Youth Violence Prevention Project in Detroit
Assignment Brief Under a new government initiative in your country, crime prevention agencies and workers have been invited to apply for funding to establish a violence prevention programme in specified neighbourhoods or communities. An annual grant of £125,000 (pounds sterling or your national currency equivalent) is on offer for an initial period of three years for programmes that are approved by the funding committee. Your assignment is to come up with a proposal that will attract this grant. You should: describe your chosen neighbourhood or community (which could be a geographic or social community), why they have particular needs to prevent violence, present relevant research (and reference it), indicate how you will spend the money, how the programme will link to and build on mainstream agency activities, how it might become sustainable in the longer term without project funding, how the programme will be managed, monitored and evaluated. In other words you should write a winning application of the type required by many government funding regimes and charitable foundations. However, as this is also an academically assessed piece of work, we will need referencing to all research and publications cited in support of your proposal. Your assignment should run to approximately 2,500 words. If you need to, you can add appendices over and above this word count. Your assignment should analyse the problems of the chosen location or community in relation to the various theories and research into personal safety, conflict resolution and violence prevention. Likewise, your proposed ¡§solutions¡¨ should be based on, and refer to, proven theories and empirical evaluation of successful practice elsewhere. You should reference the publications or sources where the evidence for these can be found. It is up to you how you choose to angle the programme; it could, for example, be a broad-based publicity and media campaign, an early intervention project to prevent the cycle of violence, an educational or behavioural programme, a harm-reduction network of refuges and supports, an advice and therapy centre, or any other effective initiative or combination of interventions. The figure of £125,000 annual funding is merely offered as a fairly realistic "ball-park" indicator for the size and ambition of the work you could achieve. Do not become too obsessed with detailed costings - this is not the primary intention of this assignment. You may also be able to "lever in" additional resources in cash or in kind as part of your initiative. Our assessment of your assignment will reflect not only its substantive content but also your ability to organise and present your data in a logical, coherent, analytical, well structured and grammatically sound manner.
Youth Violence Prevention Project in Detroit
Name:
Institution:
Abstract
In the recent years, the rate of crime around the globe has increased. Most of the incidences that have been reported involve the youths in the society. While the aspect of youths turning to crime can be blamed on the social decay that has gripped the world over, all efforts need to be channeled towards assisting the youths. In America, most of the homicides are perpetrated by the youths in the total tally of the cases handled by the security agents. Some of the cases are not reported while others are not closed; this means that the figure could be even higher. Detroit is one of the cities in America that has borne the blunt of youth violence and gang crimes. What is of great importance is that most of the youths that are involved in crime, end up become seasoned criminals and terrorizing their communities. Most of the organized criminal gangs, started of as juvenile offenders, which is a shocking revelation. If the youths involved in violent activities are assisted, the future crimes could be much worse. This project will assess youths that have been recommended by health care services, schools and the correction facilities. The youths will be given personal training on ways to channel their energies to profitable ventures. Part of the program will involve personal control and financial training. The youths will then be assisted to develop financial projects that will generate money for them, their families and the society. Peer leaders will also be selected from the successful candidates to help with the continuous training of new entrants and those youths from previous programs that are not seasoned well enough.The initial project is expected to take one year from commencement.
Introduction
Youth violence is one of the aspects of the society which has contributed to a great majority of the violent acts experienced through time. Ideally, these are harmful behaviors that start at an early age in the life of the juveniles and may even continue to adulthood. In this case the youth may be the perpetrator, the victim or may be the witness to violent acts perpetrated to other persons young or old by juveniles. In most of the cases as previous research has indicated time and time again, the juveniles that are involved in the violent acts when they are young may at one point extrapolate their acts of violence to when they are old (, 2014). Most of the persons that have been convicted of acts of violence through the justice system almost always have a record of violence dating back to when they were young. Youth violence has been found to have some implications that are quite serious and tend to have some lifelong impacts on the involved persons’ social functions and psychology (Cdc.gov, 2014). At the same time there is an increase in the costs of health, welfare as well as costs of offering and sustaining criminal justice systems (Ncjrs.gov, 2014). The greater costs however relate to the fact that the youth violence also tends to decrease the value of the property in the society most affected, reduce productivity levels and undermine the general fabric of the society. As such, much of the government efforts across the globe are trying to target the juvenile offenders with the prevention programs, to make sure that this population is reformed before they graduate to adulthood and become seasoned criminals, as has always been the case (Fantz, 2014).
Across the global platform, it is estimated that more than 250,000 homicides take place among the youths that are 10-29 years. This is a figure that reflects a mega share of about 41% of the total number of homicides that are recorded to take place across the globe. For every young person that is killed between the ages 10 and 29, there is also a gross figure of about 20 to 40 persons that are admitted to hospitals having sustained injuries.
At the global scale more than 24% of women have reported that their first sexual intercourse was forced.Some of the most common acts of violence that are perpetrated by the youths include bullying, hitting and slapping. While these may be minor to the common unaffected persons, they have a greater impact on the victims at the emotional level that the physical levels. These acts tend to escalate to other forms of violence, where incidences of rape, assault, homicide, robbery with violence, arson and suicide among others (Dhs.phila.gov, 2014).
In America, among the African Americans and the Hispanics, violence is quite high according to the records. At the same time the whites also have a remarkably high rate of youth violence, some of which goes unreported or poorly highlighted. Among the African American youths, the rate of homicide is quite high and comes up as the leading cause of death (Ncjrs.gov, 2014). Among the Hispanics, homicide is the second rated among the highest causes of death among the youths.While the juvenile crime rates have reduced, that of violent crimes by the African American youths has been increasing steadily.
Within the state of Michigan, there have been indicative records of youth violence that have put the state on the spot. One of the cities that have been marked with violence perpetrated by the youths is Detroit (Detroitmi.gov, 2014). This is a city and its environs that take the mantle of the most populous within the state of Michigan; it is estimated that the city is home to more than 5.7 million residents. While the city has been at the heart of the financial, cultural and transportation hub of the state, it has experienced major declines over the last several decades. With this much high figures of the population and the same reflected on the state of unemployment, the city of Detroit has experienced some of the most violent crimes leading to urban and society decay. More than two thirds of the murders that have been taking place in Michigan have been in this one city and the environs.While the rate of crime in the state has declined; surprisingly the rate of crime in Detroit has remained high and rising (Detroitmi.gov, 2014). Over the years most of the youths have been involved in the drug trade, gun violence and bootleg empires of crime.
Most of the youths have also been involved in the local gangs Detroit and the gangs are not as highly organized and institutionalized, like in Chicago and Los Angeles, where there is a deep seated problem in juvenile crime (Ncjrs.gov, 2014).There are random gunfire fights that are reported on many occasions and then there are the cold blooded murders that take place quite often. Cases like the Abreeya Brown and Ashley Conaway are quite common, where those that witness the crimes are silenced in the most brutal ways. This was a case, where these two teenage girls witnesses an armed fight in their neighborhood and went to the police to report. Weeks later, the two were found dead, with bullet wounds on their head and buried in shallow graves. Most of the cases have also been found to be personal, where close relatives and neighbors shoot each other, or commit horrible crimes that lead to death, with a huge number of them involving the youth.
In the past, there have been attempts to bring the rise in crime under full control, some of which have had great success. This project does not aim at diluting the efforts that have been made before, rather it aims at borrowing from the best practices and coming up with a multi-faceted approach to help the youths of Detroit stand against crime and become self-reliant now and in the future. Lack of employment, poor social accountability and a general culture of delinquent behavior have been cited as the most common breeding grounds for juvenile crime (Fantz, 2014). To capture the essence of reducing the crime rates among the youths in Detroit, the project will involve several tiers that will be incorporated. One of the aspects of the project will involve media campaigns aimed at sensitizing the youths on the dangers of getting involved in crime, how they can get help and benefits of reforming to them and the society (, 2014). The program will also bring in the early intervention program that will be tied with identification, educational and behavioral change program. These three tiers will work together to ensure that there is a lasting solution to the problem that now seems systemic (Detroitmi.gov, 2014).
Statement of Need
As the youths become more dissolution about the economic status, the rate of crime is increasing at an ever rapid rate. Most of the youths also happen to have social issues that need attention. In the last few years, there have been an escalation of school shootings and the end does not seem near. This project is aimed at alleviating the issue of youth violence and gangs on the streets of Detroit, one of the cities that have seen some of the most gruesome incidences of violence perpetrated by youths.
Project goals and objectives
To identify delinquent youths within the city of Detroit
Educate the youths across the city on social ills within the city of Detroit
Educate the youths on ways to establish economic sustainable projects in Detroit and its environs
Reduce the rate of crime in the city
Involve all the stakeholders in Detroit on the fight against...