Juvenile and Neighborhood Safe Program

The Juvenile and Neighborhood Safe Program is a threefold program designed to address issues of school safety, truancy, and youth gang activity in Jackson, Tennessee. Over the past several years the City of Jackson has seen an increase in criminal offenses reported to police, an increase in high school suspensions, lower graduation rates, truancy, juvenile arrests, and criminal charges. The City of Jackson Safe Neighborhoods Task Force recently submitted its final report to the Mayor with a series of 54 recommendations. This project seeks to address several of the Task Force recommendations. This project includes a school resource officer for three targeted high schools, a truancy case manager, and the addition of a youth gang law enforcement officer. The target population is primarily high school and middle school youth in grades 7-12. School suspensions, perception of school safety, school attendance, drug use, arrests, charges, and recidivism among targeted youth will be tracked and used to measure project success. NCA/NCF