DOI: 10.3886/icpsr20362.v1
title: Evaluation of the Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiative (SACSI) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 1998-2001
title: Version 1

description: The purpose of this study was to perform an initial
 evaluation of key aspects of the Winston-Salem Strategic Approaches to
 Community Safety Initiative (SACSI). The research team administered a
 SACSI Process Questionnaire to the SACSI Core Team and Working Group
 during the fall of 2000. Part 1, SACSI Core Team/Working Group
 Questionnaire Data, provides survey responses from 28 members of the
 Working Group and/or Core Team who completed the questionnaires.
 Variables in Part 1 were divided into four sections: (1) perceived
 functioning of the Core Team/Working Group, (2) personal experience of
 the group/team member, (3) perceived effectiveness or ineffectiveness
 of various elements of the SACSI program, and (4) reactions to
 suggestions for increasing the scope of the SACSI program. The
 research team also conducted an analysis of reoffending among SACSI
 Offenders in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in order to assess whether
 criminal behavior changed following the implementation of the
 Notification Program that was conducted with offenders on probation to
 communicate to them the low tolerance for violent crime in the
 community. To determine if criminal behavior changed following the
 program, the research team obtained arrest records from the
 Winston-Salem Police Department of 138 subjects who attended a
 notification session between September 9, 1999, and September 7, 2000.
 These records are contained in Part 2, Notification Program Offender
 Data. Variables in Part 2 included notification (status and date),
 age group, prior record, and 36 variables pertaining to being arrested
for or identified as a suspect in nine specific types of crime.
description: The purpose of this study was to perform an
 initial evaluation of key aspects of the Winston-Salem Strategic
 Approaches to Community Safety Initiative (SACSI). The evaluation
 design was intended to assess how the Winston-Salem initiative
 operated with regard to both the overall SACSI process and the
 Notification Program. The primary objective of the SACSI Process
 Questionnaire was to perform an evaluation of the overall SACSI
 process. The goal of the program-level evaluation of notification was
 to determine if the initiative was effective in communicating the
 message that "violence will not be tolerated in Winston-Salem" and
 providing youthful offenders with opportunities and support for a more
positive life course.
description: The research team administered a Strategic
 Approaches to Community Safety Initiative (SACSI) Process
 Questionnaire to the SACSI Core Team and Working Group during the fall
 of 2000. The SACSI Process Questionnaire covered a broad range of
 issues related to the way in which the SACSI process was unfolding
 from the perspective of the Core Team and the Working Group. All
 members of the Core Team and the Working Group were provided with
 questionnaires to complete at the beginning of one of their respective
 meetings. Part 1 provides survey responses from 28 members of the
 Working Group and/or Core Team who completed the questionnaires. The
 questionnaires were essentially equivalent except that Core Team
 members were asked to rate a number of issues with regard to the Core
 Team, while Working Group members were asked to rate those same issues
 with regard to the Working Group. Individuals who were members of both
 the Working Group and the Core Team completed the survey only
 once.
 The research team also conducted an analysis of reoffending among
 SACSI Offenders in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in order to assess
 whether criminal behavior changed following the implementation of the
 Notification Program. The Notification Program entailed delivering a
 "stop-the-violence" message to juvenile offenders, as well as adult
 offenders who were known to be involving juveniles in their crimes.
 Typically, those being notified were on probation. Under this program
 the Winston-Salem Police Department "called in" a group of individuals
 from the target population and, over the course of a one- to two-hour
 session, repeatedly "notified" the participants that the community
 would not tolerate any more instances of violent behavior on their
 part. The message for older offenders was, "No guns, no violence, and
 do not involve kids in criminal activity." For juveniles the message
 of "No guns, no violence," was the same.
 To determine if criminal behavior changed following the
 Notification Program, the research team obtained arrest records from
 the Winston-Salem Police Department of 138 subjects who had attended a
 notification session between September 9, 1999 and September 7, 2000
 (Part 2). These records listed all arrests for SACSI-defined crimes
 (i.e., homicide, aggravated assault, kidnapping, rape, robbery, and
 weapons violation), as well as arrests for "simple assault" between
 January 1998 and January 2001. The final report stated that any given
 individual in the sample was followed for at least one year subsequent
 to notification. However, given the revised versions of Table 10,
 Table 12, and Table 13 that the principal investigators provided, not
 all notified offenders were followed for at least one year. Rather,
 all notified offenders were followed up through January 31, 2001,
regardless of their notification date.
description: Variables in Part 1 were divided into four
 sections:
 
 Perceived functioning of the Core Team/Working Group: clarity of
 the goals, objectives and mission of SACSI to group/team members, and
 group/team members' understanding and ownership of roles and
 responsibilities.
 Personal experience of the group/team member: clarity of goals
 and objectives to the individual, individual sense of ownership of the
 SACSI program, perceptions of availability of resources to carry out
 the SACSI program, and personal satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the
 SACSI program.
 Perceived effectiveness or ineffectiveness of various elements
 of the SACSI program (e.g., Notification Program, Operation Reach,
 Streetworker Program, and the Violent Incident Review Team).
 Reactions to suggestions for increasing the scope of the SACSI
 program.
 Variables in Part 2 included notification (status and date), age
 group, prior record, and 36 variables pertaining to being arrested for
 or identified as a suspect in nine specific types of crime. Included
 in Part 2 were arrest variables for nine crimes (murder, rape,
 robbery, aggravated assault, weapons violations, sex offenses,
 kidnapping, simple assault, and SACSI-defined "violent" offenses) for
 the time period both prior to the notification date and following the
 notification date. An additional 18 variables identified whether the
 subject was either arrested or listed as a suspect for the same nine
crimes, again both before and after the notification date.
description: none
description: Response Rates: Part 1: Not available. Part 2: Not applicable.
description: Presence of Common Scales: Several Likert-type scales were used.
description: For Part 1, the sample consisted of a total of 28
 members of the Working Group and/or Core Team. The 14-member Core Team
 is a group of institutional leaders (e.g., United States attorney,
 superintendent of schools, police chief, director of CenterPoint Human
 Services, and the director of the district office of the Department of
 Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention) who established the
 strategic focus and programmatic direction for SACSI during the
 planning phase of the initiative. The Working Group consisted of about
 25 individuals who were "on the ground" carrying out the programs and
 activities of SACSI. These individuals represented the same agencies
 involved in the Core Team, plus a number of community-based
 organizations that became invested in SACSI over the course of the
 first two years of operation (e.g., Parks and Recreation, the Urban
 League, and VisionsWork Youth Services).
 For Part 2, the sample consisted of all those Track 1A, Track 1B,
 or Track 2 offenders who had been notified between September 1999 and
 September 2000 and who had criminal records within the Winston-Salem
 Police Department (WSPD) database. A total of 138 offenders, including
 72 juveniles and 66 adults, met these criteria. Track 1A offenders
 were juveniles who had committed two or more SACSI-defined crimes
 (i.e., aggravated assault, homicide, rape, kidnapping, robbery, sexual
 offenses, or weapons violations). Track 1B offenders were adults with
 a history of involving juveniles in violent crime, and Track 2
 offenders were juveniles who had been arrested once for a
SACSI-defined crime.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: SACSI Core Team/Working Group Questionnaire Data
DS2: Notification Program Offender Data
description: Part 1: All members of the Winston-Salem Strategic
 Approaches to Community Safety Initiative (SACSI) Core Team and/or
 Working Group in the fall of 2000. Part 2: All juveniles with a
 history of violent offending, juveniles who had exhibited behavior
 that suggested they were on the path to violent crime, and adult
 offenders who had involved juveniles in their crime in Winston-Salem,
North Carolina from 1998 to 2001. Smallest Geographic Unit: none
description: on-site questionnaire; record abstracts(1) Data from the following evaluation methods are not
 available as part of this collection: Interviews with the Core Team,
 Interviews with the project director, Observation of notification
 sessions, Observation of Operation Reach sessions, Interviews with
 SACSI partners involved in notification, Interviews with SACSI
 partners involved in Operation Reach, Interviews with offenders who
 participated in SACSI, Focus group with parents, and Analysis of
 violence trends in Winston-Salem. (2) Some information such as the
 dates in which offenders were notified and the total sample size
 differed between the final report and the data. Users should be aware
 that when study information differed between the final report and the
 data, ICPSR referenced the data, and not figures contained in the
 final report, to compose description and citation information. (3)
 Users are encouraged to refer to the final report cited in the
 "Related Literature" section of this study for more detailed
information regarding the study design, methodology, and sampling.