Youth Gang Prevention and Intervention Program

Youth gangs continue to have a significant adverse impact on youth, families, and communities across America. A growing number of communities have adopted multi-strategy, multi-disciplinary approaches to reducing and preventing gang activity. The OJJDP FY 2010 Youth Gang Prevention and Intervention Program provides funding for localities to replicate selected secondary gang prevention and intervention programs that are considered promising or effective. These programs must be a part of an existing community based comprehensive anti-gang initiative. This program is authorized by the Department of Justice Appropriations Act, 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-117.

The City of Norwalk, CT will build on its community-based anti-gang initiative including its experience in successfully establishing the Norwalk Juvenile Review Board (JRB) through a 2008 Gang Prevention Coordination Assistance Program grant from OJJDP and implementing the Gang Prevention Assistance Mentoring Program through an OJJDP grant in 2009. The City's Youth Services Bureau will replicate the Aggression Replacement Training (ART) Program due to the number of youth we see through the JRB and Gang Prevention programs who display anger and aggressive behavior. ART will complement the existing Gang Prevention programs by providing a needed service.The target population for ART will be youth ages 10-17 who demonstrate characteristics that could lead to gang involvement. The project goal is to reduce the impact of youth gangs in Norwalk. The objectives are to reduce delinquency and gang activity; improve coordination, planning, and development; improve prevention/intervention program activities by enrolling 260 youth in Aggression Replacement Training and reduce violent gang-related incidents in the target area. Staff will conduct an evaluation of quantitative, qualitative, and process outcomes at both project midpoint and project end. The evaluation will be based on the performance measures as well as the program objectives.
CA/NCF