Seeding 

Change How small 

projects 

can improve 

community 

health and 

safety

By Sarah Schweig

Center for Court Innovation
b Seeding Change ▪ How Small Projects Can Improve Community Health and Safety

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

145 N Street, N.E.

Washington, DC 20530

To obtain details on COPS Office programs, call the COPS Office 

Response Center at 800.421.6770.

Visit COPS Online at www.cops.usdoj.gov.

The opinions contained herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily 

represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 

References to specific agencies, companies, products, or services should not be 

considered an endorsement by the author(s) or the U.S. Department of Justice. 

Rather, the references are illustrations to supplement discussion of the issues. 

The Internet references cited in this publication were valid as of the date of 

this publication. Given that URLs and websites are in constant flux, neither the 

author(s) nor the COPS Office can vouch for their current validity. 

ISBN: 978-1-932582-76-5

e11121520

April 2013
 c

Contents

About the COPS Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

About the Center for Court Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

About The California Endowment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Participants in the Roundtable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Research On Public Health and Safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Social Network Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

The Cardiff Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

New Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

East Palo Alto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Milwaukee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Chicago . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Gaining Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Budget Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Documenting Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Funding Interests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
About the COPS Office 1

About the COPS Office

The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) is the 

component of the U.S. Department of Justice responsible for advancing the 

practice of community policing by the nation’s state, local, territory, and 

tribal law enforcement agencies through information and grant resources. 

Community policing is a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies that support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving 

techniques, to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to 

public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime. 

Rather than simply responding to crimes once they have been committed, 

community policing concentrates on preventing crime and eliminating the 

atmosphere of fear it creates. Earning the trust of the community and making those individuals stakeholders in their own safety enables law enforcement to better understand and address both the needs of the community 

and the factors that contribute to crime.

The COPS Office awards grants to state, local, territory, and tribal law 

enforcement agencies to hire and train community policing professionals, 

acquire and deploy cutting-edge crime fighting technologies, and develop 

and test innovative policing strategies. COPS Office funding also provides 

training and technical assistance to community members and local government leaders and all levels of law enforcement. The COPS Office has produced and compiled a broad range of information resources that can help 

law enforcement better address specific crime and operational issues, and 

help community leaders better understand how to work cooperatively with 

their law enforcement agency to reduce crime.

◾ Since 1994, the COPS Office has invested nearly $14 billion to add community policing officers to the nation’s streets, enhance crime fighting 

technology, support crime prevention initiatives, and provide training and 

technical assistance to help advance community policing. 

◾ By the end of FY2011, the COPS Office has funded approximately 

123,000 additional officers to more than 13,000 of the nation’s 18,000 law 

enforcement agencies across the country in small and large 

jurisdictions alike.

◾ Nearly 600,000 law enforcement personnel, community members, and 

government leaders have been trained through COPS Office-funded training organizations.

◾ As of 2011, the COPS Office has distributed more than 6.6 million 

topic-specific publications, training curricula, white papers, and 

resource CDs. 

COPS Office resources, covering a wide breadth of community policing topics—from school and campus safety to gang violence—are available, at no 

cost, through its online Resource Center at www.cops.usdoj.gov. This easyto-navigate website is also the grant application portal, providing access to 

online application forms. 
2 Seeding Change ▪ How Small Projects Can Improve Community Health and Safety

About the Center for Court Innovation

The Center for Court Innovation is a public-private partnership dedicated 

to reducing crime, aiding victims, and promoting public confidence in justice.

◾ Reducing Crime

Independent evaluators documented that prostitution arrests dropped 

by 56 percent after the Center’s Midtown Community Court opened in 

Manhattan. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has hailed the Midtown Community Court for helping to revive Times Square. In southwest Brooklyn, major crime has declined by nearly 50 percent since the 

opening of the Center’s Red Hook Community Justice Center.

◾ Repairing Disorder

Both the Midtown Community Court and Red Hook Community Justice 

Center sentence low-level offenders to repair conditions of disorder—

fixing broken windows, cleaning local parks, painting over graffiti. Each 

year, the two projects contribute 75,000 hours of community service—

more than $600,000 worth of labor. Compliance rates for community 

service are consistently 50 percent higher than the national average.

◾ Reducing Recidivism

Participants in the Brooklyn Treatment Court, which offers judiciallymonitored drug treatment instead of incarceration, re-offend at a rate 

that is 27 percent lower than offenders who go through conventional 

courts. Through training and technical assistance, the Center has 

helped spread the drug court model throughout New York State; over 

65,000 New Yorkers have participated in 178 drug courts, which are 

located in every county of the state.

◾ Improving Public Trust in Government

The Red Hook Community Justice Center has a 94 percent approval 

rating from local residents. Prior to the Justice Center’s opening, only 12 

percent of local residents approved of courts. Moreover, a survey of defendants found that 86 percent said that their case was handled fairly—

a result that was consistent regardless of race, gender, or educational 

background. In a phone survey, two out of three Midtown residents said 

they would be willing to pay additional taxes to support a community 

court.

◾ Research and Dissemination

Researchers from the Center have made a number of important contributions to the field, including a randomized trial examining the 

effectiveness of batterer intervention programs and a national study 

of the efficacy of judicially-monitored drug treatment. Authors from 

the Center have written numerous books, including Trial & Error in 

Criminal Justice Reform (Urban Institute Press) and Good Courts: The 

Case for Problem-Solving Justice (The New Press). The Center’s awardwinning website, www.courtinnovation.org, receives 90,000 visitors each 

month; visitors download an average of 600,000 documents each year—

research reports, how-to manuals, and interviews with leading scholars 

and practitioners.

◾ Improving Victim Safety

New York’s 88 domestic violence courts—based on a model created 

by the Center—handle over 34,000 cases each year, linking victims to 

counseling, shelter, and other services while strengthening the monitoring of those accused of battering.
About the California Endowment 3

◾ Replication

Each year, the Center’s demonstration projects are visited by more 

than 400 criminal justice officials from around the world. Many end up 

replicating, either in part or in whole, what they see. For example, there 

are six dozen community courts around the world based on the Center’s 

model, including projects in England, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, 

and South Africa.

◾ Awards

The Center has received numerous awards for innovation, including the 

Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation and the Innovations 

in American Government Award from Harvard University and the Ford 

Foundation. Other prizes include recognition from the American Bar Association, National Criminal Justice Association, and National Association for Court Management.

About The California Endowment

The California Endowment is a private, statewide health foundation that 

was created in 1996 as a result of Blue Cross of California’s creation of 

WellPoint Health Networks, a for-profit corporation. This conversion set the 

groundwork for our mission:

The California Endowment’s mission is to expand access to affordable, 

quality health care for underserved individuals and communities, and 

to promote fundamental improvements in the health status of all Californians.

◾ The Evidence: California’s Prosperity Depends on Our Health. Our 

Health Depends on Where We Live.

Where we live, work and play directly impacts our health.

The evidence shows that for California to thrive, our communities must 

have more than available health care. Affordable housing, good jobs, safe 

schools, clean air, parks and playgrounds, walkable streets, markets with 

fresh fruits and vegetables, and strong social networks are also crucial to 

a healthy California.

◾ The Challenge: Too Many of California’s Communities Lack the Basic 

Ingredients for Health.

One example is when schools are not built within a safe walking distance 

of where families live, children get less daily exercise. More driving to 

school and work means more air pollution and fewer opportunities for 

exercise. More air pollution means more asthmatic attacks. More asthma 

means even less physical activity, more days absent from school and 

work, and a higher cost of health care for everyone.
4 Seeding Change ▪ How Small Projects Can Improve Community Health and Safety

◾ The Strategy: A 10-Year, Multimillion-Dollar Statewide Commitment to 

Advance Policies and Forge Partnerships to Build Healthy Communities and a Healthy California.

The inequities are unacceptable, but the opportunities for change are 

undeniable. The California Endowment is embarking on a new 10-

year statewide initiative, creating places where children and youth are 

healthy, safe, and ready to learn.

We will forge new partnerships and tap the local wisdom of community 

organizers, school principals, city planners, business CEOs, people who 

work in hospitals and clinics, parents, and youth to deliver the essentials 

of a healthy place to live.

Over the next 10 years we are prepared to do what it takes at the local, 

regional, and state levels so that everyone, no matter where they live, 

can grow up healthy and contribute to the state’s prosperity.

◾ The Change: Statewide Advocacy Will Lift Up Improvements in Communities to Promote Policies that Support Change Now and Sustain 

Hope in the Future.

While we are helping community residents to beat the odds locally, we 

are also engaging them in our broader strategy to change the odds on 

a larger scale. Ultimately we are aiming for a shift in thinking, and a 

change in statewide policies away from those that ignore the root causes 

of ill health and toward those that prioritize prevention and value the 

health of all our communities as essential to the common good.

To learn more, visit calendow.org.
Director’s Letter 5

Dear Colleagues,

Experts in the fields of public health and public safety increasingly realize that violence 

can be transmitted within communities, similar to a communicable disease. While this 

realization is daunting, it also deepens our understanding of how violence spreads. As 

a result, treating violence as a disease provides new opportunities for intervention and 

prevention. If indeed violence is contagious, then we as law enforcement professionals, 

together with our counterparts in public health and medicine, can begin to interrupt 

patterns of transmission, identify health- and safety-protective behaviors, and interrupt the cycles of crime and violence that disproportionately affect our most vulnerable 

neighborhoods. I find this promise extremely encouraging. 

Over the past few decades, we have seen our colleagues in public health—including 

World Health Organization, Institute of Medicine, and Centers for Disease Control 

and Prevention, to name a few—change the way they understand violence not just as 

a criminal problem, but a systemic social and health problem. Law enforcement must 

contribute to that conversation. The intent of this publication is to accomplish that goal. 

Contained within this report is a summary of a meeting the COPS Office held on 

a group of small projects that began with a modest amount of seed money from the 

California Endowment. Our hope is to encourage cross-disciplinary collaborations 

that produce healthier and safer communities across the country. I would like to thank 

our partners both at the Endowment and the Center for Court Innovation who have 

worked so diligently with us on this project. 

Sincerely,

Bernard K. Melekian, Director

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services
6 Seeding Change ▪ How Small Projects Can Improve Community Health and Safety

Introduction

How does any innovation become a common practice? How does a successful idea go from being an isolated project to wide-scale implementation? 

Once new approaches become established, how can they be sustained?

These were just some of the questions police chiefs, public health researchers, and grant-makers sought to answer at a recent roundtable discussion 

on innovative collaborations between law enforcement and public health. 

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office), The California Endowment, and 

the Center for Court Innovation, the January 20, 2012 discussion featured 

presentations on current research across public health and public safety 

disciplines, new initiatives, and funding strategies.

As part of a unique effort to promote innovative law enforcement–public 

health collaborations, The California Endowment awarded $10,000 grants 

to nine jurisdictions, some of which presented progress reports on their 

programming. Funding-agency representatives provided feedback, offering 

insight into the ingredients that make new programs attractive to potential 

funders. 

This report summarizes the discussion—held at the Open Society Foundations in Washington, D.C.—in an effort to share some key lessons about 

law enforcement–public health collaborations. Along the way, it provides a 

glimpse of innovations at their first stages and ideas for ways to turn seed 

money into something larger.

Participants in the Roundtable

Roseanna Ander Executive Director, 

University of Chicago Crime Lab

Laura Angel Senior Officer, Advancement, 

Centers for Disease Control Foundation

Joseph E. Brann President, Joseph Brann and Associates

Ronald Davis Chief, East Palo Alto Police Department

Crispin Delgado Health Policy Initiatives Manager, 

San Mateo County Health System

Edward A. Flynn Chief, Milwaukee Police Department

Seema Gajwani Program Officer, Public Welfare Foundation

Gene Guerrero Director, Crime and Violence Prevention 

Initiative, Open Society Foundations

Rachel Johnston Director, Research and Development 

Division, Chicago Police Department

Julius Lang Director, Technical Assistance, 

(Facilitator) Center for Court Innovation

Sarah Lawrence Director of Policy Analysis, 

Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy, 

Berkeley School of Law, 

University of California

Susan Lee Director, Urban Peace Advancement Project

Jim McDonnell Chief, Long Beach Police Department
Introduction 

7

Bernard Melekian Director, Office of Community Oriented 

Policing Services (COPS Office), 

U.S. Department of Justice

Rachel Neild Senior Advisor, Open Society Foundations

Dr. Mallory O’Brien Director, Milwaukee Homicide 

Review Commission

Dr. Andrew Papachristos Robert Wood Johnson Health and 

Society Scholar, Harvard University, 

Center for Population and 

Development Studies

Barbara Raymond Program Director, 

The California Endowment

Dr. Pamela Russo Senior Program Officer, 

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Maisha Simmons Program Officer, 

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Dr. Thomas R. Simon Deputy Associate Director for Science, 

Division of Violence Prevention, 

National Center for Injury Prevention and 

Control, U.S. Centers for Disease Control 

and Prevention

Nina Vinik Senior Program Officer, 

Gun Violence Program, 

The Joyce Foundation

Stewart Wakeling Project Director/Principal Investigator, 

Safe Community Partnership, 

Public Health Institute
8 Seeding Change ▪ How Small Projects Can Improve Community Health and Safety

Background 

Public health departments and law enforcement agencies have traditionally 

occupied separate domains. Public health officials have often focused on 

infectious and chronic diseases, while police have targeted crime. In recent 

years, however, some law enforcement and public health agencies have 

recognized a shared interest in certain community problems. 

A 1979 report of the U.S. Surgeon General made one of the first explicit 

links between public health and crime by identifying violent behavior as a 

significant risk to health. Four years later, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention established the Violence Epidemiology Branch, which 

later became the Division of Violence Prevention. Since then, public health 

and public safety agencies have started to adopt complementary strategies 

and tools, emphasizing data analysis, collaboration, and community engagement as ways to solve neighborhood problems.1

“Oftentimes we tend to think of crime as being a problem for the criminal 

justice system to fix, education as a problem for the education system to 

fix, health for the health system,” said Roseanna Ander of the University of 

Chicago Crime Lab. “In fact there are many, many cross-system opportunities.”

Recognizing a common interest in reducing violence, the U.S. Department 

of Justice’s COPS Office, The California Endowment, and the Center for 

Court Innovation have embarked on an effort to bring together law enforcement and public health officials to share ideas. 

In March 2011, a first roundtable was convened in Los Angeles to identify 

opportunities for collaborations between law enforcement and public health 

officials. The California Endowment invited participants in the roundtable 

to apply for mini-grants for collaborative projects; ultimately nine programs 

were awarded funding.

In January 2012, a second roundtable was convened in Washington, D.C. 

Representatives from a wide range of grant-making institutions entered the 

conversation to share their perspectives on the mini-grant projects. Some 

grant-makers represented institutions with national and international initiatives in improving community health; others have been focused on improving public safety.

The Washington, D.C., roundtable met, in part, to allow the grant recipients 

to share the current status of the mini-grant projects as well as address 

next steps and new challenges: How can innovation transform the national 

approach to health and safety? How can new ideas change policy in the 

long-term? “Police culture is very strong,” said Chief Ron Davis of East Palo 

Alto, California. “How to rethink how we fundamentally operate so partnering with public health agencies is possible on a larger scale?”

Bernard Melekian, director of the COPS Office, which provides grants to 

law enforcement, said “the delivery of law enforcement services is going to 

fundamentally change” and part of this shift will involve collaborations with 

communities and across agencies. 

Barbara Raymond of The California Endowment recognized that “great 

things are happening” in public health and public safety collaborations, 

1. See “Law Enforcement and Public Health: Sharing Resources and Strategies to Make Communities Safer,” www.

courtinnovation.org/research/law-enforcement-and-public-health-sharing-resources-and-strategies-make-communities-safer.
Research On Public Health and Safety 9

“but most haven’t made the leap into the mainstream.” Raymond cited 

programs such as the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission, which has 

been bringing together representatives across safety and health sectors since 2004 to solve and prevent homicides and non-fatal shootings. The 

Milwaukee team has recently started helping other jurisdictions develop 

processes for their most pressing crime issues, but like many other public health and law enforcement collaborations, the approach has not yet 

taken root across the country, she said.

“Today we wanted to bring more people into the conversation,” Raymond said, describing the main purpose of the roundtable. “We’ve invited more funders into the room to ask, ‘How does this grab you? How does 

this fit into your thinking about how to make change for communities?’”

Research On Public Health and Safety

Public health approaches are often focused 

on prevention—stopping a problem before 

it starts. Two presentations on advancements in prevention methods helped shape 

the day’s discussion: Dr. Andrew Papachristos, Robert Wood Johnson Scholar at 

Harvard University (who has since become 

an associate professor in the Department 

of Sociology at Yale University), explained 

how to predict gun violence through analyzing social networks, and Dr. Thomas Simon 

of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and 

Prevention’s Division of Violence Prevention 

discussed using anonymous data from emergency rooms to inform crime-fighting and 

community-level prevention strategies. 

Social Network Analysis 

Social network analysis is used by websites 

like Facebook and Amazon to look at connections among people and to understand behavior. Papachristos uses it to 

predict who is at a high risk for violence, focusing his studies specifically on 

“co-offending networks”—who gets in trouble with whom. 

 “Research consistently shows that about 3 to 5 percent of the adult male 

population is responsible for about 75 percent of all violent crimes, both as 

victim and offender,” Papachristos said. Additionally, those closer to an offender are also those more likely to be victims of violence. 

Taking an epidemiological approach and applying it to public safety can 

help law enforcement understand who is connected to whom. This, in turn, 

can help them design interventions more accurately. Like hot-spot policing, 

which focuses on problematic locations, social network analysis enables police to target their efforts strategically. According to Papachristos, “instead 

of going where the dots are on the map, you’re going where the dots are in 

the network.” 

▲

Dr. Andrew 

Papachristos 

created this visual 

representation of all 

arrests in Chicago’s 

Westside from 2006 

to 2010, which shows 

30,000 co-offending 

networks and 

accounts for 87,689 

incidents.
10 Seeding Change ▪ How Small Projects Can Improve Community Health and Safety

Papachristos recognized that his approach formalizes a way of thinking that many seasoned beat cops engage in naturally: “They know who 

the key players are; they know who the groups are,” he said. Still, he felt 

law enforcement could benefit from this kind of analysis because it helps 

police see connections not only within a group but across different groups. 

“A lot of times cops are assigned to a group or an area and they might not 

see things that go into another department’s jurisdiction,” he said. “Social 

network analysis gives them a new way to look at what they’re doing and 

expand it.” 

The Cardiff Model

Simon, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of 

Violence Prevention, presented an overview of the Cardiff Model of Violence 

Prevention. The Cardiff Model began when an emergency department physician, Dr. Jonathan Shepherd, was concerned that most assault-related injuries coming in for emergency services in Cardiff, Wales, were not reflected 

in crime data. 

The Cardiff Model is a multiagency partnership that combines anonymous data from the emergency department with law enforcement data to 

guide the work of a multiagency prevention partnership. Reception staff in 

emergency departments are trained to ask and record basic questions about 

the nature and location of the violence, the date and time of incident, and 

the weapon type. This information is stripped of identifiers, entered into a 

database, and shared by hospital information technology staff with a crime 

analyst who combines the information with police data to generate maps 

and summaries of the kinds of incidents occurring. 

Sharing this data can lead to strategic adjustments: for example, police 

patrol routes and closed-circuit television systems are deployed to the most 

problematic areas, and mass transit can make more frequent late night 

stops to avoid overcrowding at certain locations. Also, local ordinances can 

require a construction site near an alcohol outlet to secure pallets of building supplies that are being used as weapons and are associated with injuries 

in the area. Relative to 14 other similar cities, Cardiff saw a significant 

reduction in assault-related injuries over the study period of more than 4 

years. 

Simon is currently working with Dr. Curtis Florence at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Drs. Jonathan Shepherd and Iain Brennan 

on a cost-benefit analysis of the model, which is being replicated throughout the UK. “It is complicated to put a specific dollar value on the benefits 

associated with this program,” he said, “but it is a relatively low-cost program to implement so the savings to the criminal justice and health systems 

are substantial.” 
New Projects 11

New Projects 

After Papachristos and Simon, the jurisdictions who were awarded minigrants from The California Endowment described their pilot projects. 

East Palo Alto

The City of East Palo Alto, California, has significant public safety and public health issues. The city’s violent crime rate is more than double the state 

average and the life expectancy of city residents is significantly shorter than 

the county average. According to Crispin Delgado of the San Mateo County 

Health System, “We did an analysis within the County that showed that for 

every $10,000 more than an individual earns in income, you can expect to 

live 6 months longer.” 

With the support of The California 

Endowment, the East Palo Alto Police 

Department is leading an effort to 

employ gunshot location detection 

system (GLDS) technology to address 

health and violence problems. Shooting data from system activations were 

used to identify shooting hot spots 

(see map). These areas, called FIT 

Zones, are the target of this initiative.

FIT Zones implement both law enforcement activities and health-related 

activities based on the idea that as 

residents increase outdoor activities 

they will improve their health and 

regain control and ownership of their 

neighborhood. Police officers assigned 

to the FIT Zones participate in physical activities such as walking, jogging, 

and bike riding with the residents. 

One of the intentions is that the officers’ presence and participation will 

allow neighbors to exercise with a 

stronger sense of security and become acquainted with police officers. This initiative is building on existing 

relationships but also providing opportunities for new collaborations that 

include law enforcement, county public health experts, academics, residents, community-based organizations, local health services providers, and 

city planners. 

“We would like to incorporate health care into these hot spots to ensure 

that people are living healthy lifestyles and eventually even address environmental issues,” said Chief Ronald Davis, adding that “a healthy community would be a safe community.”

Milwaukee 

In Milwaukee, the $10,000 from The California Endowment was used to 

support the development of a data system where detailed information about 

fatal and near-fatal violent crime can be organized, accessed, and analyzed. 

▲

East Palo Alto used 

data from a gunshot 

location detection 

system to determine 

where the highest 

number of shots fired, 

which then became 

the area of focus for 

the project. This map 

depicts shooting data 

(January 2009 to 

October 2011).
12 Seeding Change ▪ How Small Projects Can Improve Community Health and Safety

The Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission is a collaboration involving 

criminal justice professionals and community service providers that seeks 

to better understand homicides, help solve cases, and reduce the number of 

killings. 

“We’ve made over 350 recommendations since we started this process,” 

said Dr. Mallory O’Brien, who has directed the commission since 2004, 

“and now that we have new strategies being employed by the police department, there’s a much bigger focus on information-sharing and data-driven 

strategies.” 

The future direction for the Homicide Review Commission is to look at 

violence prevention overall, not just homicides, and to help implement the 

model in other jurisdictions. 

Chicago

Through The California Endowment mini-grant, the Chicago Police Department was able to create a new collaborative working group with Chicago’s 

public health agencies. The grant aided in refining the police department’s 

data collection system to allow for public health data elements. 

“In Chicago almost every civilian information technology employee had 

been laid off...and we were having a problem with access to data,” said 

Rachel Johnston, director of the research and development division of the 

Chicago Police Department. “Our data warehouse was created many, many 

years ago and it hasn’t been updated. So that’s really where we focused our 

efforts initially.” 

While Chicago, like most other major U.S. cities, has been experiencing 

lower homicide rates, violence continues to plague many communities. 

Roseanna Ander, executive director of the University of Chicago Crime 

Lab, discussed truancy and the role the school system can play in violence 

prevention, describing, among other initiatives, the Chicago Youth Shooting Review, a public health approach to youth shootings modeled after the 

Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission. “When homicide is seen only as 

a ‘crime problem,’ we miss critical opportunities for prevention,” she said.

The police department plans to continue to explore ways that police and 

public health can work together, such as working with the Health Department to expand Safe Start, a project that helps children exposed to violence. “Even just having the dialogue has been an enormous help,” Johnston said.

Los Angeles

The Los Angeles Police Department has taken an approach similar to East 

Palo Alto’s, launching a Community Safety Partnership in four housing developments that have been historically dominated by gangs and perceptions 

of fear, according to Susan Lee, director of the Urban Peace Advancement 

Project. The seed money aided in creating a training module to familiarize 

police with the department’s data system. The training module was particularly targeted to train the 50 officers who are deployed in the four housing 

developments. The system includes public health data as well.
Gaining Support 13

Gaining Support

In an effort to shed light on how small projects might grow and expand, 

grant-makers provided advice to roundtable participants. 

Budget Limitations

Increasingly limited budgets are forcing everyone “to think really creatively 

about what [they] can do differently,” said Seema Gajwani, program officer 

at the Public Welfare Foundation.

“Ten to twelve thousand law enforcement officers have been laid off, and 

30,000 to 35,000 additional positions have gone unfunded,” said Bernard 

Melekian, director of the COPS Office, adding that innovation, collaboration, and sharing resources are particularly important when budgets are 

tightening across sectors. 

Dr. Pamela Russo of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation discussed how 

even small grants, if they are flexible, can go a long way. “In times of financial stress, if you’ve got a little bit of money that doesn’t have to go into a 

program silo, you can do a tremendous number of things,” Russo said.

Documenting Impact

“Law enforcement tends to be this black hole of data,” said Joseph Brann, 

president of Joseph Brann and Associates and founding director of the 

COPS Office. “We gather unbelievable amounts of data and information, 

and one of our biggest challenges is trying to get that out in any kind of a 

meaningful way so that it really has relevance and utility across the board.”

Validating innovation depends on having the capacity to prove what works. 

Unfortunately, documenting certain impacts can be complex; budget savings, for example, can be a huge selling point for state and federal policymakers, but proving that expenditures were spared because of prevention 

efforts can be hard to measure.

“We have these discussions in the framing of the public costs, but we don’t 

really talk about the costs to the individuals and individual families that are 

avoided,” said Melekian.

“Or the savings to systems because the kid doesn’t have post-traumatic 

stress disorder because you reduced shootings,” added Ander. 

“That’s the problem with quantifying the effects of prevention,” said Simon. 

“You’re talking about what did not happen.” 

Many of the community-based organizations that O’Brien and the Homicide Review Commission work with in Milwaukee do not have the capacity 

to measure whether their strategies are working. “We want to be able to 

provide them with pro bono technical assistance and say, ‘Let us help you 

develop your evaluation plan; we have the data to help you actually determine if it’s working,’” O’Brien said. 

Chief Edward Flynn of the Milwaukee Police Department stressed that convincing policy-makers to support new approaches can be difficult: “It is far 

safer to fail conventionally than it is to risk innovation. Outside validators 

are essential to us if we’re going to push innovation.” 
14 Seeding Change ▪ How Small Projects Can Improve Community Health and Safety

Collaboration

There are many ways that police departments can work with outside agencies 

to attract resources. Funding-agency representatives suggested law enforcement and public health agency partnerships might be able to pursue funding 

opportunities that would not be available to agencies operating in isolation. 

Agencies can also collaborate with a local university or other research organization to do an evaluation of the agencies’ work to help prove outcomes and 

promote new approaches. 

Jim McDonnell, chief of the Long Beach Police Department, suggested that local agencies partner with national associations. “I think we should make sure 

that we build in some of the stakeholders—MALDEF (Mexican American Legal 

Defense and Education Fund), NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), and other groups—make them part of the solution,” 

he said. 

Collaborative projects can fit into a variety of funding agendas, especially in 

tight budget climates. “Based on some of our recent announcements, you are 

seeing a focus on collaboration,” Simon said. “We have recently put out an announcement to support local public health departments to serve as conveners 

around youth violence prevention activities within their communities and to 

form collaborations with law enforcement, education, and social service.” Simon also said that there is a growing interest in understanding what needs to 

be in place in order to bring prevention activities to scale within communities. 

Funding Interests

Several roundtable participants stressed that it was essential to know the priorities of funding institutions. 

Maisha Simmons, program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 

encouraged roundtable participants to sign up to receive funding announcements. “We are looking for innovation that could be potentially scaled,” she 

said. “We’re looking for something a little bit more mature than an idea or a 

business plan written out on paper, but it doesn’t have to necessarily be operating in many communities or neighborhoods at this stage.”

Nina Vinik of the Joyce Foundation discussed a gun violence initiative at the 

foundation that funds “research and policy reform efforts to help prevent gun 

violence.” 

Laura Angel, senior advancement officer of the National Foundation for the 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), shared that the CDC 

Foundation is the sole entity authorized by Congress to raise private funds in 

support of the mission and work of the CDC. Whether diseases start at home 

or abroad, are chronic or acute, curable or preventable, human error or deliberate attack, CDC fights it and supports communities and citizens to prevent 

it. The CDC Foundation’s role is to facilitate partnership opportunities based 

on requests from the CDC to advance their work in a public health priority. 

Simon described the agenda for the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention control that is guiding their research through 2018.2

 This research agenda 

includes topic-specific (e.g., child maltreatment, intimate partner violence, 

suicide, youth violence) and cross-cutting priorities. “All of our research funding opportunity announcements follow from that agenda,” Simon added. 

Rachel Neild, a senior advisor at the Open Society Foundations, pointed out 

that funders are often looking to support creative ways to collaborate and share 

resources—they just need to hear about what’s out there. 

2. Available online at www.cdc.gov/injury/ResearchAgenda/index.html.
Conclusion 15

Conclusion

At the end of the day, police, public health experts, and grant-makers 

agreed that the new partnerships between public health and law enforcement were just the beginning. 

According to Brann, “Frankly, we couldn’t be at a more opportune time 

because of the recession, the financial crisis that everybody’s confronting,” 

he said. “Policymakers are looking for new solutions.” 

Russo said that the day’s discussion showed that collaborations across sectors were a necessary step. She urged participants to continue to “bring 

together the broadest set of stakeholders possible,” adding that there would 

be a great deal to gain not only for public health and police agencies but for 

communities across the country. “I think it’s a win-win-win situation,” 

she said. 

Moving forward, roundtable participants showed an interest in prompting a 

national-level discussion about how public safety and public health agencies might work together to reduce violence. “Inject it as a big issue,” urged 

Gene Guerrero, director of Open Society’s Crime and Violence Prevention 

Initiative. “That’s how things get done.”
U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Community Oriented 

Policing Services

145 N Street, N.E.

Washington, DC 20530

To obtain details on COPS Office 

programs, call the COPS Office 

Response Center at 800.421.6770

Visit COPS Online at 

www.cops.usdoj.gov

How does any innovation become a common practice? How does a successful idea go from being an isolated project to widescale implementation? Once new approaches become established, how can they be sustained? On January 20, 2012, the 

U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office), The California Endowment, and the 

Center for Court Innovation brought together law enforcement professionals, public health researchers, and representatives from 

funding institutions to answer these questions and discuss the key lessons learned from new law enforcement-public health 

collaborations. Seeding Change: How Small Projects can Improve Community Health and Safety summarizes the discussion—

which was held at the Open Society Foundations in Washington, D.C.—and provides a look at innovations in their early stages, 

as well as ideas on how to turn seed money into a viable project.

ISBN: 978-1-932582-76-5 e11121520

April 2013

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