved into a
comprehensive multi-service agency, serving an
average of 4,000 youths each year. Bridge
intervenes in the lives of runaways, homeless
youth, and other youth in high-risk situations to
offer alternatives to street life, substance abuse,
and dependency. 

Ms. Greenberg pointed out that when asked how they
see themselves in the future, street youths most
often respond with "pregnant" (if females) or "in
jail or dead" (if males). She said the youths do
not see any options available to them. Bridge
operates a street outreach van, free medical
assistance, referrals to emergency housing for up
to three days (for youths of 17 years and under), a
family life center for young mothers, career
counseling, and education (GED) components. The
Bridge program has many points of entry, and youths
can benefit from whatever applies best to their
situation.

The residential component of Bridge (Single Parent
House and Transitional Living Program) houses
homeless youths, young adults, and single parents
in Bridge Houses. It provides affordable,
supportive housing, weekly group counseling,
individual counseling, independent living skills
education, stress and time management skills,
support for completing a high school education,
housekeeping, and work experience. The Bridge
Transitional Apartments provide clients who have
been through one of the Bridge Houses with an
additional year of less formal supervision in their
own apartments.

Of the street youth participating in the Bridge
program, 80 percent came from families not intact,
60 percent experienced either one or both parents
having addiction problems, 25 percent indicated
there were mental health problems at home, and 65
percent disclosed they had been abused.

Ms. Greenberg pointed out that it is necessary to
stabilize the young person before it is possible to
find sources of psychological problems. She
described an example of one young man who had been
homeless, unemployed, and gang-involved since the
age of 11. He had been shot three times, had used
alcohol and marijuana daily since the age of 16,
and had several warrants out for his arrest. After
the youth was brought to the residential program
and began to have a trusting relationship with his
counselor, the counselor discovered he had been
raped repeatedly from the age of 6 to 11. Although
street youths often come across as tough, this
posture may be protective. The violence is a
response to an inability to see any positive
alternatives.

Jeffrey Fetzko described his 16-bed shelter and 10-
bed transitional program in New Jersey. The New
Jersey statute that makes running away a status
offense has been a classic example of punishing the
victim. Mr. Fetzko said his program has branched
into new areas as they were needed, such as family
group counseling, educational services, and
substance abuse education and prevention.

Youths can stay in the transitional living program
for about 1 year to gain experience being self-
sufficient. They are also assisted to seek jobs,
get driver's licenses, and apply to school. All the
youths are given individual and group counseling in
response to the high incidence of family violence
and depression encountered in these cases. Mr.
Fetzko has found that, as youth experience some
success in economic and educational efforts, their
mental discouragement is turned around.

Mardia Blyther is a peer educator at Sasha Bruce
Youthwork. The program has a 24-hour emergency
shelter for runaway youths and maintains contacts
with other transitional living programs. Ms.
Blyther said that each youth's individual needs
have to be targeted, and often this is difficult
using traditional methods. Her program relies on
youth-to-youth outreach and counseling. When the
youth is working with another young person who
treats him or her as an equal and a nonthreatening
friend, better results may be reached. The young
people need to have their opinions respected and
not to be subjected to intimidation. Innovative
ideas can come out of having young people
themselves directing components of the outreach
program.

Mr. Fetzko commented that the facilities themselves
must command respect. He said his group keeps the
Somerset facility in good repair and paints it
almost twice a year. The youth value their place
more when it looks worthy. 

The youth need an opportunity to succeed at things
and to feel they have some control. Additionally,
Mr. Fetzko trains his staff in boundary referral--
access to other services provided by neighboring
organizations. He has also found that mentoring is
very helpful for the youth, particularly in the two
or three years after they leave the transitional
living program.

Sexual Assault

Moderator: Lynn Hecht Schafran, Director, National
Judicial Education Program to Promote Equality for
Women and Men in the Courts, National Organization
for Women, New York, New York

Panelists: William D. Pithers, Director, Vermont
Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Sexual
Abuse, Waterbury, Vermont

Vangie Foshee, Assistant Professor, Public Health
Nursing, University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Lynn Schafran asked attendees whether two
statements were true or false. The first statement
was, "If a man spends a lot of money on a woman, he
has the right to force sex on her." The second
statement was, "If a woman wears a tight skirt and
walks alone at night, she is asking for it." Ms.
Schafran reported that in one survey of high school
students, some boys and also some girls said the
statements were true.

Vangie Foshee described the Safe Dates program, a
partnership between the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Centers for Disease
Control, and the Johnston County community. The
program targets eighth and ninth grade students in
Johnston County.

The program's primary goal is to reduce the
percentage of adolescents who have ever been a
victim of dating violence by 35 percent and to
reduce psychological abuse by 35 percent as well.
Ms. Foshee stated that some studies have shown that
30 to 40 percent of high school students have
experienced abusive sexual situations.

The program targets students who have never been
abused and encourages those who have been abused to
get out of abusive relationships. Students watch a
"Safe Dating" play in required health classes and
study a "Safe Dating" curriculum.

Numerous agencies and officials--14 schools, the
district attorney's office, hospitals, police
departments, probation officers, and others--
collaborate in the program, and training activities
are spread throughout the year.

The program seeks to decrease gender stereotyping,
improve conflict management skills, increase
acceptance of norms favoring nonviolence, and
foster an ability to get help.

In a program evaluation procedure that includes
students who drop out of school, students are
tested before training, one month after training,
and one year after training. The 1,200 students in
middle and high schools who receive the training
and a control group of 1,200 students who do not
receive the training are tested.

Dr. William Pithers used several figures to sketch
the economic costs of child sexual abuse. In
Vermont, he said, the cost of investigating and
prosecuting a case of child sexual abuse is
$60,000. Nationally, in 1990, a total of 85,647 sex
offenders were incarcerated at a cost of $2
billion. The emotional and social costs, however,
are impossible to estimate. Dr. Pithers stated that
40 to 80 percent of sexual abusers of children were
themselves abused as children. Society must heal
those who have been abused and prevent future
abuse, he said. Prevention requires intervening as
early as possible into the lives of abusers.

Dr. Pithers described the program in which he is
involved, "Partnership for an Abuse-Free Vermont:
Transforming Vermont into the First Abuse-Free
State." One element is the STEP program, which has
a family-based focus. Including the family of an
abuser in the treatment, he said, greatly increases
the chance that the abuser will finish treatment.
Another motivation, he added, is making offenders
pay part of the cost of their treatment.

Recidivism runs high among sex offenders. The three
dimensions of relapse prevention, as described by
Dr. Pithers, are internal self-management, external
supervision (even more important than self-
management), and structural integration of
assessment and treatment.

Dr. Pithers said that among those who entered the
treatment program, the recidivism rate for rapists
was 19 percent and for pedophiles 7 percent over a
period of about 8 years.

Ms. Schafran concluded the session with comments
about her organization's activities. The National
Organization for Women published a survey about
sexual harassment in Seventeen magazine and
received more than 4,000 responses. Many girls are
afraid to go to school, she said, because they
cannot bear the touching and groping that occurs.
Some, she stated, drop out of school.

Ms. Schafran mentioned the Glen Ridge, New Jersey,
case in which a group of high school athletes raped
a retarded girl. The offenders received short
sentences in a youth camp. However, Ms. Schafran
stated, because sex offenders recidivate at a
higher rate than any other class of criminals, it
is ineffective merely to jail them without
treatment. She called for such cases to be taken
more seriously.Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programs

Moderator: Barbara W. Sugland, Research Associate,
Child Trends, Inc., Washington, D.C.

Panelists: Marion Howard, Director, Center for
Adolescent Reproductive Health, Emory University,
Atlanta, Georgia

The Reverend Ms. Carolyn Holloway, Multi-Ethnic
Center, New York, New York

Douglas Kirby, Director of Research, ETR
Associates, Santa Cruz, California

Dr. Barbara Sugland stated that the problems and
concerns that arise from teenage pregnancy are well
documented. The greatest impact of teenage
pregnancy is the loss of opportunity for education,
employment, and other life experiences.

The Reverend Carolyn Holloway operates a program
for youth and families in New York City's
Chinatown. It provides comprehensive support for
teens and elders. The goals of the program are:
 
o To be in partnership and cooperation with the
home, school, and multi-ethnic community;
o To increase the level of self-esteem, especially
among young people who are underachievers;
o To secure for young people a greater awareness of
themselves and others;
o To provide intergenerational counseling and
skills building; and
o To provide nontraditional female and male
mentoring.

The Multi-Ethnic Center (MEC) was established in
1986 in response to high school failure rates and
other problems in New York's Lower East Side. The
after-school program provides individual tutoring,
homework help, and an educationally oriented arts
program. The center has expanded to include a
"Youth Alive" segment that sponsors retreats away
from the city for teens and pre-teens. The "Elders'
Circle of Wisdom" provides an opportunity for those
over the age of 55 to share their experiences with
the youth. 

MEC serves youths ages 6 to 18, of whom two-thirds
are African-American, one-fourth are Asian, and a
few are Hispanic. Most are from single-parent
households, and many are latchkey children. The
center has programs for elementary school children
and pre-teens. 

The center's philosophy is that prevention efforts
must begin at an early age. In working with youth,
Ms. Holloway realized that, while many young people
are involved in difficult and serious situations,
youth just want to be youth. They do not want to
grow up too fast, but too often they have no
choice. The center holds "rap" sessions that
address these issues and give youths an opportunity
to talk about their concerns and know that someone
is listening and caring. Ms. Holloway has also
found that "education provides the best deterrent
to the statistics." The program instills in the
youths respect for their bodies so that they can
have a different outlook from which to make
decisions that involve their bodies.

A unique component of the program is its elder care
segment. Through this, youths can see the impact
their babies may have on the elders of the
community, who all too often are the ones to care
for the children of teenage mothers.

Dr. Douglas Kirby has conducted research on the
effectiveness of pregnancy prevention programs and
has found that school-based programs are the most
effective. He pointed out that pregnancy prevention
efforts should focus on schools, since all youth
are enrolled in school at some point before they
engage in sex.

Dr. Kirby provided a brief history of pregnancy
prevention strategies. The first generation of
programs focused on providing information and
dispelling myths about sex. While these programs
increased youths' knowledge, they had no proven
impact on behavior. Behavioral research suggests
knowledge is not highly correlated to behavior.

The second generation of programs focused on
imparting values and on teaching decision-making
and communication skills. These types of programs
still showed no statistically significant impact on
behavior.

The third generation of programs grew out of
opposition to the first and second generation
types. These suggested abstinence and were
religion-based. Researchers do not yet know what
impact these programs have had on behavior.

The fourth generation of programs is theoretically
based. Evaluation of these programs shows that some
have had an impact on behavior. Practitioners in
the field of pregnancy prevention believe this
confirms that educational programs can make a
difference.

Dr. Kirby presented study findings from three
programs with proven success. These programs had
several characteristics in common:
 
o They focused narrowly on reducing sexual risk-
taking behavior.
o They were based on social learning theories.
o They provided basic information and activities to
personalize information.
o They included activities that address the social
and media influences on sexual behavior.
o They reinforced clear and appropriate values and
norms.
o They provided modeling of communication skills.
o They provided training for program implementers.

As director of a family planning clinic, Dr. Marion
Howard has made several observations about
approaches to pregnancy prevention among youth.
Through the media, youth get very diverse and
conflicting messages about sexual behavior and its
consequences. They often do not have the
information to sort these conflicts out. Those
providing pregnancy prevention education must
correct misinformation and provide new information.


She also noted that those who are sexually involved
receive much attention and have many support
elements available--contraceptives, sexually
transmitted disease (STD) education and treatment,
prenatal care, and childcare. Yet, for those who do
not engage in sex, there is no reinforcement that
tells them, "good job." It became apparent to Dr.
Howard that "we need to institutionalize support
for youth who are delaying engaging in sex."

Youth who are sexually active need to focus on
minimizing sexual involvement. The consequences of
having multiple partners and unprotected sex are
not just related to reproduction, but to life and
death. AIDS, STDs, and infertility can result.

The focus of the teen pregnancy prevention program
that Dr. Howard operates is delaying the start of
sexual behavior through empowering older teens to
work as role models. This peer-based program,
operating in Atlanta public schools, hired 60
teenagers (30 male and 30 female) who undergo 20
hours of training and attend 2-hour in-service
training sessions each month. 

Teenagers, according to Dr. Howard, have not
developed the same psychosocial skills as adults
and cannot be approached in the same manner.
Teenagers live in a media age where there is much
confusion about sex and the reasons for engaging in
it. Those who do not engage in sex, as well as
those at risk for becoming pregnant, need
support.Media Literacy and Advocacy

Moderator: Margi Trapani, Director, Child Health
and Development Media Program, New York, New York

Panelists: Elizabeth Thoman, Executive Director,
Center for Media Literacy, Los Angeles, California

Ivan J. Juzang, President, Motivational Educational
Entertainment Productions, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania

Paul A. Teruel, Production Director, Street Level
Video, Chicago, Illinois

Arthur L. Kanegis, President, Future WAVE, Santa
Fe, New Mexico

Margi Trapani referred to the effort of finding
positive alternatives to replace media influences
that favor violence. She gave the scriptural quote,
"Seek not to contest with evil, lest ye be taken by
the spirit of contention--rather, concern yourself
with goodness."

Elizabeth Thoman, representing the Center for Media
Literacy, the largest developer of media literacy
educational resources, has undertaken several
assessment studies of the media. The Center's
mission is to inform citizens about what they are
viewing. An informed citizenry sees beyond what is
shown on the screen. They know how the programs got
there. Media literacy attempts to get people to
look past the circle of blame. Responsibility is
not on the advertisers who sponsor violence or the
persons who produce violent films to please the
sponsors. The consumers themselves, who watch
violent films and purchase the sponsors' products,
drive the industry. The media do not really cause
violence; mass media are an integral part of
society, and society buys violence.

Ms. Thoman stated that all of the current five
generations, children to senior citizens, need to
be educated. Citizens must use all the educational
processes, schools, libraries, and churches.

The Center for Media Literacy produces a monthly
magazine, Media & Values, and prepares curricula
for media literacy. There are currently 10
different media literacy workshop kits. 

Another program directed at youth is "Beyond Blame:
Countering Violence in the Media." This uses four
video-based curricula for elementary students,
middle school or junior high school students, adult
or teen community groups, and parents and
caregivers of young children.

Arthur Kanegis is associated with such pictures as
War without Winners, and The Day After. He works
with one of Hollywood's top producers, Robert
Watts, to produce films and entertainment products
with new kinds of nonviolent heroes and heroines.
This is a response to President Clinton's call to
the entertainment industry to help give children
nonviolent ways to resolve their own frustration.
Mr. Kanegis founded Future WAVE, Inc. (Working for
Alternatives to Violence in Entertainment) to
answer this call. Future WAVE is developing an
educational resource center to offer Hollywood's
creative teams practical alternatives to violence
that they can incorporate into their productions.

Mr. Kanegis provided an overview of his new program
for empowering young people with the tools for
violence-free creative conflict engagement. It is
built around The Legend of the Bullyproof Shields,
a rap and roll opera that uses multicultural music.
The legend describes a series of 10 shields made by
Shona Bear, a Muskogee (Creek) medicine woman, that
carry the spirits of the bear, unicorn, lynx, lion,
yak, porpoise, raven, otter, owl, and fox, creating
the acronym BULLYPROOF. The opera has been
effectively used in schools, particularly when
presented by those students who most need
assistance, such as truants and disruptive youths.
The musical stage play, while fun and cross-
cultural in influence, requires the students to
learn their lines and play roles. Children's books,
music videos, and public service announcements are
also built around the program's violence prevention
themes.

Paul Teruel, production director for Street Level
Video, uses the video production process to get
youth involved in using the media to present
neighborhood and street issues and possible
solutions. The students invent the story line, act
in the scenarios, and edit the film. They have
produced over 50 such videos, which are available
to schools, recreation centers, civic groups, and
other interested organizations.

Ivan Juzang, founder and president of Motivational
Educational Entertainment Productions (MEE), is a
nationally recognized leader in communicating with
urban youth. Recently the company was recognized as
one of the most effective agencies to link with the
present "Hip-Hop" generation. The company based its
production effort around the results of research
completed on urban youth living in at-risk
environments. The company has produced two video
documentaries on these results.

Qualitative research has found a number of faulty
assumptions that contribute to the lack of
communication with inner-city youth, including the
idea that there is a homogeneous "street culture"
and that inner-city youths make decisions in their
mid-teens about drug use or other self-destructive
actions. Decisions are actually made much earlier. 

The dominant culture's style of communication is
not effective, and parental injunctions such as
"Just say no!" and "Stay in school!" coming from
mainstream society are not believable.
If people want to better understand the inner-city
culture based on youth-to-youth and adult-to-youth
contact, they need to listen, a part of
communicating. Outdated messages and the wrong
messengers have been used. As senders, youths can
channel the message to obtain peer acceptance. This
strategy includes preventing violence.

The Atlantic Project has attempted to involve the
general media in getting messages across. No one
can make changes in the media by simply requesting
them. The media belong to the people, but it takes
empowered people to have an impact on what is
shown. Some in the entertainment community support
efforts to reduce the violence and present more
positive conflict resolution alternatives.
Keynote Speakers and Afternoon Plenary Session

Hillary Rodham Clinton, First Lady of the United
States, (Transcript of Presentation)

If we had a disease in our country that was killing
65 people a day, this country would be mobilized.
We would not rest until we had figured out how to
stamp out that epidemic--particularly when it meant
the deaths of seven young people a day. We know now
that there is an epidemic of violence. Yet, some
among us either refuse to accept the ravages of
that epidemic or have other agendas than the saving
of lives and the reforming of people's futures.
Conferences like this, including people from around
this country, speak loudly and clearly to elected
representatives, telling them, "Enough is enough,
and America wants action now."

I especially want to thank all the cities that sent
teams to this conference. We know we have to form
partnerships among all different kinds of people in
every community and at the local, State, and
Federal levels, in order to combat the ravages of
violence.

I also particularly want to thank the young people
who are here. I love their enthusiasm and the sound
of young voices speaking out on what they care
about. Your being here and being willing to commit
yourselves to finding solutions is very
significant. I am grateful to you for accepting
this responsibility. This conference, as those of
you who are participants know, is about
possibilities and about success. And it is about
never, never giving up. 

I often give commencement speeches. I've heard
many, as I am sure all of you in this room have.
But the favorite I have ever heard about is the one
Winston Churchill gave at his prep school, when he
strode to the podium and with very few introductory
words said, "Never, never, never give up."

That is the way I feel about every single young
person in our country today. Every young man or
woman has a God-given potential that we at our
peril give up on. It is incumbent on us, as
representatives of the adult community of this
society, to commit ourselves to you young people.
If you don't give up on yourself, we will not give
up on you.

It is a lot harder, in many ways, growing up today
than it was when many of us in this room were
coming up. I bet most of us remember the occasional
black eye, hurtful word, pushing, and shoving. I
just thank God that, given the strong emotions that
accompany growing up no matter where you are, we
did not have guns. The most we could do with one
another was yell, scream, and shove. 

Think of what it is like today. The young people in
this room and millions of others like them are
immersed in a culture of violence--a culture that,
in so many ways, glorifies violence. We see it
every day on television, we see it in our movies,
but worst of all we see it every single day in the
streets and neighborhoods where children are trying
to grow up, where too many, in effect, are raising
themselves. In too many neighborhoods, gunfire is a
daily ritual of life. An Uzi is a badge of honor,
instead of the mark of cowardice, which it truly
is. A bullet wound is an emblem of adulthood.

From hospital to hospital in the last year and a
half, I have gone into emergency rooms. Over and
over, I saw the epidemic of violence raging in many
of our communities: 13- and 14-year-olds with
bullet wounds. They are brought in, not with one
bullet, but with multiple bullets from an assault
weapon. The techniques of medicine cannot even keep
up with the carnage that is daily brought to the
doors of the emergency rooms. You go to any
emergency room in any medium-sized city, let alone
a large city in our country, and you talk to the
doctors and nurses there, as I have. If you do not
believe violence is an epidemic, you will become
quickly convinced as they tell you stories of
struggling to save 13- and 14-year-old lives.
Sometimes they are saving those lives only to send
those kids back out on the street, where they are
likely to be returned to that emergency room in a
relatively short period of time.

We see this violence every day as we pick up our
newspapers. In Washington today, another 13-year-
old was gunned down on a street corner. His killer
was also 13 years old. In Washington last summer,
gunshots were fired at a public swimming pool
packed with children trying to escape the 90-degree
heat. A few months ago, a 4-year-old girl was
fatally shot in the head when groups of youngsters
opened fire on an elementary school playground. And
during the last week, a 1-year-old was grazed by a
bullet from a gun fight. What does it say about a
society that has graduated from the taunts, thrown
punches, and raised fists we all remember from
schoolyard fights of the past, to 13-year-olds
being gunned down on street corners, 4-year-olds
being killed on playgrounds, and 1-year-olds being
grazed by bullets? 

Children are not only the victims of violence but,
all too frequently, the perpetrators. In the
1980's, more than 11,000 people died as a result of
homicides committed by teenagers. Gunfire and
drive-by shootings have become so commonplace that
many people don't even notice it or talk about it
any more. In matter-of-fact ways, children tell you
that they are not sure they will live to finish
high school. They confront not only academic
challenges, but challenges to their physical
safety.

There is, as you know, no simple answer to this
epidemic of youth violence. That is why we have
brought federal agencies together to fulfill the
President's pledge to begin, at least, to address
this problem. We need a comprehensive strategy that
emphasizes responsibility and opportunity and
community. We need health reform, welfare reform,
job training programs, and life-long learning
programs. 

The voices of young people today can testify to the
importance of recreational facilities, educational
programs, family support services, and other
preventive measures that nurture hope and
possibilities for our young people. Those who voted
against the Crime Bill last week don't seem to care
that our children cannot feel safe at school. A
recent survey showed that 15 percent of school
children believe there are gangs in their school.
Almost one in 10 students in high school reported
that in the previous month there had been at least
one serious physical fight. Time after time
Congress caved in to the pressure of special
interests instead of making this legislation law.
The Crime Bill is not perfect--no piece of
legislation is. I bet every one of us would have
written it slightly differently, would have added
or taken out according to what we thought was best.
But it is a critical, important, and necessary
start. It is, for the first time, a piece of
legislation that lays down the twin principles of
fighting crime: punishment and prevention.

Let us focus on some of the pieces of this Crime
Bill that are so important, like YES, the Youth
Employment Skills Program. It is important to give
young people in high unemployment areas the skills
they need to be able to find jobs. Another good
program is the Community Schools Program that will
give grants to community groups to keep schools
open after hours, on weekends, and during the
summer, so that kids can have safe places where
they can engage in learning and recreation, where
there can be adult mentors and coaches. If schools
can be used as safe havens for youngsters, children
will be safer. When it takes both parents in a home
working, or when it takes a single parent working
to sustain the household, that person should not
have to live in fear of what happens to their
children on the street between the time school is
over and the time they get home for dinner.

The Gang Resistance Education and Training Program,
called GREAT, is already a proven success. We often
fight a losing battle to convince young people not
to join gangs. Why? Because the gang provides a
haven. Not safe! But a haven. It provides a
"family." It provides a network of people who say
they will look out for each other and fills a
vacuum in the lives of thousands and thousands of
youngsters. A positive alternative, a program like
GREAT, where young people can be safe and grow
together is much better. Children can learn to
resist the false, in many ways dangerous, seductive
pleasures the gang proposes in the short run, which
lead to death and misery for so many children.

Consider also programs supporting police
partnerships for children, programs where police
officers take time to work with young people. These
programs, together with community policing, provide
a bulwark against problems on the street. We have
the opportunity to transform our police officers
not only into instruments of punishment but also
instruments of prevention.

The Violence Against Women Act is also an important
part of the current Crime Bill. Women should not be
victimized, whether in the home or on the street,
and we need to give our law enforcement officials a
tool to protect women. When you merge all of this
prevention with the other law enforcement elements,
it adds up to a well-balanced, reasonable approach
that mixes prevention and punishment.

Those of you participating in this conference know
first-hand what it will take in your own home towns
to combat violence. The Crime Bill is a critical
step, but it is not a panacea. It is not going to
bring families together; it is not going to get
adults to give children all the supervision, love,
discipline, and attention they need; it is not
going to instill a sense of faith and
responsibility in the souls of young people who
have been damaged and alienated. It will, however,
begin to put into place people, institutions, and
programs to help young people and their families
get to those outcomes. It can give people a chance
to feel they are part of something bigger than
themselves. It can lay the line very clearly that
you have to know the difference between right and
wrong, and we are going to hold you responsible for
your choices and the consequences of those choices.

The whole issue of youth violence indicates
something much more profound. It indicates that
literally millions of Americans have walked away
from their responsibilities. That is what we are
ultimately trying to reverse. The individual is
responsible for his or her actions. Society is also
responsible for individuals. It is not an either/or
situation.

Let's just stop for a minute and ask ourselves,
"Haven't we wasted enough lives? Haven't we lost
enough young men and women to prisons? Haven't we
turned our back too many times on the God-given
potential of every one of our young people?" I
don't care what race they are; I don't care where
they live. Every single young person in this
country has a spark about them that we have for too
long allowed to be extinguished by the level of
violence, hatred, and divisiveness that still
stalks this country.

We can do much better than that. Look at the faces
of the young people around you today. We know we
can do better. But not unless we are willing to
stand up and be counted. We are going to begin to
save a generation of young people from this
epidemic of violence.
 
Deborah Prothrow-Stith, Assistant Dean, Harvard
School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts

I am honored to be here because I know many of you
here, and I know what we have accomplished
together. This conference has a special excitement
about it, in part because it has so many young
people participating. The multidisciplinary aspect
of it and the visit by the First Lady make it
special. 

It's tiring to go to conferences. You work hard
and see the same faces over and over. When we go
home, we lose that spirit that helps us to try to
do things differently. This is an important time
for us. Still, when we get home, it's hard to do
things any differently.

This conference is important because we are the
national movement to prevent violence. During my
internship, I pondered the words of a spiritual,
"I ain't no way tired--I come too far." We believe
that we can live lives without violence. We might
get tired, but we must inspire ourselves and each
other to keep on and prevent violence.

This conference is not about my program, your
program, or somebody's videotape, it is about
preventing violence in our lives. Nor is it about
who's got the "best" or who's got the "most." It
is about a national movement to change the fabric
of this country. We have a problem that no other
industrialized country has. Whether we are from
Arkansas, Detroit, or anywhere else in the
country, we have to stop teaching children to
admire violence. You know why children admire
violence? Because they are raised in a society
that admires violence. Violence is part of the
feeling of who we are.

We must stop teaching children to admire violence.
We have to change that feeling of "who we are,"
the fabric of this society. Adults have as much of
a problem on this issue as the children do. Adults
make guns, make violent films, even produce and
distribute violent rap songs.

Did you read the recent article in People magazine
about the L.A. Coroner's office? They are selling
toe tags. You can buy toe tags with the names of
dead people on them. You can buy T-shirts with
images of the taped outlines of bodies, as seen in
police investigation areas. We have "Rambo" hearts
and "Terminator" heads.

We watch children who are in trouble and do
nothing. When they need primary prevention and
secondary intervention, we do nothing. But as soon
as they have committed a violent crime, we get
aggressive and spend a lot of money. 

The mayor of Milwaukee told me about the
conviction of a 17-year-old who had committed
murder. The mayor was understandably satisfied
that this young man had been convicted, because it
was a horrible murder. The 17-year-old was
sentenced to 73 years incarceration, without
opportunity for parole. Later, I thought about
that conversation again, because the mayor had
also spoken about the city's summer jobs program.
He said the city government had not been able to
get the Federal money they wanted. It dawned on me
that we are willing to spend $35,000 a year on the
same kid to whom we won't give a $2,000 summer
job. It does not make sense on either the
individual or public policy level. 

In the process of teaching one of our violence
prevention courses, I received a call from one of
our counselors. She had a young man who had been
in the summer program who was depressed. He had
avoided and prevented fights, but his friends
didn't think that was a good idea. They didn't
like him as well. Not only that, his parents
didn't think preventing fights was necessarily a
good idea. Although he tried to prevent violence,
he was in a world that did not appreciate that
effort. 

Our culture doesn't believe in or like
nonviolence. It doesn't make the news. If we
really want things to change, we will have to live
without violence and believe in nonviolence.
Forgiveness, empathy, compassion, compromise, and
mediation are not very popular. Those are the
things the "wimps" do. They are not celebrated.
Half of the homicides in the United States are not
drive-by or drug-related shootings. They are
friends, families, and neighbors who get into an
argument. If you and I are going to get along, we
have to forgive each other, listen, and compromise
with each other. 

Reginald Denny, the man who had been beaten in Los
Angeles, was on the Phil Donahue show together
with one of those accused of beating him, a couple
of jurors, and family members. As the discussion
went on, Reginald talked about forgiveness, and
the audience became quite hostile. One woman said,
"Why didn't you let the jury do what they should
have done and send that man to jail?" It was scary
to see how unpopular forgiveness is. People don't
understand the concept. Reginald Denny said, "It's
in my religion to forgive." Then the woman
responded, "Well, what kind of religion do you
have?" All the world religions I know have
something about forgiveness in them.
---------------------------------------

Plenary Panel: Comprehensive Community Planning
Strategies for Solving Youth Violence

Moderator: John A. Calhoun, Executive Director,
National Crime Prevention Council, Washington,
D.C.

Panelists: Thomas J. Monaghan, U.S. Attorney,
District of Nebraska, Omaha, Nebraska

Stefanie Sanford, Chief, Juvenile Crime
Intervention Division, Office of the Attorney
General, Austin, Texas

Robert L. Mallett, City Administrator, District of
Columbia

Debra S. Lindsey-Opel, Executive Assistant to the
Mayor, Corpus Christi, Texas

John Calhoun began the session by offering a
description of the human face of violence. He
quoted an 8-year-old boy from Hartford,
Connecticut, as saying, "I like school, but I have
to worry about getting home alive."

Crime claims two victims, Mr. Calhoun said: the
person hurt and the community that suffers fear.
Crime prevention strategies should operate on
three levels: individual response, community
involvement, and national public policy. He said
the first two panelists, Stefanie Sanford and
Robert Mallett, would speak on the process of
combating violence, while the second two speakers,
Thomas Monaghan and Debra Lindsey-Opel, would
speak on the content of their strategies.

Ms. Sanford spoke about the Texas Cities Action
Plan (TCAP), a multi-city attempt to prevent
violence. In Texas, major increases in prison
spending had struggled to keep up with an increase
in serious crime. In fact, prison capacity rose
from 25,000 in 1982 to a projected 150,000 in
1996, when current building is finished.

To get a prevention program going, Ms. Sanford
said, it is necessary to involve conservatives
(who usually prefer punishment to prevention). The
media are accustomed to hearing about prevention
from child advocacy groups and others of a similar
bent. But when a police chief or business CEO
speaks out on behalf of violence prevention, the
media pay more attention.

A successful anti-violence campaign also needs a
"media heavy-hitter," someone who can get
reporters and cameras to attend the big meetings.
In addition, such a campaign needs articulate,
savvy people on its board. Star power also helps.
Ms. Sanford said a radio talk-show star in San
Antonio joined the project and succeeded in
getting other people to attend meetings.

TCAP faced major problems such as apathy (it is
hard for voters to act when they see only
incremental, not major, successes), inertia (the
job is so big people cannot start), and people's
belief that violence is something for government
to solve.

Any positive media coverage of TCAP's activities
helped to keep those involved enthusiastic about
the effort. TCAP also published a biweekly
newsletter to keep cities up-to-date with what the
other cities in the program were doing. The
newsletter fostered competition among the cities.

A recurring criticism of the project, Ms. Sanford
said, was that all of the steps TCAP was taking
had been done before. TCAP was different, however,
because it made action steps (not "should"
statements, but actual lists of activities for the
group to do). It involved the citizens, made plans
public, and followed an organized process. When
violence-prevention proposals are made public,
many good people will step forward and ask, "When
can I start?"

Mr. Mallett described Washington, D.C.'s
experience as a part of Project PACT (Pulling
America's Communities Together). Violence in
Washington, he said, is headline news across the
nation. However, crime in Washington is
substantially down. For example, homicide has
dropped 15 percent over the last year.

Washington was invited by the federal government
to participate in PACT, to identify programs that
were fighting violence, and to aid those programs.
Therefore, the city government sought
neighborhood, community, and religious leaders.

The work of PACT is done by grassroots
stakeholders in the communities. The efforts
include a broad range of people, Mr. Mallett said:
lawyers, doctors, homosexuals, Asians, and
African-Americans. Violence touches them all, he
said, and they can all help solve the problems.

Several obstacles arose. One is cynicism. People
would ask, "How many task forces must we form
before we get serious?" Another is hopelessness.
Mr. Mallett said the level of hopelessness in
Washington is overwhelming. There is more
hopelessness there, he said, than anywhere he had
ever lived. He described citizens' pronounced
detachment from the city government. In
Washington, he said, people are much more attached
to the Federal Government and have little faith in
the city government.

Time is another obstacle. He had to convince
people not just to join PACT but to stick with it
for a long time. Momentum, too, was a challenge.

So far, PACT has gathered statistics on violent
crime, helped the juvenile justice system work
better, and helped city agencies to work better
together. Mr. Mallett said the main goal is to
stop the terrible crimes--the people getting
killed--in Washington.

Mr. Monaghan, representing PACT of Nebraska,
discussed why Nebraska is participating in the
PACT program. People from Los Angeles and
elsewhere had found a market for crack cocaine in
the cities of Nebraska. Once they came to the
State, violent crime escalated, especially for
youthful offenders.

Law enforcement worked hard to catch the shooters,
he said, but more had to be done. Prevention was
needed. The Nebraska PACT program decided against
using a steering committee. Many smart people in
the State were already working on preventing
violence, Mr. Monaghan said. PACT decided to
include them all. Youth, social workers, judges,
law enforcement officers, and others were brought
together to share ideas for a written plan.

PACT works to strengthen neighborhoods, expand
youth participation in community life, and teach
dispute resolution. PACT leaders also knew that
they must work to strengthen families and give
them the chance to solve their own problems. PACT
leaders knew they must address people's values.
Since PACT was organized by the governor's office
and the U.S. attorney, the program leaders had to
exclude any particular religion from the values
they stressed. They simply tried to encourage
people to care about each other, not to cheat on
taxes, and to behave in other ways that showed
civic virtue.

The reason PACT and other violence-prevention
efforts must continue, Mr. Monaghan said, pointing
out his daughters in the audience, is so that
children like his daughters, and their children in
turn, can live in safety.

When TCAP was started in Corpus Christi, Ms.
Lindsey-Opel said, Texas was spending great sums
of money on prisons and law enforcement officers.
However, by the end of the TCAP process, she
noted, the State had become much more prevention-
oriented. The TCAP committee she headed included
car dealers, community advocates, and anyone else
who wanted to join. The group held town hall
meetings to gather the ideas of the people.

The TCAP program in Corpus Christi had four key
elements. First was a top-notch support team of
Federal, State, and local government officials.
Second was a good organizational structure
consisting of a four-person steering committee, a
26-person coalition, and many committees on
specific topics. Third was the fact that
participants truly embraced the process. Finally,
the mayor and the police chief also fully
supported TCAP.

TCAP leadership tasked the committees with
bringing back specific crime prevention
recommendations. The recommendations were not
necessarily the very best, Ms. Lindsey-Opel said,
but they were good and realistic; and there was a
deadline to meet. The TCAP plan represented Corpus
Christi residents' vision for their city.

Several activities resulted from TCAP's work. Now,
after certain legal actions that involve or affect
children (such as divorce), the local court orders
the parents to participate in educational
programs. Ms. Lindsey-Opel said 99 percent of the
parents have rated the program favorably.

A Weed and Seed program has been started that has
increased community policing, and a large police
athletic league has begun. The city of Corpus
Christi is also developing security action plans
for middle schools. The city has developed a
supervised parental visitation center where
combative, separated parents can transfer kids
without seeing each other and where court-ordered
parental visits that must be supervised can be
held.

Keynote Speakers, Tuesday, August 16, 1994

Kelly Zimmerman National Youth of the Year,
National Boys and Girls Clubs of America,
Orrville, Ohio

Ms. Zimmerman revealed that she originally
questioned why she was asked to speak on violence,
because she did not live in an area that suffered
from gun- or gang-related violence. She realized,
however, that the family violence she had
experienced was not unique and that its prevention
measures were similar to other forms of violence.

Ms. Zimmerman acknowledged that she is a survivor
of the physical and emotional abuse caused by her
father's alcoholism. She stated that her earliest
memory of her father was of him beating her
mother. She had witnessed her father rape her
mother and threaten her grandmother with a gun.
Her younger sister's only recollection of her
father was of him throwing a pan of hot water on
her.

Like many victims of violence, she credited her
perseverance to becoming involved in activities
away from the home. She stated that the Boys and
Girls Club gave her the stability and direction
she needed to resist drugs and alcohol.

The Boys and Girls Club staff is made up of people
from all walks of life devoted to serving their
community's children. She described each of the
staff members as a necessary link in building a
bond in the community. She praised the leaders'
dedication to making the Club a positive place to
be. That commitment encouraged her own continued
participation.

Similar organizations have effective facilitators
that can create a sense of belonging. If young
people do not get that sense of belonging from the
home or organizations like the Club, they may seek
refuge in gangs.

Ms. Zimmerman emphasized the importance of
communicating to youths that they matter. This can
be done by motivating youths to become community
oriented. She commended her local United Way for
demonstrating concern for the youth by giving full
voting power to her as youth member of the United
Way Board of Trustees.

Ms. Zimmerman quoted Emerson's statement, "Nothing
great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. When
you do something, do it with all your might. Put
your own soul in it. Stamp it with your own
personality." She applauded those kids who were so
enthusiastic about the issue of violence
prevention that they took a week out of their
summer vacation to become involved in the
conference. She also commended those adults who
put their time, energy, and sanity into this
conference. They believe in the future of the
youth.

Ernesto Cortes, Jr., Director, Texas Industrial
Areas Foundation, Austin, Texas

As an organizer for the Industrial Areas
Foundation with the Alinsky Institute, Mr. Cortes
stated that to do something about crime and
violence, the single most strategic, preventive
program is a healthy, viable community. This
strategy is rooted in the reorganization and
redevelopment of families.

In the past 20 to 25 years, there has been an
economic war on families, which has made it
difficult for families to sustain themselves. The
base of the economy has moved from manufacturing
and distri-bution of goods to a service-oriented,
globalized market. This has produced incredible
pressures on the ability of families to sustain
themselves. 

Mr. Cortes noted that there has been a 30 percent
decline in real income since 1973 for white males
who have graduated from high school. In order for
the family income of 1989 to compare to that of
1973 in terms of real purchasing strength, the
family income has to be augmented by at least one
other adult working person. Consequently, the
family has been transformed from an institution
whose primary purpose was nurturing, developing
relationships, developing identity, raising
children, and building communities, to an
institution that is an economic unit, whose
primary purpose is the business of making or
moving economic resources.

Because of these pressures on families, Mr. Cortes
emphasized that it is more important to develop
"the capacities of families and communities to
organize, to be viable entities able to articulate
their interests and to make them significant in
the public agenda." His job, he said, is to teach
families about politics in the sense that
Aristotle meant it, debate and discussion on three
big issues: family, property, and education.

Mr. Cortes defined politics "in the Aristotelian
sense of public debate, in the sense of developing
a public discourse, developing a public persona."
He argued that a healthy community is one where
people can debate, discuss, confront, and
compromise about their interests. People's fears,
anxieties, and prejudices must be translated into
legitimate interests. Tension between the capacity
to be just and concerned about others and the
inclination to be selfish and self-centered makes
compromise difficult. This tension, this dimension
of human nature, demands the aid of institutions
such as families, communities, schools,
congregations, and churches to "rebuild some sort
of social fabric that will enable us to develop
our full potential as human beings." It is toward
the development of these institutions that the
Industrial Areas Foundation is focused.

Mr. Cortes asserted that throughout this
development, the concept of the "Iron Rule" must
be present. The Iron Rule is, "Never do for anyone
what he or she can do for themselves." It stands
in contrast to what he called "The Guardian" or
"Grand Inquisitor" mode of leadership, the rule of
the expert or meritocracy, which encourages
learned helplessness and passivity.

Mr. Cortes illustrated the Iron Rule with the
story of Moses. Moses learned that he alone could
not be responsible for the livelihood of the
Hebrews he had led to freedom. Instead, he
realized he had to bring together leaders that he
could train and guide to organize others, in turn,
to support themselves. He learned that by
organizing around the interests of others, the
barriers of mistrust and fear between people are
broken down. They begin to develop an
understanding of the Iron Rule.

Once leaders among the people can be identified,
leaders who understand their interests and can be
taught to converse about those interests, then
race, ethnicity, and geography can be transcended.
People can break down barriers of mistrust and
begin to act collaboratively. When they begin to
act collaboratively and see one another backing
each other on different issues, they develop
reciprocity, a capacity for action.

If communities are to be truly viable and
successful, their members must be taught how to
operate with power. Mr. Cortes reminded the
audience that "power tends to corrupt; and
absolute power corrupts absolutely." He stated
that the power that corrupts is inaccessible
power--power of the Grand Inquisitor. In
organizing communities, citizens must be taught
relational power, which instead involves
calculated vulnerability.

The dominant culture teaches people to be
customers, consumers, and taxpayers--passive
clients. Instead, people must learn how to
exercise citizenship, which involves "not just
being acted upon, not just being passive . . .
[but] embracing our birthright, our heritage, our
burden."

A birthright is an identity. For Americans, this
includes the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the
American Revolution, and the civil rights
movements. It also includes slavery, racism, and
sexism. This ambiguous legacy is the obligation or
burden of American citizens. 

Mr. Cortes said the dominant culture denies the
reality of these burdens. The culture shows lack
of concern for others and represses anger, which
takes energy. The energy consumed in that manner
could be turned to building relationships,
organizing, becoming political, and understanding
the common birthright.

In order to do anything about violence, about the
breakdown in society, people must begin to reweave
some kind of social fabric, to reconnect
intermediate institutions, and to develop concern
over the responsibilities of citizens in this
community.

Everyone knows the old African proverb, "It takes
a whole village to raise a child." Somehow,
citizens must recreate the infrastructure of that
particular "village"--the families and communities
that together can build broad-based institutions.

Concurrent Workshops: 
Schools and Communities
Safety and Security

Moderator: William Modzeleski, Staff Director,
Drug Planning and Outreach Staff, U.S. Department
of Education, Washington, D.C.

Panelists: Ronald D. Stephens, Executive Director,
National School Safety Center, Westlake Village,
California

John Firman, Director of Research, International
Association of Chiefs of Police, Alexandria,
Virginia

Pamela L. Riley, Director, North Carolina Center
for the Prevention of School Violence, Raleigh,
North Carolina

Jeffrey A. Miller, Principal, Campbell Drive
Middle School, Homestead, Florida

William Modzeleski described new legislation
affecting school security. The Federal Safe
Schools Act, as part of the Department of
Education (DOE)'s Goals 2000 program, has made $20
million in discretionary funds available to local
boards of education. The Drug Free Schools Act has
been amended to include efforts at reducing or
eliminating school violence. DOE's action plan
includes building public awareness about violence
prevention in schools, facilitating local
partnerships, developing statewide policy and
uniform data collection, and providing interagency
training and technical assistance on best
practices.

Dr. Ronald Stephens said that students who were
interviewed by the National School Safety Center
in California about violence prevention
recommended:
  
1. Enforcement of existing rules on campus. Only a
small percentage of the students cause the
disruptions. 
2. Regular locker checks for weapons and
contraband.
3. Special programs for kids who "mess up." Rather
than expelling them to the street where they
continue to terrorize others, they should be given
something productive to do. 

School administrators are just learning what
students already know about their schools: certain
areas in the school are unsafe; students,
teachers, and school staff are being attacked more
frequently; and there is a lack of coordination
among stakeholders.

What promotes crime on campuses? Dark hallways,
inadequate supervision, lack of response to
victims, and fewer after-school activities are all
things that weaken school safety.

Five national trends are already making real
changes in school security:
  
1. Crime tracking and record keeping.
2. Targeting children who need special attention
or special behavioral plans, not just
troublemakers.
3. Training to prepare teachers to deal with
violence.
4. Interagency cooperation.
5. Safe school planning.

New York City has been keeping records for 21
years on schools, crime, and violence. The highest
rate of attack on teachers in a school setting
occurred in the 1993-1994 school year.

Administrators need to know where the problems are
and who is involved in order to develop effective
strategies. The youngsters who create most of the
problems have often had a long history of
disruption. Better information sharing on
juveniles who have committed crimes is a major
national concern. Although colleges and
universities have mandated crime reporting, there
is nothing similar for kindergarten through 12th
grade.

The California State legislature has recently
passed a law requiring that teachers be informed
of students who have a background of criminal
misbehavior. In Texas, law enforcement now has to
notify the school within 24 hours if a juvenile
has been detained.

More than 1,000 teachers per month in this country
are assaulted and injured seriously enough to
require medical attention. A report by teachers
from Omaha, Nebraska, raised questions about when
teachers can use reasonable force to protect
themselves from students they fear. Many districts
have no policies dealing with use of force, school
crime and violence, and transfer of students with
records of violent offenses.

Some innovative programs were briefly described.
Interagency cooperation is necessary to meet the
needs of children. John Firman described an
Illinois program that brought together police,
school safety officials, and administrators to
build teams to work on school safety issues. Five
different groups become involved when a youngster
performs a delinquent act: law enforcement, social
services, schools, probation, and mental health.

The University of Virginia is developing course
curricula around multidisciplinary conflict
resolution teams. In Florida, an important segment
of a new education program involves getting the
community to realize their role in establishing a
drug-free environment and protecting students'
health, safety, and civil rights. The schools have
opened doors to other agencies to bring in
resources for students, families, and the
community as a whole.

Jeffrey Miller said his district instituted
evening sports events and better lighting to
counter graffiti and gang conflict. Youth
organizations, such as Youth Crime Watch, have
also been effective in Dade County. The Safe
Schools Bill in Florida opened public schools to
provide after-school activities for children 10
years of age and older.

Mr. Firman suggested schools need to have a safe
school plan (strategic plan) with contributions
from students, teachers, school administrators,
police, social services, probation, and public and
mental health practitioners. The plan must
concentrate on prevention--school site assessment,
education in values, and conflict resolution. It
must have a response plan for managing crises and
spell out post-intervention activities.

Mr. Firman said that the emerging theme is the use
of a team approach to develop a systemic solution.
He has had experiences with principals who did not
know the law concerning weapons. In those
examples, the relationship between law enforcement
and the school was very poor. School
administrators have been trained to keep out of
the limelight and the press. This creates
resistance to working with law enforcement.

Relationships need to be rebuilt, with new
partnerships added. The Illinois Police Training
Academy in Springfield made its campus available
for school safety and security facilitator
training. A multidisciplinary faculty brought
teams from different jurisdictions to stay at the
state police academy. Lack of continuity, lack of
funding, and political infighting are still
problems.

The public should be informed about what really
works, and evaluators must assess the
effectiveness of new strategies. Teambuilding in
the community can improve school safety, and
community policing can expand law enforcement's
role in this area. Research on school safety and
school violence should guide the tactics selected.
Evaluation is a critical need.

Dr. Riley described North Carolina's statewide
safe schools program, funded in 1993 by a
discretionary grant from the U.S. Department of
Justice. Even in rural areas, more violence has
occurred in schools. Students have been getting
into trouble at an earlier age. The study
recommended enacting anti-weapon laws
and swift and consistent handling of violent
student behavior.

Most students are law abiding and will exert
pressure on other students who are disruptive. The
business community helped get the statewide
program started. The program includes negotiation,
peer mediation, school resource officers, school-
based crime stoppers programs, and student
incentive awards. Education and Skills Development

Moderator: Rebecca Atnafou, Assistant Director,
Education Development Center, Newton,
Massachusetts

Panelists: Dennis D. Embry, President,
Heartsprings, Inc., Tucson, Arizona
Nancy P. Gannon, Director, Education Division,
Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, Washington,
D.C.

Bebs B. Chorak, Deputy Director, Juvenile Justice
Programs, National Institute for Citizen Education
in the Law (NICEL), Washington, D.C.

Lawrence Dieringer, Executive Director, Educators
for Social Responsibility, Cambridge,
Massachusetts

Dr. Dennis Embry discussed PeaceBuilders, which is
a model for youth violence prevention. The
PeaceBuilders approach is now being studied by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is
described in a paper Dr. Embry prepared for the
conference, "Reducing Youth Violent Crime By 50%
With Proven Research-Based Interventions Through A
Community-Wide, Partnership Approach."

In his presentation, Dr. Embry noted that more
than $200 million in federal funds has been spent
on violence prevention research, but "there is too
much talk and not enough walk." The research on
substance abuse, post traumatic stress disorder,
depression, and anti-social behavior are all
tightly connected in terms of the "pathways to
failure" they identify.

According to Dr. Embry, 30 years of research shows
that juvenile crime can be predicted by fifth
grade with 80 percent accuracy based on three
simple measures: teacher ratings of social skills
and aggression, a child's rate of referrals to the
principal for fighting, and observed aggressive
behavior on the playground. There are a shocking
number of violent incidents in schools today.

It is critical to consider the research on
resilient youth--children who succeed in spite of
various adverse circumstances. Violence is not a
disease, but rather, an adaptive response to a
predatory society. There are three areas in which
the difficulties of troubled youth are very well
documented. PeaceBuilders is a cognitive-social-
imitative competence model. First, in the
cognitive and behavioral area, these youths are
hostile and they misread neutral cues. Second, in
the social area, they disrupt the classroom from
11 to 14 times per hour. The third area is
imitative: Troubled youths are less likely than
others to imitate socially competent models.

To reduce violence by 40 to 50 percent, resilient
environments must be created to encourage
cognitive-behavioral, social, and imitative
competencies. PeaceBuilders delineates specific,
discrete actions, scripts, and tools designed to
enable "the whole village to raise the child." The
approach creates a common language that emphasizes
praise and righting wrongs. For example, children
are asked to become peace monitors rather than
peer mediators. In addition, PeaceBuilders
deviates from the traditional approach of
targeting exclusively "high risk" children and
families, in part because this tends to result in
the loss of social status. Society as a whole must
stop reinforcing inappropriate behavior.

Nancy Gannon, who was formerly a special education
teacher and counselor in Boston, noted that the
Center to Prevent Handgun Violence promotes
Straight Talk About Risks (STAR), which includes
curricula for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.

There are 200 million firearms in circulation in
the United States. Adults also need to be reached
with anti-violence messages.

Students as young as third and fourth grade are
making decisions to possess weapons such as guns
and knives. They must learn to recognize the risks
involved not only by receiving information, but
also by achieving a cognitive and affective
acceptance of the information. Even this is not
enough; they must also develop personal risk
reduction strategies.

With younger students, the Center emphasizes "safe
and smart decisions." This involves the
development of critical thinking, decision-making
and self-perception skills. Fear, anger, and
depression are the main reasons why children
report carrying guns.

Children must learn to develop a repertoire of
positive alternatives. These include positive
communication skills, social problem-solving
skills, leadership skills, and affirmations. A
sample lesson plan from STAR called "Someone You
Know" asks students to (1) identify feelings, (2)
practice problem-solving skills, and (3) get peer
feedback about whether or not their risk reduction
strategies would work. Students are given a
scenario to consider. For example, a friend who
has problems shows you a gun he bought for $50.
The friend says, "Now people will know who's
boss." After students propose what they would do
in such a situation, they are given affirmations
to recognize their good work on the problem.

Bebs Chorak began her presentation on the NICEL
law-related education program by asking the
audience what they wanted of children and youth.
Responses included, "be decisionmakers, become
self-reliant, develop interpersonal skills, accept
responsibility, develop a commitment to the
community, find a place in the community, love
themselves and others, 
and accept and respect differences among people."

She then had the audience role-play a child
custody scenario in groups of three, with one
member playing the part of the juvenile court
judge, one the child, and one the lawyer for
social services. Audience members concluded that
youths who participate in such an exercise might
increase their understanding of the legal system
and learn some lessons about empathy. Ms. Chorak
noted that law-related education is now moving in
the direction of "resiliency building."

Lawrence Dieringer said that Educators for Social
Responsibility helps schools develop pro-social
learning environments, and that it develops
curriculum materials on conflict resolution and
other topics.

The Resolving Conflicts Creatively Program (RCCP)
began in 1985 in New York City with the
involvement of three principals. One of these was
Patrick Daly, who was shot and killed last year at
the Redhook housing project. Three-quarters of the
RCCP schools are in New York City, and the rest
are located throughout the country.

RCCP has curricula for grades kindergarten through
12. Administrators and educators at RCCP schools
receive a 25-hour introductory course, which is
followed by 8 to 10 RCCP staff site visits to
provide classroom and other ongoing support. RCCP
includes regular classroom instruction, peer
mediation programs, administrator training, and
parent training. Its main focus is to work with
the adults in the school.

Mr. Dieringer mentioned Gardiner's work on
multiple types of intelligence, noting that
schools usually recognize only two of at least
seven possible types. Yet the development of
interpersonal intelligence, or the ability to
understand one's own and others' feelings, is very
much a part of the conflict resolution curriculum.
Among the key concepts involved are understanding
peace and conflict, communication, anger and other
feelings, cooperation, problem solving,
negotiating, mediating, affirmation, appreciating
diversity, countering bias, and envisioning a
positive future.

A goal of the RCCP approach is to change the whole
culture of a school. This must go hand-in-hand
with efforts to change individual behavior. Two
evaluations of the program have been conducted by
Metis Association, Inc., in New York City. In a
survey of teachers, 87 percent said they thought
the program was having a positive impact on their
students. Mr. Dieringer said two important lessons
learned over the past 9 years were to (1) think
long term and ask for a minimum commitment from
the school of 3 to 4 years, and (2) remember that
the principal must model the behavior being
advocated.

A discussion followed in response to questions
about the role of the media, media literacy, and
the possible use of drama in the approaches just
discussed. Dr. Embry noted having seen positive
responses to children doing plays about parenting
skills. Mr. Dieringer mentioned that children
created commercials in connection with Hatebusters
in New York City and Peace Increasers in
California. Ms. Gannon said the STAR program has
activities for youths and parents together to
encourage critical viewing skills, and that the
National Parent Teachers Association has a packet
of material on critical viewing. Ms. Chorak said
the NICEL curriculum has lessons related to this.
Dr. Embry noted that Peace Builders also has a
component for parents about decreasing television
viewing. Ms. Atnafou said the violence prevention
curriculum by Deborah Prothrow-Stith also
addresses this, and that the ERIC Clearinghouse
lists other resources.

In response to a question about how to assess the
potential effectiveness of various programs, Dr.
Embry suggested asking the following: How well
does the program fit the scientific literature?
How easy is it to implement? What is the program's
capacity for generalization across the community
over time? How developmentally appropriate is it?
How can it be used to create scripts for many
people? Do children have a passive or an active
role in it? Can it be introduced in the workplace
so that parents can be more easily reached?

Home/School/Community Partnerships

Moderator: Richard Murphy, Director, National
Campaign for Youth Development, and Former
Commissioner, New York City Department of Youth
Services, Fund for the City of New York, New York,
New York

Panelists: Connie Roberts, Director, New
Beginnings, Department of Social Service, San
Diego County, California

Ray Anthony Torres, Special Agent, Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, GREAT Program,
Washington, D.C.

Len Berman, Program Officer, Public Welfare
Foundation, Washington, D.C.

Shawn Dove, Co-Director, Countee Cullen Beacon
Community Center, New York, New York

Richard Murphy opened the session by observing
that although the home and the community have
changed dramatically over the years, schools have
not, even in their use of an agrarian calendar.

Connie Roberts stated that San Diego is a diverse
area with a population of 2.5 million, where 20 to
25 languages are used by schoolchildren, and many
immigrants are new. New Beginnings, a
collaborative effort to help children and families
by improving service delivery, began in 1988, when
San Diego was suffering from increasing rates of
teen pregnancy, poverty, and rape.

New Beginnings is not a program or a project, Ms.
Roberts said, but more a strategy or approach to
bringing communities and families together with
social service agencies. New Beginnings currently
works with 35 schools in the county. The strategy
does not require new money, but instead uses
existing money differently. Also, New Beginnings
is not a single model for all of the communities
it serves; rather, it lets community residents
help arrange the way it works. It has no lead
agency.

New Beginnings focuses on all families, not just
high-risk families. The strategy aims to treat
families as whole units. Moreover, it helps
families change the way San Diego County services
are delivered.

Ms. Roberts said New Beginnings is currently
measuring outcomes to see if this approach makes a
difference.

Ray Anthony Torres described GREAT (Gang
Resistance Education And Training), a federally
funded program modeled after DARE (Drug Abuse
Resistance Education). Mr. Torres said he was a
product of the inner city in New York. What kept
him from trouble was seeing a kid die of a drug
overdose and having a great role model, an uncle
who was a police officer.

After working the streets for ATF, Mr. Torres was
thrust into the classroom to teach the GREAT
program. He reported being stunned at how lost
many of the kids seemed. Many of the students in
seventh grade were already hard-core gang members.
However, he said, the 10-week program had a
positive effect on them.

When he was teaching, Mr. Torres said, school
attendance went up. One reason was that graduation
from the program involved a trip to a water park,
which he said was important to inner-city kids. To
keep students' interest up, instructors are taught
to be energetic, to walk around the classrooms
often and to state their objectives and the
lessons over and over. Mr. Torres lamented that
some students' parents do very little for their
children. He sometimes had to travel to students'
homes to get parents to sign release forms so the
kids could go to the water park.

The program uses police officers because they have
the authority of experience. They know about gang
violence and gang laws. There is also a version of
the program for third and fourth grade students.
GREAT is active in 44 States. A study is currently
underway to test the effectiveness of the program.

Len Berman described a national funding
collaboration for violence prevention work. It is
based on a 1993 meeting in New York City of 200
foundation representatives. This public/private
venture will put together, in 1995, a pool of
funding that communities can use to plan and
implement violence prevention measures.

The collaboration's goal is to have $15 million of
available funding. The group has invited 450
community foundations to participate. Each of
approximately 12 selected communities can obtain
up to $75,000 from the national collaborative, to
be matched with $25,000 from local sources. Each
community will decide what it wants to do and how
to proceed.

Shawn Dove described New York City's Beacons as a
movement of school-based community centers. The
city contracts with community-based organizations
to run the Beacons, but some city employees also
work there.

He said it is important to quit talking about
youth violence, youth pregnancy, and other youth
problems, and instead to start focusing on a youth
development model. With the development of the
Beacon community centers, he said, when 11:00 p.m.
rolls around, kids are found at the community
center, not on street corners.

When his Beacon center opened its doors, the staff
created a teen council and let its members develop
programs and activities. The youths chose to line
the nearest street with trees and to replace a
cigarette billboard with one that advertises the
United Negro College Fund.

The building in which the Beacon Center is housed
has a nurse and clinic, game rooms, meeting rooms
(for adult and other meetings such as Narcotics
Anonymous), and space for a General Educational
Development (GED) program. New York City now has
37 Beacons.

Mr. Dove said it is significant that the Beacons
brought some parents into the schools for the
first time under non-crisis conditions. Now many
parents spend time at the centers.

Violence prevention requires youth development,
Mr. Dove said. Beacons give youth a chance to be
members of the community itself.

Improved School Climate

Moderator: Ruby Takanishi, Executive Director,
Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development,
Washington, D.C.

Panelists: Gus Fras, Criminal Justice Specialist,
Office of Education, Los Angeles County,
California

Julian Klugman, Western Regional Director,
Community Relations Service, U.S. Department of
Justice, San Francisco, California

Joseph H. Wehby, Research Assistant Professor,
FAST Track Program, Vanderbilt University,
Nashville, Tennessee

Ellen McCulloch-Lovell, Executive Director,
President's Committee on the Arts and the
Humanities, Washington, D.C.

Ruby Takanishi introduced the panel members and
said the speakers would go beyond school
boundaries to discuss the impact of communities
and families on school climate.

Carnegie Corporation of New York, a philanthropic
foundation, was created by Andrew Carnegie in
1911. Dr. Takanishi directs the Carnegie Council
on Adolescent Development, established in June
1986 to place the challenges of the adolescent
years higher on the nation's agenda. The council
builds on the work of many organizations and
individuals to stimulate sustained public
attention to the risks and opportunities of the
adolescent years and generates public and private
support for measures that facilitate the critical
transition into adulthood.

Gus Fras explained that he has a personal
understanding of the complexity and difficulty of
improving school climate. He grew up in a gang-
infested, East Los Angeles neighborhood where
children had to run to and from school to avoid
the gangs that surrounded the schools. The
"elders" of these Chicano gangs told the students
that "men do not run, men make others run."
Elementary school children were recruited by the
gangs and introduced to guns. Mr. Fras told the
audience that some of his elementary school
friends were murdered, as was his best friend in
high school.

School administrators usually do not know what is
really happening, he said. Children across the
country must cope with these situations. They must
learn how to ask for help, and adults must be
there to help them. Expectations in the education
field are high. To confront the challenges in
schools requires self-knowledge and an
understanding of communities.

To meet these challenges, educators should address
the needs of students in an interdisciplinary
manner. Mr. Fras provided structure for this
argument with an overhead of Maslow's Hierarchy of
Needs. He emphasized that the fundamental needs
must be addressed first. Most programs overlook
these needs. Educators should remember Maslow's
hierarchy and try to seek a balance in their
programs. If students are taught to balance their
own personal needs, they will not look to gangs to
substitute for families.

Identifying the dynamics of a child's environment
is critical to program development. There are six
environmental factors affecting children: family,
media, guns, community peer pressure, drugs, and
schools. With these factors in mind, the Gang Risk
Intervention Pilot Program (GRIPP) was created by
the California legislature in 1988.

With money from the State Asset Forfeiture
Distribution Fund, GRIPP was designed to help
reduce or reverse the rising tide of gang violence
in Los Angeles County. Mr. Fras discussed the
findings of a 3-year evaluation of 18 model
violence prevention and intervention projects that
were part of GRIPP. GRIPP sought to close the
widening gap between schools and the surrounding
neighborhoods. 

Mr. Fras explained that after a great deal of
hard work, GRIPP brought together an informal
"partnership" between schools and their respective
communities. Various model programs for different
age groups were started. After a year, they found
that half of the programs were not effective.

To be successful, Mr. Fras recommended that
programs for gang prevention and intervention in
public schools be guided by a school advisory
committee. The core team of committee members
should have a shared vision and should include
representatives from the school's administration,
teachers, parents, senior custodial staff, and law
enforcement.

In conclusion, Mr. Fras commented that
independent program evaluations must reflect new
programs' strengths and weaknesses. Poor
experimental programs have no place in the
schools.

Julian Klugman has been the Western Regional
Director of the Community Relations Service (CRS)
for the U.S. Department of Justice for 23 years.
Over its 30-year history, CRS has sought to
prevent or resolve community conflicts and
tensions arising from actions, policies, and
practices perceived to be discriminatory on the
basis of race, color, or national origin. CRS
provides services, including conciliation,
mediation, and technical assistance, to people and
their communities to help them resolve conflicts
that tear the fabric of an increasingly diverse
society.

In the beginning, CRS focused on fights and school
segregation. Today, there are many different
groups with major cultural differences, and
schools are desegregated.

According to Mr. Klugman, the crisis in the 1990's
in his region is ethnic gang members killing each
other. He emphasized that the problem is big, and
it is fueled by high unemployment and the
recession in Southern California.

Mr. Klugman outlined the agency's problem-solving
approach when dealing with multi-racial
situations. The first step is admitting there is a
problem. Second, the problem must be stated or
defined in a constructive way. Third, the people
involved in the problem should be included in
problem solving. Fourth, behavior has to be
changed first; attitude changes will follow. Money
is often spent trying to change attitudes without
connecting to a system of behavior. Finally, the
CSR approach calls for development of a work plan
with clear, short-term action steps.

In the last 3 years, CRS has come away from the
mediation table and into the community. Staff are
trying to pro-actively mediate racial disputes.
Mr. Klugman briefly described two recent programs.
In the Student Problem Identification and
Resolution Program, CRS uses its problem-solving
approach to address conflict in multi-racial
schools and districts. It is a 2-day process in
which students develop recommendations and a work
plan to improve racial harmony. A principal's
student advisory council is also established as an
ongoing mechanism to work directly with school
administrators and faculty to address racial and
ethnic issues in both a preventive and reactive
manner.

In the second program, CRS staff are preparing to
go into a public housing project in East Los
Angeles. Using their problem-solving techniques,
they plan to train police officers and youth and
form a committee to work on all identified
problems. If this pilot project is successful, Mr.
Klugman expects to use it in the wider Los Angeles
area.

Dr. Joseph Wehby stated that early intervention is
the key to preventing violence. While the
development of problem behaviors begins early in
life, even prenatally, 90 percent of the money
available for solutions is spent after violence
has occurred. Only 10 percent is spent on
prevention. He contends that more spending should
be directed to prevention.

After an extensive literature review, Dr. Wehby
concluded that school-based prevention programs
have limited success. He suggested that the
programs fail when they focus on short-term
intervention and look at limited behavior. Long-
term, comprehensive intervention is needed to give
children the best chance to succeed.

Dr. Wehby explained that the FAST (Families and
Schools Together) Track program was developed with
long-term, comprehensive intervention in mind.
Funded by the National Institute of Mental Health,
the program was implemented in Nashville, Seattle,
Durham, and rural Pennsylvania.

Researchers used the following factors to select
program participants: (1) the school the student
attended, (2) the kindergarten teachers' ratings
of the child's behavior and school readiness, and
(3) results of interviews with parents of
disruptive children. Using these criteria, 960
children were selected for the program.

Dr. Wehby reported that intervention is
particularly needed at two points: school entry
and during the transition to middle school.
Researchers are still trying to identify the most
successful interventions for various ethnic
groups.

Preventive intervention components of the FAST
Track program include parent training, family case
management, tutoring, and peer pairing. The
emphasis on parent training is intended to get
parents more involved in the academic progress of
their children and to acquaint them with the
teacher. The 22-session training programs were
held on weekends.

Each family in the program was assigned a family
coordinator. The coordinator would call or visit
to update the parents on their child's progress.
The coordinators were problem solvers who tailored
the program to the needs of each family.

Tutoring on reading was provided to the students
three times a week. Generally, the sessions
occurred twice during the school week and once on
Saturday, during the family session.

Peer pairing, the final component, involved
"friendship" groups of children. The children
would get together on Saturdays when the parents
were in training. They were taught social skills,
such as how to initiate play and what to do when
rejected.

Ellen McCulloch-Lovell explained that the
President's Committee on the Arts and the
Humanities is looking at ways that arts and
humanities programs reach youth and prevent
violence.

Over the last 25 years, these kinds of programs
have offered creative outlets for otherwise
destructive behavior. Ms. McCulloch-Lovell pointed
out that the Dance Theater of Harlem grew out of
the unrest in that community following Dr. Martin
Luther King's assassination.

Programs in the arts tend to involve many
community organizations, increase parental
involvement with youth, foster students'
enthusiasm and self-respect, help students develop
self-discipline, and provide contact with caring
adults. In fact, the College Entrance Board finds
that students with hands-on participation in the
arts score higher than other students on verbal
and math tests.

Ms. McCulloch-Lovell noted that arts are not
included in the current Crime Bill, but the Goals
2000 program of the U.S. Department of Education
does include art programs in schools and
communities. Measurable results like the College
Entrance Board's findings support requests for
arts programs.

Ms. McCulloch-Lovell highlighted two examples. The
Manchester Craftsman Guild in North Pittsburgh
sponsors an after-school program in ceramics and
photography. This program keeps at-risk students
off the streets and motivates them to achieve. In
Fort Myers, Florida, 2,000 students were involved
in art-related programs. Researchers found that
the violence rate in the targeted schools dropped
20 percent compared to surrounding areas. Ms.
McCulloch-Lovell concluded by observing that arts
and music are universal interests.

Dr. Takanishi summarized the discussion by saying
it is unfortunate that politicians are unwilling
to support such programs in connection with crime
prevention. The Carnegie Council argues that all
adolescents have basic needs for evolving into
healthy members of society. Young people need
respect, identity, and power. Adults must continue
to support and fight for programs that direct
children away from violence and toward
success.Information Sharing Issues in School-Based
Coordinated Programs

Moderator: William Delk, Principal, Northside
Middle School, Norfolk, Virginia

Panelists: John C. Alluisi, Database Manager,
Management Information Systems, Norfolk Public
Schools, Norfolk, Virginia

Thomas J. Connelly, Director, Special Counseling
Programs, Wappinger Central School District,
Wappinger Falls, New York

Michael A. Aquino, Investigator, Anaheim Police
Department, Anaheim, California

William Delk quoted Robert Long, founder of the
School Management and Resources Teams (SMART)
program, who said that problems in the schools
must be claimed by the school district that has
those problems. SMART is funded in 20 pilot sites
around the Nation by the National Institute of
Justice and the U.S. Department of Education. In
addition to being an excellent resource, the SMART
program frees the principal from being the primary
disciplinary figure in the school system. The
SMART team, instead, reviews problems and finds
strategies to solve the problems.

John Alluisi gave a brief overview of SMART,
describing it as a reality-based methodology for
studying and resolving delinquency and discipline
problems. All referrals for these problems are
collected in a central database for the school.
Development of an Incident Profiling System (IPS)
involves classifying and profiling a full range of
misbehaviors, separating discipline violations
from law violations, and providing computerized
records of incidents occurring in schools. This
process identifies areas where discipline has been
applied inconsistently.

Information is kept with strict regard for
confidentiality. Monthly reports go to the school
principal, the school SMART team, and the district
SMART team. The principal and the school team can
develop action plans to address problem areas
appearing in the data. At the district level, the
local police may attend when law violations are
involved.

By collecting information systematically, Mr.
Alluisi said, school officials could see that two-
thirds of all discipline violations and all law
violations were attributable to the same 9 percent
of the students.

Thomas Connelly has spent 29 years in the
administration of public schools in New York
state. He described himself as practical, always
looking for methods that work. The SMART program
has worked well for him. He said the easily usable
information of the SMART system gives principals
and their staff material for problem solving and
analysis. 

The SMART team in Mr. Connelly's area includes
community members, youth representatives, and a
psychologically trained management team. Their
actions are determined by consensus. Connections
to the juvenile courts and police have been
developed to the point that officials from those
organizations will occasionally consult the SMART
team members before making decisions on individual
students from their district. Two other sample
programs they have initiated are "Off Your
Rocker," which enlists retired persons to work
with the youth, and "PINS," Parents In Need of
Support, which helps families adjust to difficult
changes. The SMART data helped drive the changes,
get the funding, and assess the impact of these
new approaches.

Investigator Michael Aquino works in the gang unit
of the Anaheim Police Department. He conducts
training in the schools on gang recognition and
gang prevention, and he deals with situations
involving established gang members in the schools.
After having investigated numerous drive-by
shootings, Investigator Aquino contacted the
school district to work out a joint tactic for
reaching youngsters to counter the influence of
gangs. His experience shows that parents are
usually not well informed about what their
children are doing--even the parents of "good"
kids. 

The SMART program has given him material for the
training he conducts in schools. He has a full-
time partner in the school district who
coordinates with him on gang prevention efforts.
The students have particular respect for his
firsthand experience with the violence and
suffering produced by gangs.

Investigator Aquino also conducts staff
development instruction for the community and
schools, parent awareness training, and training
to counter drug involvement. He sits on the
district level disciplinary and attendance boards
as well.

He emphasized that the arrest of a student does
not mean that the student is going to be "thrown
away." Sometimes, arrest is actually the best way
to intervene in the young person's gang
involvement. He said he has often received thanks
from the youth themselves for arresting them and
altering their course. 

Mr. Delk added that the SMART information allows
the school administrators to look at patterns and
find better strategies to get problem-creating
students on a better track. Alternative
Development Programs for Adjudicated Youth

Moderator: James C. Howell, Director, Research and
Program Development, Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of
Justice, Washington, D.C.

Panelists: LaWanda Ravoira, State Director,
Practical and Cultural Education (PACE) Center for
Girls, Inc., Jacksonville, Florida

Yitzhak Bakal, Executive Director, North American
Family Institute, Inc., Danvers, Massachusetts

O.B. Stander, Chief Operating Officer, Associated
Marine Institutes, Inc., Tampa, Florida

Dr. James Howell introduced the presenters, who
operate a range of alternative programs for
adjudicated youth.

Dr. LaWanda Ravoira described the Practical and
Cultural Education (PACE) center as a multiservice
program founded out of the recognition that,
because there was a lack of gender-specific
alternative programs for girls, girls were
incarcerated more often for lesser offenses than
boys. PACE began in 1985 as a small volunteer-run
program in a church and now has seven chapters
throughout Florida. The program has had a 75
percent success rate and has served more than
1,500 girls ages 12 to 18. 

PACE is an educational alternative to institutions
or incarceration. PACE receives State, Federal,
school board, and private funding. It is a fully
accredited high school that is attended
voluntarily, at no cost to the youth. Students are
required to pursue completion of a high school
diploma. The PACE high school program includes
remedial, high school credit, GED, and college
preparation classes. The gender sensitive Life
Management Curriculum comprises independent living
skills, art and drama, parenting, human growth and
development, health and physical fitness, and
career development. Classes are designed to
educate, motivate, and build self-esteem. The
teacher to student ratio in all classes is 1 to
10. Individual, group, and family counseling is
provided to assist the student and family in
finding solutions to their individual problems.
Staff are available 24 hours a day to assist the
students and their families in times of crisis.

PACE emphasizes community involvement. PACE
developed partnerships with juvenile judges who
gave girls the option of participating in PACE or
being institutionalized. Referrals have also been
made to PACE from the school board, health and
human services agencies, the juvenile justice
system, and parents. Participants must volunteer
in at least two projects while enrolled in the
program. PACE also established the National Girls
Caucus, which has 500 members who advocate
programs for girls nationally.

Dr. Bakal said that there is a false underlying
assumption upon which many programs for youth are
based--that every youth involved in the juvenile
justice system wants to change. While
practitioners are inclined to think that all youth
would like to participate in a productive program,
some youths in the community do not want to change
their lives. Dr. Bakal's work at Camp Roulston,
run by the North American Family Institute (NAFI),
seeks to stimulate these unmotivated youths.

Camp Roulston is a boot camp based on the concept
that youths can be helped only if they want to be
helped. Youths need motivation to become involved
in the process of change. The camp has a 3-month
program that includes peer and group processes in
three stages. The first stage places heavy
emphasis on the military aspect of the program,
where an extensive daily work routine and strict
code of discipline are established. In the second
phase, the military component is de-emphasized,
and there is greater focus on recognition of
accomplishments. The third phase emphasizes
teamwork and developing a peer culture.

Dr. Bakal recognized that the shift from a highly
regimented residential program to community life
is difficult. Typically, 3 to 4 out of 10 youths
recidivate. Aftercare is an essential element to
success in any program for youth. NAFI offers
aftercare services seven days per week to youths
who finish the camp program. It is also developing
a community component to network resources and
services.

O.B. Stander operates camp programs through the
Associated Marine Institutes (AMI). There are 40
programs in 8 States. Each program is a separate
organization with a separate board of directors.
The organization's first international program is
located on the Cayman Islands. 

AMI's camp programs are not boot camps, but they
are work-oriented and focus on establishing a
strong work ethic. The ratio of residents to staff
is three to one, and there are no locks or bars at
the facilities.

The program begins with an orientation. Campers
are driven to the vicinity of the camp and must
hike into the precamp orientation center. Later,
the new residents hike on to the full camp. In
Phase I, campers sleep in a bunkhouse and work all
day either on chores, academics, or community
service. Campers move on to Phase II when their
academic and performance goals are met. At that
point, they can earn money for their work and move
into a nicer bunkhouse. Phase III of the program
involves community placement. 

A 3-year followup study indicates that the program
has had a 65 percent success rate, with only 35
percent recidivism. Mr. Stander said that the key
to success in his and any program is to instill
hope in the youth. No person can value life if he
or she has no hope for the future. Substance Abuse
Prevention

Moderator: Paul J. Goldstein, Associate Professor,
University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago,
Illinois

Panelists: Anne T. Ganey, Project Coordinator,
Community Drug Prevention Project, Mankato,
Minnesota

Phillip L. Hobbs, Principal, Eastmoor High School,
Columbus, Ohio

David L. Rosenbloom, Project Director, Join
Together, Boston, Massachusetts

Deborah Galvin, Public Health Analyst, U.S. Public
Health Service, Center for Substance Abuse
Prevention, Rockville, Maryland

Dr. Paul Goldstein began the session with a
discussion on how substance abuse and violence are
related. He described three relationships.

Psychopharmacological violence is usually induced
by alcohol and commonly results in domestic
violence incidents. It can be caused when an
individual ingests drugs, undergoes a mood
alteration, and acts out violently. The likelihood
and extent of violence is dependent upon the drug,
the dosage, the individual, and aggravating
circumstances.

Psychopharmacological violence can be precipitated
against an individual by that person's own
actions. For instance, the loud drunk at a bar may
inflame others in the bar to start a fight and
cause his or her own victimization.
Psychopharmacological violence may also be
purposive on the part of the substance abuser.
Gang members sometimes take a certain drug to
reduce their level of anxiety about committing a
violent act. Finally, psychopharmaco- logical
violence can also be associated with the absence
of a drug. This is typically known as withdrawal
syndrome.

Economic compulsive violence occurs when drug
users feel compelled to commit crime in order to
sustain their drug use habit.

System-related violence is connected to the
business of selling drugs and is typically more
lethal in nature. Violence may occur as a result
of a drug user's inability to pay a dealer or as
punishment of a dealer for cheating a customer. 

As project coordinator of the Community Drug
Prevention Project, Anne Ganey works with 40
different communities on drug prevention. Fourteen
of these communities have formed community
prevention groups, and their strategies have been
evaluated for effectiveness in dealing with youth
drug use prevention. 

Ms. Ganey described youth empowerment strategy as
an ongoing, upward spiral. Youth need to be
involved in the definition of problems. The groups
start by providing the youths with knowledge and
skills. This leads to opportunities that build
confidence. Confidence encourages feelings of
success, leading to more opportunities. The more
opportunities, the more empowered the youths
become.

Ms. Ganey identified eight specific strategies
that the community prevention groups successfully
incorporated into their programs. The first
strategy was a community forum in which the youth
planned, recorded, facilitated, and helped to
identify and solve problems. This forum gave the
youth an opportunity to express opinions and
develop skills. Youth also developed family events
as part of the planning. A town hall meeting was
suggested as a way to help the community come
together. Other strategies included media
advocacy, conferences, leadership training, a
multicultural leadership institute, peer
mediation, and counseling.

Phillip Hobbs has worked with the Drug-Free
Schools Program for 7 years. In 1990, he became
principal of Eastmoor High School, which was
regarded as the most violent high school in
Columbus, Ohio. He described the school as "out of
control," with 68 expulsions and 147 fights.
Working under the guidance of the Drug-Free
Schools Program, Mr. Hobbs developed strict
discipline and positive student rewards programs
at Eastmoor High. In 1994, Eastmoor High School
was the recipient of the U.S. Department of
Education's National Drug-Free School Award. The
school had only 6 expulsions and 28 fights. 

Though the school won a national award, Mr. Hobbs
emphasized that it still has guns, drugs, and
violence problems. Because these problems will
always be here, strategies must be constantly
revised, and young people must be involved. There
are six correlates under the Drug-Free Schools
Program that Mr. Hobbs identified as essential for
an effective drug prevention program.
First, assess the program. Information on what
effect the program is having on drugs and violence
needs to be collected and analyzed annually. If
the data reveals that the program is not having
the desired impact, the program must be revised.
Rules and policies must support drug prevention
and violence reduction. Mr. Hobbs stated that
youths want rules that are fair, yet firm. An
opportunity for counseling should be offered to a
youth involved with drugs or violence. However, if
the youth refuses to attend assessment sessions,
disciplinary policies should be firmly enforced.
Special codes of conduct for athletes and other
popular groups should also be designed. Programs
that emphasize leadership training and peer
mediation should be developed. Staff training in
violence and drug prevention should be offered.
Parent involvement should be encouraged. 

Finally, schools should promote community
involvement. Schools need to reach out to
community agencies and businesses and utilize the
resources they have to offer. Partnerships between
the schools and these groups can provide positive
role models to the students, as well as leadership
training, tutoring, and incentives. The Adopt-A-
School partnership, last year alone, provided more
than 90 tutors for students. The staff also has a
student intervention program and many hours of
staff development in the areas of violence and
drug prevention.

Dr. David Rosenbloom is the project director of
Join Together in Boston, which is a resource for
communities developing strategies against alcohol
and drug abuse. Since late 1991, Join Together has
provided assistance to community anti-drug
coalitions in more than 40 States; published two
national surveys of community anti-drug activity
and other publications to help coalitions be more
effective; established a national Fellows Program;
created a national computer network; and convened
three public policy panels to look at barriers
communities face in their efforts. Join Together
is funded by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation to the Boston University School of
Public Health. 

Dr. Rosenbloom stated that communities will be
more effective in their efforts if they have
coalitions that link prevention, law enforcement,
and long-term recovery. To date, he has identified
2,500 coalitions with successful programs. There
are six questions that Join Together asks when
assessing the strengths and weaknesses of local
coalitions.

What harms are you trying to reduce or prevent in
your community? Groups should be as specific as
possible in answering this question.

Who else in town can we get to help us achieve our
goals? Members of the business community should be
approached for support.

How can you get key community groups to work with
you? Dr. Rosenbloom pointed out that it takes time
and persistence to build partnerships.

What do you do to encourage and sustain leadership
efforts? This is an important issue to address, as
more than 20 percent of community coalitions
change leadership within 5 years or less.

Does your coalition have a formal strategy and
program known to the community? Activities of the
program must relate to and work toward the
program's goal of prevention.

How will you know if your plan is working? What
mechanism do you have in place to adjust it? A
strategy must be developed to assess the plan's
success.

Deborah Galvin works with the Center for Substance
Abuse Prevention (CSAP). Youths are exposed to
risk factors related to school, personal or family
issues, and negative peer associations. Inability
to deal with these factors may lead to drug use,
school truancy, teen pregnancy, suicide, and
violent crime.

Ms. Galvin reported that alcohol and other drugs
are associated with 62 percent of assaults, 52
percent of rapes, 49 percent of murders, 68
percent of manslaughters, 50 percent of traffic
fatalities, 38 percent of child abuse incidents,
50 percent of spousal abuse incidents, 20 to 35
percent of suicides, and 69 percent of drownings.

CSAP has developed a comprehensive model of
primary prevention that focuses on the person,
family, peers, school or work, and the community.
Methods of intervention include education and
information, personal development, alternatives,
standards and norms, and community mobilization.
Through coalition-building, communities can
mobilize to focus on school and work. Wellness
programs are examples of community partnerships
helping personal development. Finally, family
support programs involve community mobilization
for the family.

Ms. Galvin reported that national evaluations of
CSAP's community partnerships have been completed.
The most common obstacles to a successful program
include an unclear definition or purpose, turf
battles, lack of time management, and personal
conflicts. The most successful programs are well-
organized and have high levels of staff
commitment. The studies also noted that
disagreements on strategy within a program are
healthy, but all must agree on the partnership's
function. In order for a partnership to succeed,
it needs participatory decisionmaking and
cooperation. Specific criteria for membership and
parental involvement also encourage success. 

Finally, Ms. Galvin identified several strategies
that have been successful at various programs.
These include developing viable employment
opportunities, involving gangs in partnerships
with the community, and violence training using
PREVLINE. PREVLINE is an electronic communications
system that allows citizens to share prevention
ideas with others around the globe. It offers
information concerning alcohol, tobacco, and
prevention of other drug problems.Concurrent
Workshops: Community and Neighborhood
Community Policing

Moderator: David W. Hayeslip, Program Manager,
National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of
Justice, Washington, D.C.

Panelists: Billy J. Sifuentes, Senior Officer,
Austin Police Department, Austin, Texas

Charles H. Ramsey, Deputy Chief, Patrol Division,
Chicago Police Department, Chicago, Illinois

Richard H. Girgenti, Director of Criminal Justice
and Commissioner, New York Division of Criminal
Justice Services, Albany, New York

Gary W. Cordner, Professor, Department of Police
Studies, Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond,
Kentucky

Dr. David Hayeslip introduced the panelists, who
discussed community policing strategies,
emphasizing successes as well as problems in
implementation. 

Officer Billy Sifuentes stated that there is
denial by the community in Austin, Texas,
regarding the level of violence and gang problems
in the city. Community policing brings the reality
of crime to the forefront by encouraging dialogue
between the citizens and police. Chief Elizabeth
M. Watson initiated community policing three years
ago as a means of enhancing the life of Austin's
citizens and improving the city's standard of
living.
  Officer Sifuentes identified four problem areas
to consider when implementing community policing.

Police opposition. There are many police them who
refuse to subscribe to the concept of community
policing. Many resent being forced into what they
regard as a social worker's role and feel that
community policing strips them of their badge and
power. Officer Sifuentes stressed that community
policing has always been around, just under
different names. To overcome police officer
resistance, departments must develop a training
program for them before a community policing
program is initiated.

Political infighting. It is sometimes difficult to
bring political foes together to work effectively
on a common goal. Before inviting key community
and police members to be a part of a community
policing program, it is first necessary to look at
potential personality conflicts that may hinder
development.

Youth involvement. Officer Sifuentes advocated the
involvement of young people with the community
policing effort. In addition, community policing
should include projects directed toward the youth,
such as strategic interventions for high risk
youth, officers in the schools, and gang programs.

Police officer rotation. Because police officers
rotate frequently in their assignments, training
must be constantly provided for new officers
assigned to community policing tasks.

Deputy Chief Charles Ramsey is project
administrator for the Chicago Alternative Policing
Strategy (CAPS). Officially begun in 1993, CAPS
was implemented as a prototype in five of
Chicago's 25 police districts. These five diverse
districts were studied to determine which
strategies were essential to the success of
community policing programs. He described three of
these strategies.

Building partnerships. Deputy Chief Ramsey stated
that CAPS differs from most community policing
strategies because there is already a strong
relationship between police, community, and city
government. In establishing and maintaining a
relationship with the community, police must
recognize that the role of the community may vary
depending on the problem. In prioritizing
problems, police should consider what is important
to the community. 

In Chicago, Mayor Richard M. Daley has made CAPS a
top priority for all city agencies. City agencies
receive training on CAPS goals and operations so
that each agency understands its individual role
in the community policing effort. At the same
time, police have become more aware of agencies
that are better equipped than the police to
service citizens' special needs. Recognizing that
conditions such as street light defects or vacated
buildings may contribute to criminal activity,
special procedures have been set up to facilitate
the city's response to calls for service. Deputy
Chief Ramsey reported that 85 percent of all calls
for service under CAPS were taken care of
promptly. In addition, a strong relationship
between city government and police is important
when resources are scarce. Police departments need
to take advantage of the technology and assistance
offered from city government. Then, collectively,
services can be provided without straining any
department's resources.

Developing a strategic plan. Deputy Chief Ramsey
stated that there are no pre-packaged community
policing strategies. Instead, each strategy must
be customized to meet the needs of a particular
community. In 1993, Superintendent Rodriguez
published Together We Can, which established the
Chicago Police Department's vision of community
policing. Chicago combined what was believed to be
the best elements of traditional policing,
community policing, and problem-oriented policing.
As resistance to new ideas often stems from lack
of understanding, department heads must
communicate the meaning and importance of their
plan to their employees and citizens.

Training. Police departments need to
operationalize the community policing concept.
This entails developing role responsibilities for
specific ranks. Lieutenants need to understand
exactly what they must do and how they are
important to the success of community policing.
The police, community, and city government must be
instructed in problem-solving. Though some crime
problems are chronic and will never be completely
solved, the police and community members, working
together, can have an impact.

Time management should be a part of the
curriculum. For the past 30 years, the 911
telephone emergency number has managed the Chicago
Police Department's time. Now, the officers
themselves need to learn to prioritize
responsibilities to meet the goals of the
strategic plan. 

Community policing will not solve all crime
problems. It is an ongoing struggle that demands
an adjustment in philosophy as the community
changes. Police departments need to be able to
adapt to these changes and be pro-active in their
efforts.

Richard Girgenti said that his perspective on
community policing is from the state level. He
focuses on strategies that deal with youth
violence. He identified a seven-point strategy
that uses the school system:
  
1. Making the school the focal point of violence
reduction with programs such as a youth security
plan for the summer, safe corridors, and
neighborhood task forces.
2. Refocusing patrol resources and practices. The
record of each arrested youth should be checked.
The number of officers assigned to youth should
also be increased. 
3. Refocusing the investigative patrol's duties to
include youth crime incidents.
4. Revising police department policies for
schools.
5. Revising and expanding training.
6. Creating a juvenile information database.
7. Developing a partnership with parents, the
board of education, principals of the schools, the
media, and housing and transit police.

Mr. Girgenti mentioned developing a youth center,
youth courts, parent programs, mentoring, and
curfews as possible strategies to consider for
dealing with youth violence. He emphasized
truancies as critical. There is a relationship
between truancy and the increase in juvenile
crime.

Mr. Girgenti asserted that there must be
coordination among various police task forces.
Data systems must be developed on police contacts
so that a complete picture of youth activity can
be determined and responses can be coordinated.
Consistent rules should be developed. Strategies
must work with parents, schools, and the media.
All strategies should be evaluated for
effectiveness. Finally, officers should be trained
on adolescent psychology, interaction with youths,
and youth issues.

Dr. Gary Cordner conducts research for NIJ on the
effectiveness of community policing. Based on
empirical studies of 59 cities, he has developed a
scheme to help understand the complex dimensions
and effects of community policing.

Dr. Cordner said there are philosophical
dimensions to community policing that stress
underlying ideas and beliefs. These include a
broad-based foundation, community input, and
neighborhood variation.

Changes may be necessary in an organization to
permit implementation. These might include
personnel upgrading and diversification;
decentralizing and "despecializing" the
organization to allow a flattened hierarchy; and a
management style that stresses values over rules.

Other strategic changes differ from the
traditional model of policing, such as focusing on
geographic issues rather than time of day or type
of crime, and preventing crime rather than
catching a criminal.

Programmatic changes could include re-oriented
operations emphasizing foot patrols, mini-
stations, and citizen contact. Problem solving
rather than case solving, getting the community
engaged in its own protection, and identifying
problems are primary concerns.

With community policing, police officers may spend
less time driving around and more time walking the
beat. Police products and services may include
changes in the level of police visibility,
referrals to service agencies, the number of
tickets or calls handled, and actual arrests.
Perceptions of equity, legality, accountability,
and integrity may differ from traditional models
of policing. New goals under community policing
may include preventing crime and disorder,
increasing trust and confidence in the community,
and protecting citizen liberty.

Dr. Cordner stressed that no conclusive evidence
proves community policing affects any of these
issues. Positive change in the community could be
only the result of assigning more police to one
area or the product of a few hand-picked police
officers who would have done a good job regardless
of the principal philosophy.

In general, however, community policing promotes
better police and community relations. Attitudes
and levels of job satisfaction have improved among
police officers involved in community policing.
Finally, Dr. Cordner stated that community
policing does reduce the community's fear of crime
and disorder.

Increasing Employment

Moderator: Marion W. Pines, Senior Fellow,
Institute for Policy Studies, Johns Hopkins
University, Baltimore, Maryland

Panelists: Robert J. Ivry, Senior Vice President,
Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation
(MDRC), Entitlement Program, New York, 
New York

David Lah, Labor Economist, U.S. Department of
Labor, Washington, D.C.

Dennis Lieberman, Labor Economist,
U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, D.C.

William Spring, Boston Compact, Boston,
Massachusetts

Marion Pines's program, Maryland's Tomorrow,
initially served approximately 3,000 students in
75 secondary schools, but has grown to serve over
5,000 students in the second year, 6,650 students
in 78 schools in the third year, and approximately
8,000 students in 80 schools each year since. The
program now operates with a State grant that has
grown to $8.5 million. In the 1993 to 1994 school
year, a middle school component was added in
several jurisdictions, with an additional $1.4
million. In addition to the State General
Assembly's support, the Maryland's Tomorrow high
school program is able to leverage funding from
the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), as well
as local educational and private resources. Ms.
Pines reminded everyone
that the United States is one of the few
economically developed countries without school-
to-work transition programs.

Robert Ivry told the audience that 17 years ago he
worked with the Youth Incentive Entitlement
Program. That Federal program guaranteed jobs for
student participants. The program was active in 17
communities across the country, included jobs in
private, nonprofit businesses and government
agencies, and was open to all participants who met
the selection criteria.

Many lessons were learned from that program. When
jobs were made available, youths came forward in
droves--they are not lazy. Even though most of the
jobs were entry level, the youth and the employers
were happy. Although there was initial concern
that there would not be enough jobs, over 11,000
jobs were created and subsidized by the Federal
Government. Also, 20 percent of the students were
retained in their jobs after high school
graduation. The gap between white and African-
American unemployment rates was eliminated. One
year after high school graduation, participants
were more likely than non-participants to be
employed.

Unfortunately, the guarantee of a job was not
enough to keep students in school. Also, funding
was only available for employment, not educational
experience. The program emphasis was on creating
jobs, not monitoring the educational records of
participants.

Mr. Ivry highlighted a few of the ways the Youth
Employment Skills (YES) program is similar to its
predecessor, the JTPA. It allows participants to
apply what is learned in the classroom to the
workplace, it provides an orientation to the work
culture, and it facilitates access to jobs with
rollover potential. Improving on the Youth
Incentive Entitlement Program, skill building is
emphasized, rather than job development and
placement. YES provides ongoing support after job
placement, such as counseling to assist with
transition to the workplace, troubleshooting
worksite problems with supervisors, and
encouraging further schooling and upgrade training
in combination with work.

Finally, Mr. Ivry said that the program would look
at other aspects of the youth's life, not just the
four hours on the job. That is the key to
sustaining a positive program.

William Spring quickly reviewed the history of
youth employment programs and the general job
market in the country. He suggested that gradual
progress has been made, but warned that, because
labor market data are varied and complex,
economists are often wrong in their analyses.

Mr. Spring described the Boston Compact as a
commitment on the part of the Boston business
community to employ at-risk youth from the Boston
school system. Employers assume joint
responsibility with the school and mayor to make
this program work. Employers are given no subsidy
and are asked to interview participating students
before hiring from a different source. Career
specialists work with the students to help them
make better connections with employers.

Results of this program have been impressive. The
employment rate for black youth in the Boston area
much exceed the national rates.

Without systematic, city-wide, structural changes,
employment programs will not succeed. Job service
coordinators and counselors are needed, and the
educational system is difficult to penetrate and
change.

In conclusion, Mr. Spring stressed vision and
long-term thinking. Most youths can perform entry-
level jobs. Assistance for youth must combine work
and learning in a community-wide, labor market-
wide system. He urged the audience to forget the
illusion of statistical significance and think
instead of the next sensible step toward building
a meaningful and cooperative employment system.

Dennis Lieberman presented information on the
School to Work Opportunities Act. Sponsored by the
U.S. Departments of Labor and Education, this
initiative maintains that a good high school
education leading to a good job and a college
education will result in a productive and
satisfying life.

School to Work Opportunities will integrate work-
based and school-based learning. School-based
learning is classroom instruction based on high
academic and occupational skill standards. Work-
based learning is work experience, structured
training, and mentoring at job sites. Courses will
be developed to integrate classroom and on-the-job
instruction, match students with participating
employers, train job-site mentors, and build and
maintain bridges between school and work.

According to Mr. Lieberman, a national school-to-
work network may be developed in the future, with
a program in each state. To start that process,
competitive grants are being offered to states to
develop and implement such programs. Grants will
also be awarded for local school-to-work programs.
States and localities may customize these
programs.

Ms. Pines interjected that the program described
by Mr. Lieberman is not a vocational education
program. "Building a system" and making the
connection between classroom and workplace
learning will take years. It is critical that
employers feel they are co-owners and partners in
this endeavor.

David Lah gave the audience more background on the
Youth Employment and Skills (YES) program that is
proposed in the Crime Bill. The idea behind the
program is that communities matter, not just
individuals. The program idea is designed to serve
a larger part of the population.

According to the program plan, communities with
populations between 12,000 and 75,000 would be
eligible to compete for grant funding. Their
proposals should target areas with high crime
rates and poverty levels of 30 percent or higher.

Mr. Lah said the goal of the program would be to
increase the employment rate in the target areas
by 75 to 80 percent. Men and women between the
ages of 16 and 25 would be eligible. The program
aims to place people in positions that lead to a
career, not short-term jobs.

Ms. Pines concluded the workshop by pointing out
that the key to a successful employment program is
to pull the community together behind the program.
Leadership, vision, resources, and power must be
present. Since no strategy can stand alone, a
system must be woven that makes sense to all
contributors.

Community Development

Moderator: Marvin R. Cohen, Director, Children,
Youth, and Families Initiative, Chicago Community
Trust, Chicago, Illinois

Panelists: Sheryll Cashin, Director, National
Economic Council, The White House, Washington,
D.C.

Karen Dates, Network Operations Specialist,
Mayor's Office of Employment Services, Baltimore,
Maryland

Benson Roberts, Vice President, Local Initiatives
Support Corporation (LISC), Washington, D.C.

Marvin Cohen said that any effort directed at
youth violence must have total community
involvement. Even the best programs of support
will work for only short periods of time unless a
number of things are happening. Housing
development or economic development may seem far
afield from the issue of youth violence, but it is
almost certain that if communities are in
disarray, housing is dilapidated, and parents have
no job prospects, neighborhoods will not solve
youth violence problems.

Sheryll Cashin described federal community
development programs that help establish linkages
between youth development, employment, and
economic opportunity. In reference to the murder
of 13-year-old Anthony Stokes, she commented that
his father was on work-release and his mother was
in jail. The only strong parental figure in
Anthony's life was the coach at his youth club.
Anthony was an aspiring athlete and lived with his
77-year-old grandmother.

How is community development to solve problems
like this? The interagency task force on which she
serves looks at employment opportunities for
disadvantaged youth. In the new budget year, her
agency is trying to stress youth employment that
is closely linked to the world of work. Young
people in communities like Anthony's need to be
socialized relatively early to the world of work.
They need education that is contextually relevant
and access to the formal networks that lead to
jobs.

Ms. Cashin said that discrimination statistics on
black males are depressing. Neither white nor
African-American employers want to employ young
black males from disadvantaged circumstances. The
market is failing these youths.

Two new programs are particularly relevant. The
Youth Employment Skills (YES) demonstration
program provides subsidized jobs for youths ages
16 to 25 in 20 neighborhoods. These jobs are time-
limited and emphasize networks and connections to
subsequent job opportunities. Programs that show
substantial linkages to continued private sector
employment opportunities will be preferred for
these grants.

The National Community Economic Partnership is
also relevant to crime prevention and youth
violence. Community development corporations
(CDCs) have been around for about 20 years. They
provide outreach, community stability, and
linkages to employment opportunities.

The third program directed toward addressing crime
and youth violence is the Empowerment Zones
program. This brings partners together to develop
comprehensive strategies. All kinds of
interventions are needed in impoverished areas
around the country. Federal funding is already
going into these areas, but the assistance is not
coordinated. For example, HUD is working with
labor unions to develop apprenticeships in the
building trades. Empowerment Zones are designed to
help a community bring these pieces of assistance
together to form a comprehensive strategy.

Mr. Roberts briefly described the unprecedented
partnership that supports Local Initiatives
Support Corporation (LISC). HUD and 10 major
corporations and foundations have pooled over $87
million to invest in 23 cities to accelerate
neighborhood renewal. LISC supports CDC's in these
cities to establish or strengthen local
partnerships that will address critical community
needs.

For kids in low income, inner-city neighborhoods,
life is different from other neighborhoods. There
are fewer positive cues about life for the youths
in disadvantaged neighborhoods. It is easier to
get in trouble when there are no youth programs in
the neighborhood. It is harder to study in crowded
public housing units. Outside public and private
organizations cannot do the job alone. Communities
need to take responsibility for the future and
assert behavioral values. In a healthy
neighborhood, people look out for each other. In a
neighborhood in disarray, the people are afraid to
do this.

Mr. Roberts pointed out that LISC involves both
public and private institutions, emphasizing
community ownership, problem identification, and
cooperative solutions. Perception of what is
possible for a neighborhood is critical.

In many inner-city areas now, the popular
perception is that no improvement is possible. The
public sector will not invest, and the private
sector does not believe anyone can be held
accountable. To turn this around, tangible
progress must be observed--housing must be built,
and banks must be brought back to neighborhoods.
The community needs to see that it has
accomplished things for itself. In communities
like the South Bronx, an amazing transformation
has taken place over the last 15 years, almost
entirely attributable to the initiative of
community residents.

Karen Dates discussed the need for aggressive
networking between youth service providers. The
Youth Providers Network operates through the
mayor's office in Baltimore. Youth service
practitioners come together for seminars,
technical assistance, and professional
development. About 600 national, regional, and
local professional organizations participate in
the Baltimore area Network.

For a successful effort, the youths themselves
also need to be involved in the initiatives. The
Youth Leadership Forum, a part of the network,
develops conferences, newsletters, and other
activities for youth. Another of the network's
activities was to send out requests for proposals
to local organizations to find out what they could
contribute to improve opportunities for high
school dropouts. GED training, remedial skills
development, job placement, and other support
services came from this.

Mr. Cohen discussed the $30 million given to
family initiatives in the Chicago Community Trust.
For its 70th anniversary, the Trust commissioned a
study to look into the condition of children's
services in the Chicago metropolitan area. The
study found that there were virtually no
children's services. Systems were utterly
fragmented, subject to complex bureaucratic lines
of communication, impossible funding regulations,
and interagency competition or turf struggles.
Only remedial measures for children's problems,
such as criminal justice systems, welfare
programs, and substance abuse issues, were
addressed.

Today's communities are different from those of
the 1950's when youth service systems were
initiated. Now, the overwhelming majority of
families have either two working parents or a
single working parent in the home. In that
context, the ability of communities to lend
support to families is seriously eroded. The Trust
is trying to change the dominant mode of support
in Chicago from one that only addresses children's
distress to a system that encourages their
capacities at all ages. This means attention to
recreational opportunities, character development,
team work, and day care that is developmental, not
custodial, for the early years.

Mr. Cohen pointed out that existing community
development systems often rely on state and
federal funding. However, leaders need to restore
the capacity of community-based nonprofit
organizations to provide the needed services.
Government cannot ameliorate the problems of
violence without integrated services. Making the
linkages between agencies and programs is part of
the rebuilding effort for communities. The
authority to configure the services must be
located at the community level, although financial
support may come from the State or Federal level.
Only if people in the community have that degree
of control will the new programs be culturally
sensitive and workable.Juvenile Justice Programs

Moderator: John J. Wilson, Acting Director, Office
of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention,
U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

Panelists: Gordon Bazemore, Associate Professor,
School of Public Administration, Florida Atlantic
University, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Rich Gable, Director of Technical Assistance,
National Center for Juvenile Justice, Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania

Donna Martin Hamparian, Juvenile Justice
Consultant, Columbus, Ohio

Patricia Balasco-Barr, Administrator, Youth
Services Administration, District of Columbia,
Washington, D.C.

John Wilson noted that, historically, a dichotomy
has existed between prevention and punishment. He
said the comprehensive strategy recently published
by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention (OJJDP) is an attempt to "marry"
prevention and enforcement strategies.

Mr. Wilson then asked the audience to estimate the
percentage of serious and violent crime that is
committed by youths under the age of 18. Audience
responses ranged from 16 to 80 percent. He said
the actual figure today is closer to 12.5 percent.
According to the FBI's 1992 Uniform Crime Report,
youths under 18 accounted for 16 percent of total
arrests. Mr. Wilson also said there has been a 24
percent increase in child victimization in recent
years.

Solutions to these problems must involve
empowering community-based organizations, schools,
and teachers. They must promote the known
protective factors that keep youth from
involvement in crime, drugs, and delinquency. It
is important, as the Attorney General consistently
emphasizes, to gear efforts to ages zero to three.
It is also important to work with older youth, to
develop a broad spectrum of graduated sanctions,
and to control the small segment of youths who
must be controlled to protect public safety. This
panel focused on youths who were already involved
with the juvenile justice system.

Rich Gable remarked that programming for juveniles
is more sophisticated today, with a considerable
body of research and experience on which to draw.
In 1992, OJJDP commissioned the development of a
What Works Directory, which now exists in draft
form. One caveat is that the National Center for
Juvenile Justice did not independently evaluate
the programs contained in the directory.

The project began with a literature review to
determine the essential components of any juvenile
program (e.g., clear goals and objectives, needs
assessment and community involvement. Juvenile
justice practitioners, including probation
administrators and staff and judges, were then
surveyed and asked to recommend programs for
inclusion in the directory. One thousand programs
were nominated. These were sent surveys, and
between 600 and 700 responded. The final draft
directory contains 425 programs. Program
information includes average length of stay, staff
size, daily rate, and other information, including
primary mode of intervention. Types of
intervention include academic instruction,
behavior management, substance abuse prevention
and treatment, and vocational or other training.

Mr. Gable then discussed key elements of
successful efforts to assist youth. First, youth
need legitimate opportunities to experience
success. They are motivated by a natural desire to
succeed, and it is especially important to develop
youth-initiated activities. A second critical
component is accountability. Third, programs must
recognize the importance of strong families and
good parenting and support parents' desire for
their children to succeed. Fourth, the society as
a whole must convey an intolerance for losing our
youths. Their development is essential for a
strong economy. Fifth, most children can be helped
by relatively inexpensive activities and
alternatives. 

Finally, the most appropriate interventions are at
the neighborhood level, not at the State or even
the community level. Neighborhood residents need
to develop new alternatives. They cannot continue
to import services from downtown agencies. One
example of this is the Community Intensive
Supervision Program in Pittsburgh, which provides
nonresidential, after-school, and evening care.
All participants live within six blocks of the
program site.

Dr. Gordon Bazemore discussed old and new
paradigms of justice. In the old, retributive
model, neither the victim nor the offender is ever
asked to be part of the solution. The new,
restorative model attempts to take a balanced
approach by equally addressing three concepts: (1)
competency development, (2) community protection,
and (3) accountability. Further, the balanced
approach recognizes three clients: the victim, the
youthful offender, and the community.

The balanced approach involves developing
performance objectives. With regard to
accountability, for example, objectives would
center on how the offender's actions can restore
the victim's and community's losses. 

The competency development approach involves a
more tangible way of measuring success. Offender
competencies may be enhanced through work, active
learning, community service, and other
experiences.

Patricia Balasco-Barr began by saying that
juvenile justice agencies need to "find the
vision." After 15 years in child welfare services,
she calls juvenile justice system children "our
children," as opposed to the term "the thugs,"
used by some of her predecessors. 

Ms. Balasco-Barr emphasized that youth risk and
needs assessments need to drive program
development. There are too many programs that no
one uses, and too many needed services for which
no program exists. If administrators cannot
persuade others of this approach through
philosophical argument, they should remember that
money works. They can redirect existing budgets.

All of the systems--schools, courts, and service
contractors--must accept back the children who
have special needs. Their criminal behavior is a
symptom of family and childhood problems, a sign
that there has been a family breakdown for a long
time. Helping these youths also involves
preventive intervention with their younger
siblings.

It is well known that after youths have been
returned to their communities and families, the
positive changes they experienced at the
residential facility must compete with negative
community norms. There is very little research
about the results of asking parents, "How can we
help you and your child? How can we help you bring
your child home?" As Attorney General Reno says,
the government cannot rear children. 

Ms. Balasco-Barr noted that "some people make a
whole lot of money by not solving juvenile
problems." Resistance comes from those who are
vested in institutions such as residential
facilities and foster care. Thus it is important
to educate all professional peers as well as the
community. Compliance must be monitored and
evaluations conducted. It is important to assess
staff use of resources, the way staff are treating
children, and service contractors' performance. 

Ms. Balasco-Barr also recommended that
administrators include restitution or community
service requirements in the contracts. The message
must be conveyed that children still have a right
to services. Adjudicated youths also should be
able to receive quality welfare services simply by
walking in and being in need.

Donna Hamparian noted that juveniles tried as
adults are not counted; the last attempt to do
this used 1978 data. Today's statistics on
juvenile offenders, therefore, are estimates.
However, finding solutions to today's problems is
not the same as redefining juvenile offenders.

The juvenile justice system, said Ms. Hamparian,
is not supposed to be a punishment, yet about 20
percent of juvenile offenders are processed
through the adult system. New York, where youths
ages 16 and 17 are treated as adults, has the most
punitive system in the country. Thirteen-year-olds
there are tried for murder in adult court, as are
the 14- and 15-year-olds who commit the most
violent offenses. There is an appeals process, but
it can take longer than a year. Meanwhile, youths
during this waiting period are doing "dead time"
in juvenile facilities.

Ms. Hamparian said most states have a judicial
waiver provision (only two do not). Two to four
percent of formally handled cases get to criminal
court through these judicial waiver processes.
Further, "new and inventive ways of punishing"
juveniles are being promoted now, for example,
"two strikes" provisions keeping youth in juvenile
facilities until they are old enough to go to
adult prisons.

In most prisons, she said, there is no age
grading. Thus the youngest prisoners are likely to
be subjected to violence by older prisoners or
staff. Recidivism rates are higher among juveniles
tried as adults than among those tried as
juveniles for the same offenses. 

"What can be done?" Ms. Hamparian asked. She said
gun control bills must be passed, especially ones
that would control automatic weapons. Members of
Congress should be asked tough questions about the
Crime Bill. For example, "What should we do with a
13-year-old in an adult prison?" The OJJDP violent
offender initiative, which was shown to be
effective 10 years ago, needs to be revisited.
Jurisdictions should also consider the new Reclaim
Ohio initiative. This initiative promotes more
community-based options for violent offenders,
with a goal of reducing commitments to state
institutions. If counties reduce the number of
juveniles referred to the State, they receive
State funding for community alternatives.
Weed and Seed

Moderator: Terrence S. Donahue, Acting Director,
Executive Office for Weed and Seed, Office of
Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice,
Washington, D.C.

Panelists: Beverly Watts Davis, Executive
Director, San Antonio Fighting Back, San Antonio,
Texas

Theresa G. Lipo, Manager, Resource Development,
Chicago Housing Authority, Chicago, Illinois

Elizabeth N. Johnson, Director, Department of
Recreation, City of Trenton, New Jersey

Richard C. Weatherbee, Law Enforcement
Coordinator, U.S. Attorney's Office, Denver,
Colorado

Terrence Donahue explained that the Weed and Seed
concept aimed to take back neighborhoods from
criminal influence and, using existing resources,
to introduce sustaining "seed" elements in order
to keep the neighborhood a favorable place to
live, work, and raise a family.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance awarded funds to
21 pilot demonstration sites. There are 10 small
jurisdiction sites, two multi-jurisdiction sites,
and 12 expansion sites. Six of the sites will
participate in a national performance review.
Seven of the sites will also be test sites for
joint ventures with the newly formed Corporation
for Community Service.

Beverly Watts Davis emphasized that organizing
prior to the arrival of Federal funding gave a big
advantage to the effort in San Antonio. The law
enforcement part of the alliance is critical,
since removal of criminal influences from a
neighborhood can not be done without it. Law
enforcement, however, cannot build up the
community afterward. Neighborhoods had to realize
they "owned" both the problems and the workable
solutions. Having Federal support as a Weed and
Seed site was particularly helpful for getting
cooperation from local and State human service and
health agencies. With Federal program support
behind them, the community organizers could, for
example, overcome bureaucratic resistance to
collocating support service offices in a
particular neighborhood.

Even before the gun and drug dealers are removed
from a neighborhood, residents and stakeholders
have to plan for the end of the program, its
institutionalization with the partners, and
resources that can sustain an ongoing effort.

Theresa Lipo works for the Chicago Housing
Authority. Using support provided by the Weed and
Seed project, the public housing authority was
able to improve local and state agency support,
transportation, and services in the Ida B. Wells
neighborhood, a selected Weed and Seed site. Ida
B. Wells has an unemployment rate of 93 percent
and, in 1991, experienced 697 Part I crimes. After
a 4-month undercover narcotics investigation, the
police made 732 arrests in a 1-week period. Within
4 days, 600 housing authority staff participated
in establishing new security systems and
identification cards for residents. Afterward,
community policing officers opened a substation in
the neighborhood. Substation activities include
planned recreation and Drug Abuse Resistance
Education (DARE).

There is also a popular Community Justice Service
Center for ex-offenders. This combines adult
probation functions with State funded education,
job training, and drug abuse prevention and
treatment referrals--Treatment Alternatives to
Street Crime (TASC). Residents often visit the
center for tutoring or referrals of some kind. The
center offers core advocacy and assistance to
victims of crime, patrol officer training,
grandparent-to-youth programs, and midnight
basketball. One of the most difficult projects has
been the rehabilitation of the highrises in order
to attract mixed income families. Joint social or
sporting events with nearby working class
neighborhoods have begun to relieve the isolation
of the public housing families.

Elizabeth Johnson described efforts in Trenton,
New Jersey, to get collaboration among community,
police, recreation, juvenile justice, and local
government. The steering committee, formed through
the Weed and Seed initiative, first focused on law
enforcement collaborations. The city prosecutor
and the U.S. Attorney worked together to remove
violent offenders. Two new mini-stations were
established, bringing the total number of mini-
stations in Trenton to four.

After effects were seen from the increased law
enforcement, the committee began community
development activities. Family support and
effective school functioning were critical. The
steering committee provided a help component for
mothers and State funding for new housing starts.
Community volunteers made significant efforts.
Nonprofit organizations provide part-time training
in conflict resolution and similar techniques.
Through the Department of Housing and Urban
Development, additional funding for resident
services has been secured. Ms. Johnson stressed
the value of the active support of the mayor and
attorney general.

Trenton has applied to be recognized as an
enterprise zone. If recognized, the new programs
will receive additional resources. Trenton will
participate in the National Service Program. The
theme of their efforts will be "community capacity
building." Four teams of participants have been
chosen. A small local baseball stadium has been
built and has already provided a positive focus
for the neighborhood.

Richard Weatherbee is the law enforcement
coordinator with the U.S. Attorney's Office in
Denver, Colorado. He described the impact of Weed
and Seed as gaining effectiveness through the
simultaneous focus of various community resources
at a problem. A brief way to describe the effect
is that it reduces anonymity. When the police are
less anonymous, their services are made more
human. When residents know each other, there is
less opportunity for crime in their neighborhood.
When criminals or local creators of disruption
cannot be anonymous, their activities will be
hindered.

Weed and Seed narrows the distance between Federal
programs and the taxpayers in a community.
Improved access to programs that reduce risks and
encourage protective factors can develop.

Mr. Donahue encouraged community organizers to
prepare for and seek information about the Weed
and Seed initiative now, before any Federal
expansion is authorized. In that way, they will be
prepared to make best use of any help available.
Private foundations, charities such as United Way,
and Department of Defense organizations such as
local army bases can also contribute to community
revitalization.Reducing Gun Violence in the
Community and the Home

Moderator: N. John Wilder, Deputy Mayor, Criminal
Justice and Drug Control Policy, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania

Panelists: Arthur Kellermann, Director, Center for
Injury Control, Emory University School of Public
Health, Atlanta, Georgia

Anne E. Parry, Director, Institute for Choosing
Nonviolence, Chicago, Illinois

Willie G. Lipscomb, Jr., District Court Judge,
36th District Court, Detroit, Michigan

Andrew L. Vita, Deputy Assistant Director for Law
Enforcement Programs, U.S. Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms, Washington, D.C.

David W. Cummings, Group Supervisor, Uptown
Taskforce, U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms, New York, New York

John Wilder stated that the seriousness of
America's problem with gun violence is evident in
the increasing attempts to form partnerships
against guns and violence. The problem of gun
violence is reflected in the numbers of young men,
especially African-Americans, being killed and
incarcerated. He emphasized that all segments of
the community must come together to solve the
violence.

One such effort involves the School of Public
Health and the School of Medicine at Emory
University, which have recognized the importance
of injury as a national and international problem
by establishing the Emory Center for Injury
Control. The primary goal of the center is to
reduce the toll of morbidity, mortality, and costs
of injury through an integrated program of
research, service, and education.

Dr. Arthur Kellermann declared that the medical
community has a major stake in preventive
approaches. For any illness, the medical community
knows that it is not sufficient to treat a patient
and send him or her back out to the same situation
that caused the illness. This applies as well to
patients treated for injuries resulting from gun
violence.

The District of Columbia, Dr. Kellermann noted,
has a homicide rate seven times higher than that
of any other western democracy. The rate for
homicides among blacks is 37 times higher than any
western democracy, and for whites it is three
times higher. For every gun-related death, there
are five serious injuries, and this does not
include those that do not require hospitalization.

Dr. Kellermann stated that guns and violence are
inextricably linked. If the guns are taken away,
the violence will drastically change. Violence in
the absence of guns means less potential for
serious or fatal injury. Two factors contributed
to the proliferation of guns and violence in
recent history--the escalation in 1985 of the
availability of cocaine and the manufacture of
semi-automatic weapons. He also pointed out that
not all guns are alike. Handguns kill the most
people--more than rifles, shotguns, and other
firearms combined.

Dr. Kellermann noted that there are more than 200
million guns in the United States, and it is not
possible to get them all. The focus must shift
from the supply of guns to gun transactions,
especially the flow of weapons through the hands
of youth. The strategy for doing this must include
several elements:

1. Demanding reduction.
2. Impacting on the illegal market (straw
purchases, secondary transactions, and thefts).
3. Preventing weapons use.

The first step, he noted, is collection of
information that would show who has guns; how,
when, and where they were obtained; and any other
useful data. This information can be used to
inform policy, develop strategies, try different
ideas in different cities, and see what works
through Federal, State, and local joint efforts.

Anne Parry introduced the Rainbow House Institute
for Choosing Nonviolence, which offers training to
educators, social service providers, and other
adults in the approach popularly called "Choosing
Nonviolence." Through hundreds of presentations on
community, interpersonal, and domestic violence,
Rainbow House staff became convinced that adults
need to better understand violence and identify
nonviolent alternatives before they can teach
children to do the same.

She asked, "How is it that we have turned into a
society that produces boys who become men who are
violent towards women, and girls who become women
who think they deserve abuse?" Violence is
America's "learned national behavior" and must be
unlearned in order for anything to change. High
school is too late to address violence prevention
because by then violence has already been learned.
Elementary school is better, but violence
prevention at a younger age is better still. Head
Start is the place to begin.

In order for children to learn nonviolence,
"adults must create safe places--violence-free
zones." When people are in safe places, they can
make choices that are nonviolent. Ms. Parry
contended that America's violent behavior can be
changed just like smoking was changed--through
legislation and by redefining "cool" behavior. She
also noted that everyone fits somewhere on the
continuum of violence. People must examine
themselves to see where they fit and take stands
to change their own behavior. The continuum
includes killing at one end and watching violence
on television at the other. 

To make a contribution to preventing violence, Ms.
Parry suggested that people refer to the Take Ten
Guidebook, a book she developed that offers
numerous activity ideas for teaching nonviolence.

Andrew Vita stated that, in an age of increasing
violent crime and decreasing resources, "we must
make innovative use of resources, forge innovative
partnerships, and take advantage of emerging
technologies." As the agency that regulates the
firearms industry, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms (ATF) established an initiative
called Stop the Armed Violence Epidemic (SAVE).
SAVE can be applied to any type of community and
is tailored to the needs of that community. One
component of the initiative is a study that
examines the scope of the violence problem in a
particular community. It pulls together all
possible federal and community resources to reduce
violence through understanding and interrupting
the "firearms violence dynamics" in that
community.

Mr. Vita explained that, in order for gun-related
violence to occur, four elements must exist
simultaneously: perpetrator, victim, firearm, and
motive. If any one of these can be eliminated,
there will not be firearm violence at that
particular time. SAVE works to help communities
better address eliminating these elements.

ATF also works with state and local law
enforcement and school boards to trace firearms
recovered from juvenile crimes committed in a
school or in a school zone. ATF has a national 24-
hour, toll-free hotline to which people can report
any information on firearms.

As a final note, Mr. Vita cautioned against the
use of gun buy-back programs because they give
criminals an opportunity to dispose of weapons
without accountability. These weapons are evidence
that cannot later be linked to an owner or user.

David Cummings described a program begun in 1990
involving a joint effort among the New York
Housing Authority Police Department, the
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD),
and the ATF. The program, called Project Uptown,
addresses drug trafficking and violence in public
housing and primarily focuses on confiscation of
guns. Project Uptown involves 12 ATF special
agents, 20 housing police, and two HUD special
agents. Since stopping the program began, there
has been a 40 percent decrease in gun- and drug-
related violence in public housing, as well as
decreases in other criminal activity. Project
Uptown has also been established in Baltimore,
Maryland, and will soon start in New Orleans,
Louisiana, and Chicago, Illinois.

Judge Willie Lipscomb showed slides of gunshot
wounds as an example of what he presents to men
who participate in a voluntary referral program in
his district court. If all programs worked, he
stated, the problem of gun violence would still
exist, because there is no commitment by American
society to change it.

Because men are disproportionately affected by
this issue, men must make a particular commitment
to change. Their lives are important. Since
stopping gun violence is not on "America's
agenda," he stated, "men must put it on their own
agenda."  

To illustrate his point, he compared the problem
to the situation of breast cancer. Breast cancer
is not perceived as an issue for men, so women
have taken it on and advocate for themselves. Men
must take the same approach with gun violence.

Judge Lipscomb noted that there were 2,500 handgun
cases in his own district court annually. All of
these cases were processed without any
intervention. In his referral program, people who
are adjudicated for gun-related offenses
voluntarily attend. More than 2,300 people have
already been referred and 1,340 participated.
Participants meet weekly with ministers, social
workers, doctors, and lawyers. Anyone can attend.
The program, which is unfunded and staffed by
volunteers, is like a school session.
Presentations are followed by discussions. There
is emphasis on historical figures, especially
African and African-American, and on helping
participants develop a sense of history. The goal
of the program is to build self-awareness and
understanding.
Hate Violence

Moderator: Judith M. Filner, Program Director,
National Institute for Dispute Resolution,
Washington, D.C.

Panelists: Michael Lieberman, Associate Director
and Washington Counsel, Anti-Defamation League,
Washington, D.C.

Cheryl Schwartz, Director, Youth Services, Gay,
Lesbian, and Bisexual Community Services Center of
Colorado, Denver, Colorado

Ronald Wakabayashi, Executive Director, Los
Angeles County Commission on Human Relations, Los
Angeles, California

Jamie Battaglia, Administrative Assistant and
Intern, Healthy Boston Coalition for Gay, Lesbian,
Bisexual, and Transgender Youth, Boston,
Massachusetts

Judith Filner said hate violence is not a pleasant
topic and is therefore the forgotten violence. The
panel, she said, was about approaches to combating
bigotry and prejudice among youth. She said the
government does not pay much attention to bigotry,
prejudice, or hate violence.

Michael Lieberman observed that while the Anti-
Defamation League (ADL) has its roots in the
Jewish community, it quickly added the goal of
ending discrimination of all types. Any
comprehensive violence prevention strategy must
include awareness of and training on prejudice and
bigotry.

Penalties for crimes can be enhanced based on the
motivation of the perpetrator. Similarly, other
laws impose more severe penalties depending on the
identity of the victim (for example, police
officers and children).

ADL research shows that in 1993 almost 1,900 acts
of violence or vandalism were committed against
Jewish victims or targets, the second-highest
annual total in ADL's research. Mr. Lieberman
noted that because hate crimes have a greater
potential for creating riots than other crimes do,
the police support hate-crime reporting.

Some youths are members of neo-Nazi skinhead
groups, and wherever those groups arise, Mr.
Lieberman said, hate violence follows. However, he
added, the vast majority of hate crimes are
perpetrated by persons not associated with any
group. Therefore, broad-based training against
prejudice is appropriate. Most hate crimes are
committed by one's neighbors, their children, or
one's co-workers.

High school civics classes should teach students
the fundamental principles of America, which
celebrate diversity. Society cannot outlaw anti-
Semitism or disapproval of homosexuality, but it
can affect the people who turn to hate crimes.

Cheryl Schwartz observed that if hate crimes in
general are the forgotten violence, hate crimes
against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender
people are especially forgotten. She read the FBI
definition of "hate crime," which calls it any
crime against a person or property that is
motivated in whole or in part by bias against
race, religion, or sexual orientation.

Homophobia, Ms. Schwartz said, is the root cause
of hate crimes against gays, lesbians, and
bisexuals. Such violence often goes unchecked in
schools because many school administrators are
afraid of homosexuals, have institutionalized
homophobia, and are afraid to discipline gay-
bashers. Most local school districts provide gays,
lesbians, and bisexuals with no special protection
against bias.

Ms. Schwartz said that in instances of violence
against gay, lesbian, and bisexual people, other
gays, lesbians, or bisexuals are sometimes the
perpetrators. They often become gay-bashers, she
said, in order to disprove their homosexuality.
Some join skinhead groups. She added that even if
they have publicly announced their sexual
orientation, some gays, lesbians, and bisexuals
still gay-bash.

Criticism of homosexuality contributes to low
self-esteem, depression, truancy, self-destructive
behavior, and even suicide. Ms. Schwartz gave
results of a study her center conducted that
showed that 93 percent of kids in the program are
sexually active, 21 percent say they have never
used protection (condoms) during sex, and many of
the rest use the devices only intermittently. The
study was based on a survey of 30 youths at the
center.

Ms. Schwartz's organization collects and reports
hate crime statistics. It also educates the youth
on how to look for and recognize hate crimes.

Mr. Wakabayashi said that hate crimes also
victimize the community. For example, a vandalism
attack against an ethnic community center affected
the center physically and raised fear among the
people who used the center and among people at
other nearby ethnic community centers. He noted
that the ethnic, local press often spots hate
crime trends before the mainstream press.

Los Angeles County experiences many types of
conflict that can lead to hate violence. Mr.
Wakabayashi noted that about 40 Korean store
operators are shot there annually, and there is
also conflict between black and Latino gangs for
the drug trade. Immigrant or ethnic groups that
are relatively new to the United States are
unlikely to have organized groups to represent
their interests in bias-oriented conflicts. The
ADL is sophisticated, he observed. In contrast,
the Koreans had no such organization during the
recent riots in Los Angeles.

Jamie Battaglia, who is homosexual, related the
story of her difficult high school years. As a
senior, she began the process of announcing her
homosexuality publicly, or "coming out." She went
to the school's headmaster, said she was gay, and
asked that he institute education about
homosexuality for the student body. He said that
as she was one of only two homosexuals in the
school, he did not want to start a program until
there was a problem.

As Ms. Battaglia told her friends about her sexual
orientation, the word got around the school that
she was homosexual. On several occasions she was
called names, and once she got into a fight with
another student. She missed 80 out of 180 days of
school, and her grades dropped to failing level.
The school counselor said she did not know how to
deal with Ms. Battaglia. The student responded,
"Why can't you just accept me for what I am?"
Three weeks before graduation, she quit school.
She later obtained her GED. Ms. Battaglia said her
family was very supportive throughout her
troubles.

Keynote Address and Town Hall Meeting

Albert Gore, Jr., Vice President of the United
States, (Transcript of Presentation)

About 25 years ago, Life magazine published a
picture of every soldier who had been killed
during 1 week in Vietnam. The feature shocked and
moved many people. The tragedy was measured in 242
names and faces--lost lives, not body counts.

Last week, Newsweek tried something similar.
However, in this article discussing the number of
Americans murdered in a week, it could not show
every victim in that 1 week because there were 500
of them. Think again about Vietnam. We lost 55,000
American lives in that war. It took 15 years to
lose those 55,000 people. Almost that many are
murdered right here at home every 2 years.

The epidemic of violent crime in America shocks
all of us, but even more shocking is that the
victims and perpetrators keep getting younger and
younger. Nearly 1 million 12- to 19-year-olds are
raped, robbed, or assaulted every year. Last year,
2,200 murder victims were under age 18. There has
been an 85 percent increase in the number of teens
arrested for murder between 1987 and 1991. Why?
Among the significant aspects of the problem are
drugs, guns, poverty, and racial inequality.

Anyone who thinks we can find our way out of this
tragedy simply by incarcerating more people for
more time does not understand either the problems
or the solutions. Young people need stable
communities and families in order to develop a
sense of right and wrong, the desire to work, and
the understanding that families are important.
Young people must also know that violent behavior
will bring swift and certain consequences. The key
is to strengthen the bonds between young people
and the institutions we value most: church,
family, school, and community. 

These institutions are interrelated in a community
and are central to the Clinton plan for community
empowerment. Communities, like their problems, are
complex, and solutions to problems must take
account of the fact that each community has many
related aspects. The community empowerment
approach attempts to address these aspects through
community policing, world class schools, and
attracting small business. The federal government
will reward innovative communities with grants,
tax credits, and other helpful programs. 

I ask representatives on the Hill to vote for the
Crime Bill when it comes up again. It is
overwhelmingly a no-nonsense package of police,
punishment, and prevention. The country wants a
ban on assault weapons, wants offenders to know
that violent behavior will result in swift
punishment, and wants to keep guns out of the
hands of minors. The country wants enhanced
punishment and something done to prevent crime, to
keep kids away from entering a life of crime.
Community schools, work opportunity, and anti-gang
programs will help.

The votes against the Crime Bill, which was only
slightly different than that which had already
passed the House of Representatives (and actually
contained less prevention funding), were truly
political games. I can't understand why anyone
would be against taking assault weapons out of the
hands of children.

We have to give our children something to hold on
to--something that will not land them in jail or
the hospital. Government alone can't keep our
youths on track. We must all look out for each
other. We can succeed and we are succeeding,
whether working to reduce violence in Baltimore,
mentoring in Berkeley, or getting national service
off the ground here in Washington. The fact that
we can't reach every child is no reason not to
reach the ones we can. You who are working in the
communities must keep on working. You are changing
people's lives.

The poet Milton wrote, "Childhood shows the man as
morning shows the day." When we give our children
love, attention, and support, we will produce a
caring, responsible adult, capable of working with
the next generation. This administration will work
with you to realize your vision. Let us reclaim
our streets, pass this Crime Bill, and fight back.

Bill Clinton, President of the United States,
(Address via Video)

The hallmark of American democracy is people
working together in partnership to make life
better for others. Nowhere is that spirit more
evident than at this conference. All violence is
deplorable, but when it is directed at the most
vulnerable members of society--our children--we
must act decisively. Our children are being
killed. We must stop this violence before it
destroys an even larger part of our nation's
future.

I applaud the leadership shown by youths here
today. We need to build on your efforts and
coordinate them with national efforts. With its
funding for prevention, the Crime Bill will give
youths in search of direction something to say yes
to--in billions and billions of dollars' worth of
prevention programs. Community leadership is the
key. We must begin by rebuilding our communities
in fellowship. As a father, a citizen, and your
President, I thank you. I pledge the full
commitment of my administration in this effort. 
Town Hall Meeting

[Note: The Town Hall Meeting was arranged into
three panels with different contributing
panelists. The first panel was moderated by Vice
President Gore and Ms. McMillon; the second and
third were moderated by Deputy Secretary Kunin and
Ms. McMillon.]

First Panel

Moderators: Albert Gore, Jr., Vice President of
the United States

Doris McMillon, Television Journalist, Washington,
D.C.

Panelists: Donna Shalala, Secretary, U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services,
Washington, D.C.

Henry Cisneros, Secretary, U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development, Washington, D.C.

Lee P. Brown, Director, Office of National Drug
Control Policy, Washington, D.C.

Richard Riley, Secretary, U.S. Department of
Education, Washington, D.C.

Vice President Albert Gore asked the panelists
what they were currently doing to help communities
prevent youth violence. Secretary Donna Shalala
said the Department of Health and Human Services
is providing money for communities to put together
their own strategies and helping to organize
people into programs like the Beacon schools in
New York. What makes such programs work, she said,
is listening to young people. They have a better
sense of what will work for themselves and their
friends.

Secretary Henry Cisneros said the Department of
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is putting a
considerable amount of money and effort into
safety in public housing and sports activities. In
the Robert Taylor housing units in Chicago, 300
shooting incidents occurred in one week in April.
Five young people were killed on a single weekend.
Together with the city government, HUD identified
$29 million to put into law enforcement and
prevention activities. HUD has also put extensive
effort into recreational activities in which
adults provide guidance to young people. Mr.
Cisneros was stunned that members of Congress
objected to federal funding of midnight
basketball. This program gives those kids
something healthy to do.

Dr. Lee Brown said his office's overriding goal is
to reduce the demand for drugs. There is a direct
relationship between drug use and crime and
violence. He observed that the Crime Bill
allocates funds for drug courts and drug
treatment. Dr. Brown has personally seen the
community policing strategy work in numerous towns
and cities in America. Mr. Gore added that if a
drug addict asks for help, it is not extravagant
for the government to make such help possible.

Secretary Richard Riley said that, where good
learning and partnerships within the community
take place, one finds very little violence. Peer
mediation and conflict resolution programs have
been increased in the new budget. Afternoon and
evening programs at schools are tremendously
helpful and need to be increased, he added.

Youth representatives at the conference then posed
questions to the panel and moderators. A youth
from Little Rock, Arkansas, said that members of
the youth caucus at the conference would like to
see a national youth council formed that would
work with the Federal departments and the
administration. This youth council would like to
meet with Mr. Gore to give him their insights on
solutions to youth violence. Mr. Gore responded
that he thought a meeting would be a great idea.
The people closest to a problem, he said, almost
always have insights that you cannot get anywhere
else.

Another youth said that one of the major causes of
youth violence is a lack of self-knowledge. He
asked when the Federal Government would create a
curriculum that promotes multicultural education?
Mr. Riley answered that the Goals 2000 Act
recognizes the country's diversity and encourages
the teaching of foreign languages and
multicultural arts.

A youth from Seattle asked what the panel members
would promise to do regarding decreased community-
level funding of youth violence prevention
programs. Mr. Gore said the country needs both
punishment and prevention, as provided in the
Crime Bill before Congress. The prevention
approach would be coordinated at the local level.

Another youth asked what the country could expect
from the Federal Government to strengthen the
family's system of love and support. Mr. Gore said
the government wants to help families who are
trying to stay together. He mentioned the increase
in the earned income credit and said the
administration's plan for welfare reform would
reverse the incentive for fathers to leave their
families.

Doris McMillon then asked the gathered youths how
many of them had seen shootings, knew people who
were shot, or knew kids who carry guns to school.
Many hands went up after each part of the
question. A young man from Denver asked that more
effort be made to seek out help from youth. One
young woman said a friend of hers was shot in the
head in front of the school. The same young woman,
when asked whether she was afraid to go to school,
replied, "I'm not afraid to go to school, but a
white kid might be." Another young woman observed
that when she walks down the street where her
grandmother lives, she often hears gunshots. A
young man from Indiana mentioned that the
attitude, "It doesn't concern me, so why should I
worry?" contributes to the problem. His inter-
school student council sponsored a "Stop the
Violence" rally.
Second Panel

Moderators: Madeleine Kunin, Deputy Secretary,
U.S. Department of Education, Washington, D.C.

Doris McMillon, Television Journalist, Washington,
D.C.

Panelists: Beverly Watts Davis, Executive
Director, San Antonio Fighting Back of United Way,
San Antonio, Texas

Lieutenant Jose Garcia, Director, Santa Ana Weed
and Seed Project, Santa Ana Police Department,
Santa Ana, California

Shawn Dove, Co-Director, Countee Cullen Community
Center, New York, New York

Eva Feindler, Chief Consultant, Institute for
Mental Health Initiatives, Washington, D.C. [via
satellite from the American Psychological
Association, Los Angeles, California]

Bill Curry, Head Football Coach, University of
Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky [via satellite]

Deputy Secretary Madeleine Kunin introduced the
new panel of community leaders and asked them,
"What works?"

Beverly Watts Davis said her group allowed young
people to come up with their own programs, such as
midnight basketball and Dive-in Movies (films
shown around a swimming pool). Kids have even
started their own T-shirt companies.

Regarding community involvement, Lieutenant Jose
Garcia said apathy is like a disease. Once it
starts to permeate a community, the community
begins to die. It is important not to give up, he
said. People should keep fighting for what they
believe. 

Shawn Dove said his group, too, let the young
people develop their own programs. He described
the community center's teen lounge and workshops,
among other features. He said, "You need to reach
the parents, too. If you start to reach the young
people but the parents' attitude is unchanged, it
will not work." The programs have to reach the
whole community. The entire family can come to the
school-based community center. He said that if
children are not organized at the community
center, they will be organized in the street. The
center works holistically by bringing families
together in activities.

Dr. Eva Feindler said adolescence is a time of
tremendous energy and creativity. These youths as
peer leaders can be very effective in stopping the
escalation of violence and promoting hope in the
whole community.

Lieutenant Garcia added that efforts to reduce
youth violence require money. The unknown resource
is the private sector. Businesses are beginning to
realize that, in the long run, it will benefit
them to invest in the community. He called for
partnerships between communities, the private
sector, and government.

Deputy Secretary Kunin asked Ms. Davis how
partnerships were developed in her area. Ms. Davis
said they had been very successful with public-
private partnerships. Often with Federal funding,
there are restrictions that prevent comprehensive
coverage of different needs. For example, it may
be necessary, in order to hold a meeting, to
arrange for child care and food. Federal funds
cannot be used for these purposes, but private
funds give greater flexibility, allowing for
holistic services. She recommended using the
military and charities such as the United Way.
People will support what they have helped to
create.

Mr. Dove advised building alliances among all
groups that are stakeholders in the outcome of
violence prevention efforts. The advisory board
for a youth council can have representatives from
all interested groups, such as politicians,
clergy, and business leaders.

Dr. Feindler called on the educational system to
use affective training to teach kids about their
emotions and about alternatives to violence.

An audience member said his company made films and
school programs to counter violence. He asked
about other ways entertainment and the arts could
be used to promote nonviolence. Ms. Davis said her
group helps children make their own commercials
against violence.

Another audience member asked about helping
children who are themselves raising children. Dr.
Feindler said parenting education should be a part
of every high school curriculum. Teenagers,
whether they are babysitting or caring for their
own infants, need to have instruction in
parenting. New York schools are offering courses
on how to be a parent. Lieutenant Garcia observed
that sometimes girls raising children are no
longer in school, so it may be hard to reach them.
Ms. Davis suggested having a core of trained teen
mothers educate other teen mothers, in order to
reach those new mothers who are not attending
school. She recommended teaching parenting skills
at the hospital, right after delivery of a baby.

Bill Curry called his football team a microcosm of
society. Team members have experienced some of the
same tragedies of violence as in other parts of
the country. His team has young people of all
races and from all parts of the country. He noted
that team members attend cultural diversity
workshops and that coaches must learn to listen to
young people, something which does not come easy
for authority figures. 

He added that his players serve as mentors for
children who have trouble learning to read. One
can learn by teaching, he said. His team members
learn to develop empathy by helping younger
people. Even someone who is surly, or perhaps not
a good student, may be very responsive to a fifth
grader who doesn't read well. That tutor will come
back to his university classes with a new sense of
commitment.

Deputy Secretary Kunin asked the conference
participants about the problem of giving up
"turf." Ms. Davis pointed out that it was
necessary to stop doing to or for people and to
begin to do with people. Most of the larger
funding foundations require shared decision-
making. Residents must be involved in the power
decisions--who gets what, who gets hired, etc. A
master's degree is not needed to implement a safe
haven. 

Mr. Curry said his organization worked with the
police departments in Lexington, Kentucky, to form
partnerships for efforts against violence. As
members of an athletic organization, they often
participate in activities to foster intercultural
understanding.

A member of the audience said she was concerned
about the Crime Bill's provision for 100,000 new
police officers. She said she did not want 100,000
police officers "swooping down" on the inner
cities. She felt the police often could not tell
the good guys from the bad guys. She further
questioned the value of spending $40 million for
midnight basketball. She asked what redemptive
quality it could be said to teach. 

Lieutenant Garcia said that the philosophy of
community-style policing would help address her
concerns about the police. Since 1975, his town of
Santa Ana has worked with this kind of law
enforcement. The style of policing is a key to its
success. The officers do not alienate the people
they serve. With community policing tactics, he
said, the police would not "swoop down."

The panelists left, and Ms. McMillon addressed the
gathered youth contingent and distant satellite
participants. She asked about gangs and whether
midnight basketball would keep them out of gangs.
Some youths said that gangs give them a feeling of
self-esteem. Another youth claimed that gang
members sought a sense of belonging and love,
which they were unable to receive in their homes.
Some of the youth said midnight basketball would
help keep them out of gangs. The youth expressed
great interest in being consulted for
solutions.Third Panel

Moderators: Madeleine Kunin, Deputy Secretary,
U.S. Department of Education, Washington, D.C.

Doris McMillon, Television Journalist, Washington,
D.C.

Panelists: Ruben Chavez, Deputy Director for
Outreach Services, Youth Development, Inc.,
Albuquerque, New Mexico

Kelly J. Zimmerman, 1993-1994 National Youth of
the Year, Boys and Girls Clubs of America,
Orrville, Ohio

Robert Larson, President and General Manager,
Detroit PBS Station WTVS [via satellite]

Thomas J. Monaghan, U.S. Attorney for the District
of Nebraska, Omaha, Nebraska

Jeffrey A. Miller, Principal, Campbell Drive
Middle School, Homestead, Florida

Donna Healy, Guidance Supervisor, Peabody,
Massachusetts, Public Schools [via satellite]

Robert Larson said Detroit has developed an
organization called City for Youth that has
redefined the role of Detroit public media in the
community. The organization puts together talk
sessions, teleconferences, videos, and campaigns
on youth health and other topics. Over 400
organizations and every one of the Detroit media
mount campaigns to address community needs. He
said it is possible to engage the interest of
media in serving the youth.

Deputy Secretary Madeleine Kunin asked panelists
how to bring gang members back into the
mainstream. Ruben Chavez replied that to make an
impact on young people in gangs, it is necessary
to approach them as individuals. He said, "We
don't get people out of gangs." His group tries,
instead, to redirect the negative energy into
doing positive things.

Thomas Monaghan said law enforcement agencies do a
good job of solving crimes in his state, Nebraska,
but they have found it is not enough to catch the
criminals. It has not been possible to solve
problems by incarceration. Therefore, it is
necessary to get involved with kids when they are
young.

He described how the PACT program (Pulling
America's Communities Together) solicits ideas
from the entire community to design what needs to
take place. Citizens want safe streets, stronger
communities and families, and stronger statements
about values.

Kelly Zimmerman said the Boys and Girls Clubs have
activities that target a wide range of interests.
The clubs try to give kids a constructive place to
go from age 6 to age 18. 

Jeffrey Miller described how, after some
hesitation, his school district installed new
lights and now hosts midnight basketball games
until 3:00 a.m. The program has worked well. The
graffiti has stopped, and the participants have
been very orderly. They know if things do not go
well, the lights will go off. They police
themselves. He said he was surprised at the
success of these games. Youth Crime Watch and
other programs that empower youth have also worked
well in Dade County. He recommends these highly.

Mr. Larson described the Commission to Prevent
Crime, Drugs, and Violence, a national campaign
funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The Commission includes many radio and television
companies as well as public sector members. He
said the group invites everyone to join in its
partnership.
Deputy Secretary Kunin asked panelists for their
final advice. Mr. Chavez said leaders need to help
people learn to care. He asked leaders to unite
around the issue of youth violence and to overcome
ethnic differences, because prejudice affects all
groups. 

Donna Healy said it is important to teach kids
tools for handling conflict--self-control,
cooperation, and problem-solving--from a very
early age. Otherwise, they cannot be expected to
make good decisions when they get older. 

Mr. Monaghan called for anti-violence education
for children as soon as they are born--even before
they are born, through teaching families how to
rear children. The environment must be supportive
all the way through the child's development. By
the time youths are 15 or 16, little can be done.

Ms. Zimmerman said that programs work best from
the inside out. The programs that are developed
and run by the residents of a housing project, for
example, work better than those imposed by
outsiders trying to correct problems.

Several members of the youth contingent stood up
to describe the youth programs in which they are
involved. One described a program called the Young
Adult Police Commissioners of New Haven,
Connecticut that promotes midnight basketball and
raises money for hospices. Another described
Serious Teens Acting Responsibly (STAR), a program
formed and directed by teenagers. They arrange
leadership training (ability to be assertive in
public), mentoring, and other training to help
with independent living. In one of their efforts,
teenagers bond with 3-year-olds to teach them a
range of life skills.

Another young man described the New York City
Youthline, operated for and by youths ages 16 to
24. The Youthline keeps computerized information
on services for youth and agencies that help
youth. Crisis assistance is also given. A young
woman then described the Jackie Robinson Center,
an after-school program that operates out of the
public schools in central Brooklyn. The Center
sponsors African dance, a marching band, karate,
tutoring, and other special interest programs.
Leadership is greatly encouraged, and young people
run parts of the program independently. The
speaker herself co-directs the marching band. A
youth from Birmingham, Alabama, spoke about
"Project A-Team." Youths from all over that city
formed a council to advise city government and
provide forums for youth, jobs for the city, and
the like.

A caller from station KQED in San Francisco noted
the importance of including self-esteem training
in youth programs. Mr. Miller said his school
district had benefited from the new Safe Schools
Bill in Florida, which opens schools for after-
school activities for children 10 years of age and
up. They found they needed to present prevention
activities to younger and younger children. An
audience member who was a physician for disabled
children asked that the disabled not be forgotten
in the design of new job programs and
opportunities for youth.

Deputy Secretary Kunin concluded the town hall
meeting by saying, "Working together as partners,
we can make our cities and schools safer for our
children and give them hope."

Plenary Address: Report on Comprehensive Community
Planning Sessions
Wednesday, August 16, 1994

John A. Calhoun, Executive Director, National
Crime Prevention Council, Washington, D.C.

Mr. Calhoun thanked facilitators and agency staff
for the many hours they spent assisting the
community planning groups. He also thanked the
community representatives for their enthusiasm and
dedication. The efforts of these hard working
groups produced a rich array of ideas. A completed
report on workshop ideas and suggestions will be
forwarded to all conference attendees.

Mr. Calhoun noted that during the two and one-half
day conference, each city developed its own youth
violence reduction program. He highlighted some of
their suggestions.

First, the groups suggested that the federal
government reduce some of the strings attached to
projects and give communities more flexibility.
They also want more programs that are run by
youths. Parenting issues such as family support
and leave policies were also noted as areas of
interest.

In the area of resources, Mr. Calhoun said the
groups recommended the possibility of using the
armed services. Special taxes in the form of a tax
form checkoff were advocated as another way to
fund violence prevention programs.

Mr. Calhoun pointed out that planners had
developed a comprehensive list of who should be
involved in the planning process. The work groups
recommended that communities look at the positive
aspects of their own neighborhoods and try to
determine why certain schools and neighborhoods
have less crime, more cohesion, and more caring.

On the second day of the conference, group
participants began to realize that 
many other communities across the country shared
their concerns and have had similar problems.

Methods of involving the community were extensive.
Of particular interest were the suggestions to (1)
involve the media as a partner, (2) get youth to
participate, and (3) have fun and food.

Planning groups wanted to meet with respective
mayors, develop methods for sharing information,
and create long-range plans.

Mr. Calhoun commented that the community planning
groups went beyond the symptoms and problems. They
focused on developing a comprehensive violence
reduction plan involving the entire community.
Community building was seen as a real part of the
solution.

These groups and the communities they represent
are looking for Federal leadership as they think
of ways to develop their communities after
reducing crime and violence. Mr. Calhoun concluded
that participants learned many things during this
conference and would bring home new hope.

Plenary Panel: Youth Reporting from Caucus
Meetings

Moderator: Lori Stokes, News Anchor, WJLA News,
Washington, D.C.

Panelists: Madeleine Kunin, Deputy Secretary, U.S.
Department of Education, Washington, D.C.

Peter Edelman, Counselor to the Secretary, U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services,
Washington, D.C.

Shay Bilchik, Administrator, Office of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S.
Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

The session began with a question: Was the
conference designed to focus on the pending Crime
Bill or on violence in the streets? Young people
at the conference wanted programs to keep youth
from going to jail.

Deputy Secretary Madeleine Kunin remarked that
conference planning began long before the Crime
Bill came up for consideration. Although there is
money in the Crime Bill for some of the programs,
it is only one tool for change, not the purpose of
this conference.

A student from Fresno, California, said he felt
adults were not listening. Although 44 percent of
the youths supervised by the California Youth
Authority are Chicano, Chicanos are not
represented at the conference. Violence cannot be
equated with race. A group of the youth attendees
stayed up until 5:00 a.m. talking about what the
youth here should be doing. They felt they should
be running the conference themselves.

The Vice President had been asked for a meeting to
discuss forming a National Youth Council. Many
youths felt frustrated and angry because their
voices were not being heard. The conference needed
to focus on successful models that are working in
communities. The youth felt they had not had a
chance to contribute to this.

Lori Stokes asked the youths as a group whether
they lived with fear on a daily basis. One student
answered yes, but he did not come to the
conference to focus on that. Several others
agreed.

Ms. Stokes then asked what a National Youth
Council could do and how it should be organized.

A youth representative from Little Rock, Arkansas,
said all programs at the national level should
have a youth focus in order to represent youth
interests and needs. He said yesterday's
teleconference made "pretty pictures for TV"; but
if the adults want to use the youth, they need to
give the youth a voice. Adults need to realize
that youth do have viable solutions. Kids on the
street have empowered gangs, but they can just as
well empower themselves now for positive change.

Deputy Secretary Kunin said the youth caucus was
given one and one-half hours this morning in a
spirit of partnership. The President has expressed
his support for the concept of a National Youth
Council.

The youth members then presented the 15 points
upon which the youth caucus agreed:
  
Youth Caucus Recommendations

1. Create a National Multicultural Youth Forum,
with youth task forces within Federal agencies to
advise government and give youth a voice.
2. Create a national YouthLine to inform young
people about youth-serving organizations in their
communities.
3. Create safeguards for local funding.
4. Develop youth and adult mentoring.
5. Provide meaningful internships for juvenile
offenders in community-based organizations.
6. Support meaningful jobs and job-training
programs.
7. Establish youth courts where young people can
be judged by a jury of their peers.
8. Create a national conference for youth,
addressing the issues which affect the lives of
young people.
9. Establish leadership summits at the community
level.
10. Ensure that government considers diversity
issues (region, ethnicity, sexual orientation)
when making decisions on youth violence.
11. Ensure more careful monitoring of children's
protective services.
12. Link services with advocacy.
13. Ensure that recreational programs 
have specific models.
14. Create a national media and entertainment body
that will make press releases or at least direct
organizations toward promoting positive press
information.
15. Enlist the aid of higher institutions of
learning on a more frequent basis.

One of seven members of a youth court in Brooklyn
spoke to the audience. The kids in that court
decide appropriate punishments for their peers.

Shay Bilchik commented that a youth court can be a
viable effort if training is provided. It can be
helpful to the juvenile court. He then asked for
more information about mentoring.

A young man from the Dallas area said he was part
of a mentoring project. He commented that the
youths who are shooting others have no morals, no
love for anybody, no belief in God. He said he
wanted to see religion back in the home and
school. If teenage fathers knew about God, they
would not leave their children, he said.

Another youth said he operates a karate school and
is often asked to be a mentor. Many programs use
doctors, lawyers, and other professionals, but
youth may need people to whom they can more easily
relate. Ms. Stokes noted that doctors and other
professionals could have been in the same
difficult situations when they were children.

One young man expressed anger about such questions
as, "Are you going to make it? Aren't you afraid
you're going to be killed?" People have to think
positively, he said. Ms. Stokes asked what
reporters should do instead of focusing on the
negative. He responded that they should do stories
on people who are not afraid.

Another youth pointed out that there was less
coverage and consideration of events like
political bombings than of street crime, yet that
was violence, too.

A young woman from Atlanta said there was very
little coverage of youth-serving organizations,
and when they were covered, the focus was usually
on how much money was needed to keep them open.

A youth from Miami said there should be more
television programs and newspapers that are "by
kids, for kids." Another youth pointed out that
television coverage of violent incidents is not
always truthful. Kids would like to hear the truth
from other kids. Some youth have no morals and see
jail as simply a chance to watch cable TV, lift
weights, and eat regularly. It costs $35,000 a
year to keep someone in prison. That money could
go for better programs. Otherwise, younger kids
will follow their violent or law-breaking brothers
and sisters.

If the youth here put their energy and
intelligence into a National Youth Council, he
said, they could make a difference. Each kid knows
of at least five programs that work in the
community. Money should be put into those
programs. School teacher involvement is also
needed. Many teachers today do not care or inforce
discipline. A young man from Birmingham emphasized
that morals and values should be taught. One part
of the country is not more important than any
other, he added.

A young woman pointed out that youth also need
opportunities to talk. Mr. Rodriquez from New
Haven commented that there were far fewer camera
operators here to cover the youth session than
were present for the Vice President, First Lady,
and other officials.

An adult in the audience commented that
politicians do not accept that the youth are the
future of the country. Politicians think, "If you
don't vote or pay taxes, you don't count." The
conference room in this Wednesday session was
empty, compared to the day before. A youth asked,
"Is our message not important?"

A suggestion was made that everyone write their
congressional representatives and say they want a
National Youth Council. As a group, the youth
could make a change.

A student from New Mexico, referring to the Crime
Bill, asked why the President did not worry more
about the hungry people in front of the White
House or about gang-governed neighborhoods, rather
than fighting other countries' battles. He said
all the Crime Bill money should be put into
prevention. The United States, he remarked, is not
really a free country.

Other youths remarked that more schools, not more
prisons, should be built. There used to be two
parents in the home to instill moral values, and
there used to be discipline in the schools. Now,
kids have no respect.

Deputy Secretary Kunin told the youth caucus
members their enthusiasm was good, but they needed
to know the facts. One-third of the Crime Bill
money is for prevention. The President, the First
Lady, and the others here do care. Good schools
may be the best crime prevention. She asked what
role higher education should play in violence
prevention.

A youth caucus member wanted, instead, to
elaborate on certain facts. If it costs $40,000 a
year to keep someone in prison, why could the
Crime Bill money not be put into prevention?

Mr. Bilchik said a balance with law enforcement
was needed. His office hears from youth who cannot
get to good programs like safe havens because the
streets are not safe. People also want police who
are more involved with the community.

A young woman from Kansas City complained, "We
don't want the police we have now." She said the
police were slow to respond, and she did not
believe more police were needed. Instead, there
should be a forum where adults talk to kids one-
on-one, without television cameras.

Another youth wondered what people thought more
prisons were going to accomplish? He himself had
been incarcerated and claimed prisons do not
rehabilitate people.

Peter Edelman noted that violence problems will
not be ended through any one measure. Many
solutions are included in the youth caucus's 15
points. These deal with strong families,
neighborhoods, schools, jobs, and safety on the
streets. With regard to the timing of the
conference, he noted that the planners did not
expect Congress to still be in session in August.
But the Crime Bill is also important, because it
is a means to get help to local jurisdictions. 

There is always resistance to change. The country
has been developing these problems a long time,
and a long struggle will be needed to resolve
them. The Crime Bill is not just about more
police; it is also about a different role for
police. Although prisons are necessary, simply
building prisons will not be enough.
A youth representative from Santa Cruz,
California, said she did not agree with the "three
strikes" provision, because many people make
mistakes when they are young. She also said
community leaders are already controlling the
community. The people do not need more police
there; they cannot relate to the police who are
already there. She also said there has been little
recognition of community activism at the
conference. Instead, the focus has been on gang
fights. 

Additionally, there should be more Mexicans
teaching Spanish and more opportunities to
increase awareness of African-American cultures.

A student from the University of Ohio addressed
the earlier question about higher education. He
said there are a lot of drugs on campus, but not
much violence. He noted that he was attending on a
scholarship. Youths who live in slums may never
see what colleges are like. Scholars, not just
athletes, need to go back and communicate with
their communities.

In the San Joaquin valley, the community could not
get a community college, but they were given six
prisons. Seventy-eight percent of those
incarcerated in California are people of color.
School curricula are structured around Anglo-
American perspectives. Insufficient consideration
is given to the Aztec nation and other cultures.
The Chicano movement of the 1960's was similar to
the African-American civil rights movement of that
period. Both cultures have tribal elements in
their history.

An adult from the audience emphasized that there
should be a commitment from each department
sponsoring the conference to have a National Youth
Council. One youth reminded everyone to write
congressional representatives.

A young woman described mock elections held at
school and said youths should be able to vote and
have their votes count. Another audience member
offered Little Rock, Arkansas, as the site for the
First National Youth Summit.

Mr. Bilchik said his department would be in touch
with participants after the conference. Adults
need to make a commitment to show love for
children.

Deputy Secretary Kunin said there had not been
enough publicity about the prevention components
of the Crime Bill. The Bill contains $7 billion
for comprehensive prevention programs. Responding
to a question about why there was so much
disagreement on the crime legislation, Mr. Edelman
said 225 people voted against the Crime Bill
because they thought it was "too soft." It banned
assault weapons and tried to do too much with
regard to prevention. He added that the $7 billion
prevention allocation does not restrict local
jurisdictions from using it as they wish. For
example, many programs are now focusing on
prenatal care.

Dr. Dennis Embry, who was in the audience, asked
the youth caucus how many of them thought it was
possible to predict who in elementary school will
be in trouble later. He said many studies show
that this can be predicted by the fifth grade. He
also noted there were many small actions people
could take to help turn this around. For example,
teachers could send home "praise notes." He also
encouraged the youth to volunteer as youth
reporters for television stations back home.

Ms. Stokes noted that the youth caucus would soon
be meeting again, and she encouraged adults to
talk to them afterward. 

Another young woman objected to identifying
troubled youth by the fifth grade. This, she said,
was the basis for tracking systems and negative
labeling. She also said she was angry about the
lack of training and rehabilitation in prisons. In
contrast to the present conference, she added,
Attorney General Reno, at a hearing for the Crime
Bill, let the youths speak first. The Attorney
General knew if she spoke first, all of the
reporters would leave afterward. She complained
that the youths were not given time to show their
transparencies and do other things they had hoped
to do. The youth caucus now would need to meet
again, with no adults present. 

Another youth thanked conference planners for
bringing the youth together and said, if he
sounded hostile, it was just that he felt
emotional about the issues.

Three months from now, the youth caucus members
want to meet in Little Rock, Arkansas. Three
months after that, plans had been made to work
with influential people in Washington, D.C. The
youth asked for names and numbers of people in
Washington, D.C., with whom the youth caucus group
could work.

An adult in the audience from Birmingham, Alabama,
said he wanted to help the youth caucus with media
issues. His approach in Birmingham was to look at
the television station with the lowest ratings and
promise 15,000 new viewers (youth) if they would
work with youth, report their views, and feature
stories of interest to them. The same approach was
taken with newspapers. Now the larger stations and
newspapers also want these stories. He said to
consider what happened with the National Football
League. "Fox came in and made a better deal. You
have to do the same."

Another adult in the audience proposed
establishing an "Interim National Commission to
Prevent Crime, Drugs, and Violence," half of which
would be youth leaders and half adult
practitioners. He noted that adults and the youth
caucus have not yet had a chance to share
information. When youths appear confrontational,
others tune them out. Adults and youths should not
be fragmented. He invited caucus members to talk
about framing such a commission after their
meeting.

Deputy Secretary Kunin remarked that no one--
neither federal agency people, nor practitioners,
nor youth--can accomplish much alone. She said she
hoped all participants would leave stronger than
when they came.

Plenary Panel: Addressing Concentrated Poverty and
Crime

Moderator: George Golster, Senior Research
Associate, The Urban Institute, Washington, D.C.

Panelists: David Rusk, former Mayor of
Albuquerque, New Mexico, author of Cities Without
Suburbs, Washington, D.C.

Alexander Polikoff, Executive Director, Business
and Professional People for the Public Interest
(BPI), Chicago, Illinois

Vincent Lane, Chairman, Chicago Public Housing
Authority, Chicago, Illinois

The panel focused on two points: first, what can
be done to address concentrated poverty and the
youth violence it spawns, and second, what
resources can be marshaled in this effort.

David Rusk shared some of the principal findings
of his research. Forty percent of America's center
cities are programmed to collapse, he said. For 40
years, all urban growth has been of the low-
density, suburban style. The elastic cities, which
enlarged their boundaries through annexation or
city-county mergers, have done well. The inelastic
cities, however, have become the poorhouses of
their metropolitan areas. The solution requires
bringing cities' boundaries out to encompass the
real cities, that is, the metropolitan areas.

Mr. Rusk blames the urban problem on society's
desire to segregate itself by race and economic
class. Since the civil rights era, there has been
some integration of the black and white middle
classes, but there has also been increasing
isolation of the black poor, who are now separated
from black middle-class role models.

Job training and other similar programs are as
ineffective as assistance to a man running up a
down escalator, Mr. Rusk said. Such a person might
manage to get up, though many others will not. The
one who does, however, will jump off and leave.
Therefore, successful programs often drive
successful people--good role models--out of the
community.

Mr. Rusk told of an Albuquerque study showing that
the test scores of a child in public housing rise
as the percentage of public-housing children in
his school declines. He cited that figure as proof
that integration works.

Alexander Polikoff suggested small schools as an
answer to the problem of urban poverty and
violence. Obviously, he said, school violence is a
major problem. Teachers are threatened and scared.
During the first eight months of the 1993 school
year in Chicago, for example, there were, on
school property, three arrests for murder and 144
arrests for aggravated battery out of a total of
6,000 arrests on school property.

He calls the concept of small schools a simple but
profound idea. Big, anonymous schools cannot be
made to work, he said. It is impossible for such
schools to avoid large-institution rules, formal
procedures, and logistical hurdles. Children
cannot get to know other students, and teachers
cannot know all the children or parents. Mr.
Polikoff suggests breaking high schools with 1,000
students into, for example, four schools of 250
students each.

In east Harlem, a 1,000-student school was divided
into several smaller schools sharing the same
building. The result was an improvement in student
performance. Other reports show that smaller
schools have less violence because kids are better
known to staff and well supervised by the
teachers.

Mr. Polikoff said his proposal is not easy to
implement, but it is possible and effective. Small
schools also provide a safe haven for students.

Vincent Lane said that if the problem of urban
poverty and violence is to be solved, things must
be done differently. He accused officials of the
U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
of scaring local public housing authorities away
from trying anything new, such as letting
residents manage their own projects. Poverty, he
said, is a major industry in the United States.

The Chicago Public Housing Authority, of which he
is chairman, has 4,500 employees. He would like to
reduce that number to 200. Mr. Lane said he could,
if neighborhoods would replace high-density, high-
rise public housing buildings with low-density,
low-rise, mixed-income properties. Most
communities reject public housing not because of
racism or elitism but because they fear the effect
it will have on their largest asset, their homes.

Mr. Lane called on neighborhoods to step up to the
plate and say, "This problem won't go away unless
we do something about it." He said he wants to get
government off the backs of the people. Forty or
fifty years ago, he said, neighborhoods took care
of the unfortunate--through churches, Boy Scouts,
Girl Scouts, and other institutions. He said
society must reintegrate the poor into middle-
class neighborhoods.

Dr. George Golster then asked the panelists a few
questions. First he asked whether society should
build more prisons. Mr. Rusk answered that
criminals get out of prison eventually and tend to
recidivate. It is more cost-effective to spend the
money on public housing. Mr. Lane made a plea for
more prevention instead of more prisons. He
expressed approval for the Midnight Basketball
program, saying that no fights take place at the
games, and that to participate, players must
obtain their GED's and get job training and
counseling.
Mr. Polikoff observed that in the 1930's, when
society was coming apart because there were no
jobs, the government started the Civilian
Conservation Corps to give people jobs. The
government should do the same type of thing now,
he said. He suggested putting the army, which ran
the CCC camps, in charge of any new program along
those lines.

Dr. Golster asked the panel how people in more
prosperous neighborhoods could be convinced to
accept being part of the solution. Mr. Rusk said
it is not necessary to convince them. It is only
necessary to convince a majority of legislators or
a panel of judges to change the rules. On a
referendum, residents of prosperous neighborhoods
would never vote to move large numbers of poor
people into their neighborhoods. Mr. Lane accused
elected officials of lacking backbone. He said
that if they voted for something like moving poor
people into prosperous neighborhoods, they would
have to answer to their constituents.Closing
Speaker

Carl Upchurch, President, National Council for
Urban Peace and Justice, Newark, Ohio

On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the March on
Washington, Mr. Upchurch wrote a newspaper column
about the "do-nothing civil rights organizations
of today." The anniversary was "all show," he
said, buttons and banners. Young Hispanic and
African-American voices were left unacknowledged
on a day Dr. Martin Luther King had set aside for
addressing their concerns.

Mr. Upchurch asked, "How did our youth become
tokens?" In his view, there had been no real
effort to mentor and pass the torch to this
generation. Mr. Upchurch said he was attacking the
bureaucratic mindset--bureaucrats concerned only
about sustaining themselves. He was calling into
question the dedication of such officials to the
young.

The years of celebrating old battles rather than
confronting present issues should have come to an
end. "We are killing our youth," he stated. There
are no provisions in the Crime Bill concerning
racial discrimination, Mr. Upchurch continued.
"Witness the slaughter of African-American and
Latino men in prisons and AIDS in prison. We have
not invited those people to the conference," he
said, "because we are not prepared to address
their issues."

"Let the young people speak," he said. "Encourage
them to lead." They are struggling with inferior
housing and schools, racism, and shootings.

Mr. Upchurch noted that he had no high school or
junior high school experience and had been
"recycled" by the Bureau for Colored Children. He
spent the years from 1971 through 1981 in the
maximum security prison at Lewisburg, Ohio. He had
been born into a pathological situation, he said,
and had been labeled as a sociopath. "Just as
Cesar Chavez' voice was stifled," he said, "the
conference planners relegated the last smidgeon of
time to me." He repeated, "Let these young people
speak."

A conference for the young people, he stated,
should not be politicized. "Let us pray," he said,
"that we find it in our hearts to do right by them
in the future."
                                             
Appendix A
Solving Youth Violence:
Partnerships That Work
Washington, DC
Speakers

Mustafa Abdul-Salaam
Executive Director
New Haven Family Alliance
5 Science Park
New Haven, CT 06511
203-786-5970 
203-786-5974 Fax

Luis Garden Acosta
Chief Executive Officer
El Puente
211 South Fourth Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211
718-387-0404 
718-387-6816 Fax

John Alluisi
Data Base Manager
Management Information Systems
Norfolk Public Schools
Norfolk, VA 24510
804-441-2458 
804-441-2182 Fax

Michael Aquino
Investigator
Anaheim Police Department
425 South Harbor Blvd.
Anaheim, CA 92805
714-254-1412 
714-778-5784 Fax

Rebecca Atnafou
Assistant Director
CSN-Adolescent Violence Prevention
 Resources Center
Education Development Center
55 Chapel Street
Newton, MA 02158
617-969-7100 
617-244-3436 Fax

Yitzhak Bakal
Executive Director
North American Family Institute
10 Harbor Street
Danvers, MA 01923
508-774-0774 
508-774-8369 Fax

Patricia Balasco-Barr
Administrator
Youth Services Administration
801 East Building, Room 1209
P.O. Box 54047
Washington, DC 20032
202-279-6100 
202-279-6106 Fax

Jamie Battaglia
Administrative Assistant
Healthy Boston Coalition for Gay,
 Lesbian, Bisexual, and
 Transgender Youth
14 Beacon Street, Suite 706
Boston, MA 02108
617-742-8555 
617-742-7808 Fax

Gordon Bazemore
Associate Professor
School of Public Administration
Florida Atlantic University
220 SE Second Avenue
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301
305-760-5663 
305-760-5673 Fax

Len Berman
Program Office
Public Welfare Foundation
Washington, DC 
202-965-1800 

Mardia Blyther
Peer Counselor
Sasha Bruce Youthwork
741 Eighth Street SE.
Washington, DC 20003
202-675-9340 
202-675-9358 Fax

Tyrone Brown
Assistant to Director of the
 Marching Band
Jackie Robinson Center for
 Physical Culture
1424 Fulton Street
Brooklyn, NY 11216
718-773-3456 
718-773-3489 Fax

Alicia Byrd
Project Director
Leadership Development and
 Theological Education Programs
Congress of National Black Churches
1225 Eye Street NW., Suite 750
Washington, DC 20005
202-371-1091 
202-371-0908 Fax

Michele Cahill
Vice President
Fund for the City of New York
121 Sixth Avenue, Sixth Floor
New York, NY 10013
212-925-6675 
212-925-5675 Fax

John Calhoun
Executive Director
National Crime Prevention Council
1700 K Street NW.
Washington, DC 20006
202-466-6272 
202-296-1356 Fax

Michael Canul
Vice President/Operations
Public Allies
1511 K Street NW., Room 330
Washington, DC 20005
202-638-3300 
202-638-3477 Fax

Sheryll Cashin
Director
National Economic Council
The White House
Room 233, OEOB
Washington, DC 20500
202-456-2800 
202-456-2223 Fax

Ruben Chavez
Deputy Director
Outreach Services
Youth Development, Inc.
1710 Centro Familiar SW.
Albuquerque, NM 87105
505-873-1604 
505-877-3533 Fax

Bebs Chorak
Deputy Director
Juvenile Justice Programs
National Institute for Citizen
 Education and the Law
711 G Street SE.
Washington, DC 20003
202-546-6644 
202-546-6649 Fax

Lori Clarke
Director
Home-Based Services
Home Start
5005 Texas Street, Suite 203
San Diego, CA 92108
619-692-0727 
619-692-0785 Fax

Ozelious Clement
Executive Director
Jackie Robinson Center For
 Physical Culture
1424 Fulton Street
Brooklyn, NY 11216
718-773-3456 
718-773-3489 Fax

Marvin Cohen
Director
Children, Youth, and Families Initiative
Chicago Community Trust
222 North LaSalle Street, Suite 1400
Chicago, IL 60601
312-372-3356
312-580-7411 Fax

Rick Collins
Deputy Director
Delta Service Corps
7th and Main Streets
P.O. Box 1437, Slot 1300
Little Rock, AR 72203
501-682-7540 
501-682-6752 Fax

Thomas Connelly
Director
Special Counseling Programs
Wappingers Central School District
15 Myers Corners Road
Hollowbrook, #3
Wappingers Falls, NY 12590
914-297-7260 
914-298-8068 Fax

Gary Cordner
Professor
Department of Police Studies
Eastern Kentucky University
Richmond, KY 40475
606-622-2344 
606-622-6264 Fax

Ernesto Cortes, Jr.
Director
Texas Industrial Areas Foundation
1106 Clayton Lane, Suite 120W
Austin, TX 78723
512-459-6551 
512-459-6558 Fax

David Cummings
Group Supervisor
Uptown Task Force
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
 Firearms
U.S. Department of the Treasury
90 Church Street, Room 1016
New York, NY 10007
212-264-4658 
212-264-3689 Fax

Karen Dates
Network Operations Specialist
Youth Providers Network
Mayor's Office of Employment
 Services
Youth Services Division
101 W. 24th Street
Baltimore, MD 21218
410-396-6722 
410-396-6454 Fax

Beverly Watts Davis
Executive Director
San Antonio Fighting Back
850 Drexel
San Antonio, TX 78210
210-536-6592 
210-532-1256 Fax

William Delk
Principal
Northside Middle School
8720 Grandby Street
Norfolk, VA 23503
804-441-1825 
804-441-1794 Fax

Larry Dieringer
Executive Director
Educators for Social Responsibility
23 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
617-492-1764 
617-864-5164 Fax

Diane Doherty
Director
Children.s Safety Network
National Center for Education in Maternal
 and Child Health
2000 15th Street N., Suite 701
Arlington, VA 22201
703-524-7802
703-524-9335 Fax

Terrence Donahue
Acting Director
Executive Office for Weed and Seed
Office of Justice Programs
U.S. Department of Justice
633 Indiana Avenue
Washington, DC 20531
202-307-5966 
202-514-1770 Fax

Fran Donelan
Project Director of Youth Outreach
American Friends Service Committee
Mid-Atlantic Region
4806 York Road
Baltimore, MD 21212
410-323-7200 
410-323-7292 Fax

Shawn Dove
Co-Director
Countee Cullen Community Center
242 W. 144th Street
New York, NY 10030
212-234-4500 
212-234-4694 Fax

Deanne Tilton Durfee
Chair
United States Advisory Board on
 Child Abuse and Neglect
4024 Durfee Avenue
El Monte, CA 91732
818-575-4362 
818-443-3053 Fax

Peter Edelman
Counselor to the Secretary
U.S. Department of Health and
 Human Services
200 Independence Avenue SW.
Washington, DC 20531
202-690-8157
202-690-7595 Fax

Michelle Edwards
Vice President
Board of Young Adult Police
 Commissioners
Department of Police Services
 New Haven Police Department
One Union Avenue
New Haven, CT 06519
203-772-7294 Fax

Dennis Embry
President
Heartsprings, Inc.
P.O. Box 12158
Tucson, AZ 85732
602-299-6770 
602-299-6822 Fax

Jeffrey Fetzko
Executive Director
Somerset Home for Temporarily
 Displaced Children
49 Brahma Avenue
P.O. Box 6871
Bridgewater, NJ 08807
908-526-6605 
908-526-4433 Fax

Judith Filner
Program Director
National Institute for Dispute
 Resolution
1726 M Street NW., Suite 500
Washington, DC 20036
202-466-4764 
202-466-4769 Fax

John Firman
Director of Research
International Association of Chiefs of Police
515 N. Washington Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
703-836-6767
703-836-4543 Fax

Vangie Foshee
Assistant Professor
Curricula Public Health Nursing
University of North Carolina at
 Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC 27599
919-966-6616 
919-966-7141 Fax

Leon Franklin
Youth Development Specialist
Project Choice
Kauffman Foundation
4900 Oak
Kansas City, MO 64112
816-932-1000 
816-932-1100 Fax

Marc Freedman
Director
Special Projects
Public/Private Ventures
2742 Martin Luther King Way
Berkeley, CA 94703
510-704-8832 
510-704-9822 Fax

Gus Frias
Criminal Justice Specialist
Office of Education
Los Angeles County
9300 Imperial Highway, Room 281
Downey, CA 90242
310-922-6391
310-922-6781 Fax

Rich Gable
Director
Applied Research
National Center for
 Juvenile Justice
701 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15212
412-227-6950 
412-227-6955 Fax

Deborah Galvin
Public Health Analyst
Division of Demonstrations for
 High-Risk Populations
Center for Substance Abuse
 Prevention
5600 Fisher's Lane
Rockwell 2
Rockville, MD 20857
301-443-9110 
301-443-8965 Fax

Anne Ganey
Project Coordinator
Community Drug Prevention Project
Region Nine Development Commission
P.O. Box 3367
Mankato, MN 56001
507-387-5643 
507-387-7105 Fax

Nancy Gannon
Director
Education Division
Center to Prevent Handgun Violence
1225 Eye Street NW., Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20005
202-289-5769 
202-408-1851 Fax

Richard Girgenti
Director/Commissioner
Division of Criminal Justice
 Services
State of New York
Executive Park Tower, Stuyvesant Plaza
Albany, NY 12203
518-457-8462 
518-457-1186 Fax

Paul Goldstein
Associate Professor
School of Public Health
University of Illinois at Chicago
2121 W. Taylor Street
Chicago, IL 60612
312-996-6083 
312-996-0064 Fax

Albert Gore
Vice President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.
Washington, DC 20500
202-456-2326 

William Gorham
President
Urban Institute
2100 M Street NW.
Washington, DC 20037
202-857-8700 
202-223-1335 Fax

Ralph Green
Youth
P.O. Box 1702
Corrales, NM 87048
505-242-1907 
505-242-3003 Fax

Eliza Greenberg
Counselor
Adolescent Substance Abuse
Bridge Over Troubled Water, Inc.
47 West Street
Boston, MA 02111
617-423-9575 
617-482-5459 Fax

Donna Martin Hamparian
Juvenile Justice Consultant
2031 Concord Road
Columbus, OH 43212
614-488-6284 
614-487-1963 Fax

Ira Harkavy
Director
Center for Community Partnerships
University of Pennsylvania
133 South 36th Street, Suite 519
Philadelphia, PA 19104
215-898-5351 
215-573-2799 Fax

Michelle Hassell
Coordinator of PACT Training
Wright State University
9 N. Edwin C. Moses
Dayton, OH 45407
513-873-4300 
513-873-4323 Fax

J. David Hawkins
Director
Developmental Research and
 Programs, Inc.
130 Nickerson, Suite 107
Seattle, WA 98107
206-685-1997 

Phillip Hobbs
Principal
Eastmoor High School
417 S. Weyant Avenue
Columbus, OH 43213
614-365-6158 
614-365-6960 Fax

Carolyn Holloway
Reverend
Multi-Ethnic Center
3 Henry Street
New York, NY 10038
212-233-0423 
212-406-8071 Fax

Marion Howard
Director
Center for Adolescent Reproductive
 Health
Emory University
Grady Memorial Hospital
4001 Briarcliff Road
Atlanta, GA 30345
404-616-3513 
404-223-3071 Fax

James Howell
Director
Research and Program Development
Office of Juvenile Justice and
 Delinquency Prevention
U.S. Department of Justice
633 Indiana Avenue
Washington, DC 20531
202-307-0586 
202-514-6382 Fax

Janice Hutchinson
Acting Administrator
Child and Youth Services
 Administration
Commission on Mental Health
 Services
2700 Martin Luther King Avenue, SE
L Building
Washington, DC 20032
202-373-7225 
202-373-6581 Fax

Merita Irby
Program Officer
Academy for Educational
 Development
1825 Connecticut Avenue
Washington, DC 20009
202-884-8273 
202-884-8404 Fax

Robert Ivry
Senior Vice President
Manpower Demonstration
 Research Corp.
3 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10016
212-532-3200 
212-684-0832 Fax

Elizabeth Johnson
Director
Department of Recreation, Natural
 Resources and Culture
City Hall
319 E. State Street
1st Floor Annex
Trenton, NJ 08608
609-989-3169 
609-989-4290 Fax

Michael Johnson
Project Coordinator
Raising Ambition Instills
 Self Esteem
605 North Eutaw Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
410-558-0785 
410-752-5016 Fax

Derek Jones
Listener
Department of Youth Services
New York City Youthline
44 Court Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
718-403-5269 
718-522-7529 Fax

Ivan Juzang
Founder and President
Motivational Educational
 Entertainment Productions
4601 Market Street
1st Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19139
215-748-2595 
215-748-3223 Fax

Arthur Kanegis
President
Future WAVE
105 Camino Teresa
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505-982-8882 
505-982-6460 Fax

Arthur Kellermann
Director
Center for Injury Control
Emory University School
 of Public Health
1462 Clifton Road NE.
Atlanta, GA 30322
404-727-9977 
404-727-7261 Fax

Susan Kelly
Director
Division of Family
 Preservation Services
Michigan Department of
 Social Services
235 S. Grand Avenue
Lansing, MI 48909
517-373-3465 
517-373-2799 Fax

Douglas Kirby
Director of Research
ETR Associates
P.O. Box 1830
Santa Cruz, CA 95061
408-438-4081 
408-438-4284 Fax

Julian Klugman
Western Regional Director
Community Relations Service
U.S. Department of Justice
211 Main Street, Suite 1040
San Francisco, CA 94105
415-744-6565 
415-744-6590 Fax

Frances Kunreuther
Executive Director
Hetrick-Martin Institute
2 Astor Place
New York, NY 10003
212-674-2400 
212-674-8650 Fax

Vincent Lane
Chairman
Chicago Housing Authority
22 W. Madison, Suite 400 F
Chicago, IL 60602
312-791-8401 
312-791-4601 Fax
David Lee
Coordinator
Teen Program Education
Battered Women's Alternatives
P.O. Box 6406
Concord, CA 94524
415-821-8209 
415-282-2563 Fax

Liane Levetan
Chief Executive Officer
DeKalb County Government
1300 Commerce Drive
Decatur, GA 30030

James Lewis
Counselor Aide
Environmental Program
Raising Ambition Instills
 Self Esteem
605 North Eutaw Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
410-580-0785 
410-752-5016 Fax

Dennis Lieberman
Labor Economist
U.S. Department of Labor
200 Constitution Avenue NW.
Washington, DC 20210
202-219-5782 

Michael Lieberman
Washington Counsel
Anti-Defamation League
1100 Connecticut Avenue NW. 
Room 1020
Washington, DC 20036
202-452-8319 
202-296-2371 Fax

Debra Lindsey-Opel
Executive Assistant
Office of the Mayor
P.O. Box 9277
Corpus Christi, TX 78469
512-880-3102 
512-880-3103 Fax

Theresa Lipo
Manager
Resource Development
Chicago Housing Authority
22 West Madison
Chicago, IL 60602
312-791-8513 
312-372-0251 Fax

Willie Lipscomb
District Court Judge
36th District Court
421 Madison Avenue, Suite 3069
Detroit, MI 48226
313-965-8730 
313-965-3951 Fax

Robert Mallett
City Administrator
District of Columbia
441 Fourth Street NW., Suite 1120
Washington, DC 20001
202-727-6053 
202-727-5445 Fax

Ellen McCulloch-Lovell
Executive Director
President's Committee on the Arts
 and the Humanities
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. 
Suite 526
Washington, DC 20506
202-682-5409 
202-682-5668 Fax

David Medina
1993-1994 Public Ally
Public Allies
1511 K Street NW.
Room 330
Washington, DC 20005
202-638-3300 
202-638-3477 Fax

Anne Menard
Director
National Resource Center on
 Domestic Violence
6400 Flank Drive, Suite 1300
Harrisburg, PA 17112
717-545-6400 
717-545-9456 Fax

Jeffrey Miller
Principal
Campbell Drive Middle School
900 NE. 23rd Avenue
Homestead, FL 33033
305-248-7911 
305-248-3518 Fax

William Modzeleski
Staff Director
Drug Planning and Outreach
 Staff
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue SW.
Portals, Room 4011B
Washington, DC 20202
202-260-2945 
202-260-7617 Fax

Thomas Monaghan
United States Attorney
District of Nebraska
U.S. Department of Justice
Downtown Station
P.O. Box 1228
Omaha, NE 68101
402-221-4774 
402-221-4757 Fax

Richard Murphy
Former Commissioner
New York City Department
 of Youth Services
Fund for the City of New York
121 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10013
212-925-6675 
212-925-5675 Fax

David Nee
Executive Director
William Caspar Graustein
 Memorial Fund
84 Trumbull Street
New Haven, CT 06511
203-498-6036 
203-498-4035 Fax

Nancy Neylon
Executive Director
Ohio Domestic Violence Network
P.O. Box 5466
Cleveland, OH 44101
216-651-8484 
216-631-4848 Fax

Nexus Nichols
Director
Public Policy
The National Network of
 Runaway and Youth Services
1319 F Street NW., Suite 401
Washington, DC 20004
202-783-7949 
202-783-7955 Fax

Ronald Noble
Undersecretary for Enforcement
U.S. Department of the Treasury
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.
Washington, DC 20220
202-622-5040 
202-622-0240 Fax

Maria Elena Orrego
Consultant
Family Preservation and Support
 Services
Commission on Social Services
 of the District of Columbia
611 Buckingham Drive
Silver Spring, MD 20901
301-727-5971 Fax

Anne Parry
Director
Institute for Choosing Non-Violence
P.O. Box 29019
Chicago, IL 60629
312-521-5501
312-521-4866 Fax

Howard Phengsomphone
Project Director
City of Providence
591 Charles Street
Providence, RI 02904
401-943-4360 
401-946-3260 Fax

Marion Pines
Senior Fellow
Institute for Policy Studies
The Johns Hopkins University
3400 N. Charles Street
Wyman Building
Baltimore, MD 21218
410-516-7169 
410-516-8233 Fax

William Pithers
Director
Vermont Center for Prevention
 and Treatment of Sexual Abuse
92 S. Main Street
Waterbury, VT 05676
802-241-2561 
802-241-2564 Fax

Karen Johnson Pittman
Senior Vice President
Academy for Educational Development
Center for Youth Development and
 Policy Research
1875 Connecticut Avenue NW.
Washington, DC 20009
202-884-8000
202-884-8404 Fax

Alexander Polikoff
Executive Director
Business and Professional People
 for the Public Interest
17 E. Monroe Street, Suite 212
Chicago, IL 60603
312-641-5454 
312-641-5570 Fax

Deborah Prothrow-Stith
Assistant Dean
Office of Government and Community
 Programs
Harvard School of Public Health
677 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
617-432-0814 
617-432-0068 Fax

Charles Ramsey
Deputy Chief/Project Manager
Chicago Alternative Policing
 Strategy
Chicago Police Department
1121 S. State Street
Chicago, IL 60605
312-747-6673 
312-747-7903 Fax

LaWanda Ravoira
State Director
Pace Center for Girls, Inc.
100 Laura Street
10th Floor
Jacksonville, FL 32202
904-358-0555 
904-358-0660 Fax

David Reliford
Youthline Listener
New York City Youthline
Department of Youth Services
44 Court Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
718-403-5269 
718-522-7529 Fax

Pamela Riley
Director
North Carolina Center for the
 Prevention of School Violence
3824 Barrett Drive, Suite 303
Raleigh, NC 27609
919-571-4954 
919-571-4957 Fax

Benson Roberts
Vice President
Local Initiatives Support
 Corporation
1825 K Street NW.
Washington, DC 20006
202-296-4580 
202-805-8931 Fax

Connie Roberts
Director
New Beginnings
Department of Social Service
San Diego County
1255 Imperial Avenue
Room 843
San Diego, CA 92101
619-338-2945 
619-338-2876 Fax

Hillary Rodham Clinton
First Lady of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.
Washington, DC 20500
202-456-6266 

Augusto Rodriquez
President
Board of Young Adult Police
 Commissioners
Department of Police Services
New Haven Police Department
1 Union Avenue
New Haven, CT 06519
203-772-7294 Fax

David Rosenbloom
Project Director
Join Together
441 Steuart Street, 6th Floor
Boston, MA 02116
617-437-1500 
617-437-9394 Fax

David Rusk
Author/Consultant
Former Mayor of Albuquerque
4100 Cathedral Avenue NW., 610
Washington, DC 20016
202-364-2455 
202-364-6936 Fax

Shirley Sagawa
Executive Vice President
The Corporation for National and
 Community Service
1100 Vermont Avenue NW.
Washington, DC 20525
202-606-5000 
202-606-4906 Fax

Stefanie Sanford
Chief
Juvenile Crime Intervention
 Division
Office of the Attorney General
P.O. Box 12548
Austin, TX 78711
512-463-4024 
512-475-4421 Fax

Carla Sanger
Executive Director
LA's BEST
Office of the Mayor
200 N. Spring Street
Room M20
Los Angeles, CA 90012
213-237-0937 
213-485-1286 Fax

Lynn Hecht Schafran
Director
National Judicial Education Program
99 Hudson Street
Suite 1201
New York, NY 10013
212-925-6635 
212-226-1314 Fax

Cheryl Schwartz
Director
Youth Services
Gay, Lesbian, and Bi-Sexual
 Community Services Center
P.O. Drawer 18-E
Denver, CO 80218
303-831-6268 
303-839-1361 Fax

Carlos Scott
Youth Speaker
Urban Resources Initiatives
Raising Ambition Instills
 Self Esteem
605 North Eutaw Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
410-558-0785 
410-752-5016 Fax
Billy Sifuentes
Senior Officer
Austin Police Department
715 East Eighth Street
Austin, TX 78701
512-385-7710 
512-385-7736 Fax

Clifton Simmons
Urban Resources Initiative
Project RAISE
605 North Eutaw Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
410-558-0785

O.B. Stander
Chief Operating Officer
Associated Marine Institutes
5915 Benjamin Center Drive
Tampa, FL 33634
813-887-3300 
813-889-8092 Fax

Pat Stanislaski
Executive Director
National Center for Assault
 Prevention
606 Delsea Drive
Sewell, NJ 08080
800-258-3189 
908-369-8145 Fax

Ronald Stephens
Executive Director
National School Safety Center
4165 Thousand Oaks Boulevard, 
Suite 290
Westlake Village, CA 91362
805-373-9977 
805-373-9277 Fax

Marlies Sudermann
Director
London Family Court Clinic
254 Pall Mall Street, Suite 200
London, Ontario N6A 5P6, Canada
519-679-7250 
519-675-7772 Fax

Barbara Sugland
Research Associate
Child Trends, Inc.
4301 Connecticut Avenue NW.
Suite 100
Washington, DC 20008
202-362-5580 
202-362-5533 Fax

Layla Suleiman
Associate Director
Family Resource Coalition
200 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60604
312-341-0900 
312-341-9361 Fax

Ruby Takanishi
Executive Director
Carnegie Council on Adolescent
 Development
2400 N Street NW., 6th Floor
Washington, DC 20037
202-429-7979 
202-775-0134 Fax

Paul Teruel
Production Director
Street Level Video
2314 W. Schubert
Chicago, IL 60647
312-862-5331 
312-292-7372 Fax
Elizabeth Thoman
Executive Director
Center for Media Literacy
1962 S. Shenandoah Street
Los Angeles, CA 90034
310-559-2944 
310-559-9396 Fax

Cassandra Thomas
Director
Crisis Program
Houston Area Women's Center
3101 Richmond, Suite 150
Houston, TX 77098
713-528-6798 
713-535-6363 Fax

Jenna Thomas
President
Serious Teens Acting Responsibly
P.O. Box 1321
Hardeeville, SC 29927
803-784-6628 
803-222-1067 Fax

Ray Anthony Torres
Special Agent
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and
 Firearms
650 Massachusetts Avenue
Washington, DC 20001
202-682-4220 
202-682-4228 Fax

Margi Trapani
Director
Child Heath and
 Development Media Program
10 E. 23rd Street, Room 710
New York, NY 10010
212-388-9080 
212-979-2207 Fax

Carl Upchurch
President
National Council for Urban
 Peace and Justice
220 N. Tenth Street
Newark, OH 43055
614-354-7559 
614-587-3398 Fax

Ron Wakabayashi
Executive Director
Los Angeles County Commission
 on Human Relations
320 W. Temple
Suite 1184
Los Angeles, CA 90012
213-974-7601 
213-687-4251 Fax

Richard Weatherbee
Law Enforcement Coordinator
District of Colorado
U.S. Attorney's Office
1961 Stout
Suite 1100
Denver, CO 80294
303-844-2450 
303-844-6725 Fax

Joseph Wehby
Research Assistant Professor
Peabody College
Vanderbilt University
P.O. Box 512
Nashville, TN 37203
615-322-8289 
615-343-1570 Fax
Susan Wells
Director of Research
Center on Children and the Law
American Bar Association
740 E. Franklin Street
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
919-942-4189 
919-967-9243 Fax

Kelly Zimmerman
National Youth of the Year
322 Washington Blvd.
Orrville, OH 44667
216-648-1560 

Cathy Spatz Widom
Professor
Criminal Justice and Psychology
University of New York at Albany
135 Western Avenue
Albany, NY 12222
518-442-5226 
518-442-5603 Fax

William Wiist
Administration Manager
Houston Department of
 Health and Human Services
8000 N. Stadium Drive
Houston, TX 77054
713-794-9085 
713-798-0849 Fax

N. John Wilder
Deputy Mayor
Criminal Justice and Drug Czar
City of Philadelphia
1650 Arch Street
Suite 1720
Philadelphia, PA 19103
215-686-3939 
215-686-8693 Fax

John Wilson
Legal Counsel
Office of Juvenile Justice and
 Delinquency Prevention
U.S. Department of Justice
633 Indiana Avenue NW.
Washington, DC 20531
202-307-5911 
202-514-6382 Fax

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