The City of Columbus has invested in innovative programs and is working with partners to build stronger and safer neighborhoods through a broad-based approach involving local law enforcement, public health, recreation and parks, neighborhoods, businesses, community leaders and residents. This comprehensive strategy is working to reduce violent crime in our community.
**Comprehensive Neighborhood Safety Strategy 2018 Report to
the Community
Comprehensive
Neighborhood Safety StrategyInitiatives:
Safe Streets
Building off
the successful 2017 Linden Safe Streets initiative, Safe Streets was expanded
in 2018 to include additional bike patrols. In 2018, the Safe Streets
initiative began operating in the Linden, Hilltop and South Side areas in May
and concluded their operations at the end of August. All three uniformed Safe
Streets teams concentrated on community engagement as the foundation for all
enforcement activity to ensure objectives are community driven. The Safe
Streets program coordinated a collaborative program working with other City
departments, including Code Enforcement, the Solid Waste Inspector, the City
Attorney’s office, members of the Environmental Court, and community leaders to
address quality of life issues at a street level for residents of the Linden,
Hilltop and South Side communities. This collaborative was then expanded to the
Hilltop area and included an initiative to identify areas of illegal dumping,
pursue the offenders and clean up the areas
The
statistics compiled for the Safe Streets program showed a significant reduction
in violent crime and property crimes in several areas where Safe Streets
officers were operating. Additionally, the program recorded over 8,300 citizen
contacts, 151 community meetings attended, and 103 illegal firearms that were
seized.
Safe
Neighborhoods
To break the
cycle of violent crime in Columbus neighborhoods, the Safe Neighborhoods
program is a focused deterrence program in partnership with Franklin County
Court of Common Pleas.
Crisis
Intervention Training
To better
respond to people in crisis, the City of Columbus will have 50 percent of all
frontline, community-facing police officers receive Crisis Intervention
Training (CIT) by the end of 2020. Currently, every new recruit receives this
training. Nine CIT classes have been conducted this year. A tenth (and final
class for 2018) will be held in December. Columbus has also signed onto the One
Mind Campaign to improve police response to persons
affected by mental illness.
Community,
Action, Resilience and Empowerment
The CARE
Coalition provides direct outreach to residents impacted by gun violence and
other traumatic experiences to help connect them to services and build
resiliency in families and neighborhoods. Neighborhood
Crisis Response
Coordinated
multi-departmental responses strengthen neighborhoods by coordinating city
resources that create physical deterrents to crime such as streetlights in
alleys, nuisance code issues, housing stabilization and after-school
programming.
Violent
Crime Review Group
Led by
Columbus Public Health, the Violent Crime Review Group connects and brings
together eight City of Columbus departments in a coordinated effort to increase
communications and share data that will help the city develop neighborhood
specific strategies to reduce violence. The Violent Crime Review Group is
working to lower homicide rates through a focused, multi-departmental review of
and rapid response to violent crimes.
Neighborhood
Safety Committees
Led by local
Community Liaison Officers, the Neighborhood Safety Committees include block
watch volunteers and community leaders who review information from the Violent
Crime Review Group and give real-time feedback on our neighborhood intervention
strategies.
Columbus
Community Safety Advisory Commission
This
17-member Commission is tasked with ensuring that Columbus has the best
training, policies and procedures to protect and serve the entire community.
The Commission recommended an objective, independent consultant to support
their work, Matrix Consulting Group. On November 14, Matrix Consulting Group
updated Executive Staff on their status and progress, as well as the planned
community survey and meetings being scheduled.
Click here for more information about the Commission.
Applications for Purpose,
Pride and Success (APPS)
The mission of the Applications
for Purpose, Pride and Success (APPS) program is to reduce crime and violence
by increasing protective factors in the lives of Columbus youth and young
adults (ages 14-23) through proven prevention and intervention strategies. The
initiative’s prevention strategies include offering safe and constructive
alternatives to violence while youth development professionals provide
mentorship through enrichment activities at four community recreation centers.
APPS Neighborhood Violence
Intervention Program (NVI)
Through street-level violence
interruption and conflict mediation by trained Violence Intervention workers,
and neighborhood based services, the APPS Neighborhood Violence Intervention
Program (NVI) program is focused on building relationships with proven
high-risk youth - or known violent offenders - in order to guide them away from
violence and toward positive alternatives, and to restore a sense of safety and
improve the future outlook for the focus communities.
Through pooled intelligence
with law enforcement and community partners, the APPS NVI team hopes to
identify the top riskiest youth in the most violent neighborhood gangs. As a
result, APPS NVI mentoring efforts will be focused on the young people widely
recognized to be the individual(s) driving the violence within the APPS
designated neighborhoods.
Through November 2018, the
APPS Neighborhood Violence Intervention program, defused 67 potentially
violent incidents. In addition, the NVI team were involved with 42
interventions after gang-related incidents. Throughout the year, NVI staff
work to remain in contact with those at-risk to help prevent further incidents.
In 2018, APPS professionals enrolled 148 young people, ages 14 to 23, in
their case management system.
APPS Workforce Development
Program
During the summer of 2018,
the APPS program hired 114 young people between the ages of 14-23 from
areas that have a disproportionate number of barriers to success. These
young people participated in nine weekly training sessions that included
topics, among others, Cultural Diversity, CPR First Aid and Financial Literacy
while working in different sections of City Departments.
Participants would then apply
their new skills are a variety of jobs throughout the city gaining valuable
on-the-job-training as well as workforce experience. Job coaches performed
weekly work site visits to provide support and guidance to insure success for
our young people.
The impact of the training
sessions and job coaches was measured through the use of program pre- and
post-test data that revealed that 100% of participants improved their work
force readiness knowledge and behaviors.
APPS Cap City Nights
APPS hosted six Cap City
Nights Festivals in 2018. The summer festivals are a prevention strategy that
aims to foster safe and healthy community relationships by bringing together
neighborhood residents, worshipers, service providers, and business owners.
Festival activities encourage
relationship building among families and neighbors, thereby strengthening
community ties and empowering the community to work together to reduce violence
while creating a platform of trust to produce positive change. Festivals are
themed, highlighted with free food, live entertainment and a host of games and
activities for the entire family and all food and activities are free.
As a part of a new outreach
strategy into the Wedgwood neighborhood, an additional festival was added to
the schedule.
The Wedgewood Community Cap
City Nights Festival was sponsored by Columbus City Council and members of the
APPS team worked closely with the community’s elders to create a program that
was not only welcoming, but honored the culture and traditions of the Somali
Community.
Clean
Neighborhoods
Illegal
dumping is a persistent problem with extensive impact on Columbus
neighborhoods. This wide-ranging plan -- which is focused on prevention,
enforcement and education -- includes additional ground crews and new equipment
to assist in alley cleanups, expanded neighborhood safety cameras in select
alleys, additional trail cameras, and the Keep Columbus Beautiful End Littering
Initiative.
One Linden
Community Plan
Developed by
the Department of Neighborhoods in partnership with the Neighborhood Design
Center and The Ohio State University, this plan addresses both the physical
challenges facing Linden -- like transportation, housing and retail -- and the
social considerations such as education, workforce, health and safety.
Opiate Crisis
Response
Like cities
all across the country, Columbus is in the midst of an opiate epidemic.
Columbus Public Health is working with a cross-section of community partners on
the Franklin County Opiate Action Plan to help those who are already addicted
and to prevent people from becoming addicted in the first place. Efforts to
address this crisis include drug take-back events, an opiate surge notification
system, alcohol and drug services counseling, education and prevention,
community naloxone trainings, fentanyl test strips, and the comprehensive harm
reduction program Safe Point at Equitas Health.