Durham County Comprehensive Gang Model

Youth gangs continue to have a significant adverse impact on youth, families, and communities across America. A growing number of communities have adopted OJJDP’s Comprehensive Gang Model, a multistrategy, multidisciplinary approach that has proven to be effective in reducing gang activity. The fiscal year 2016 Comprehensive Antigang Strategies and Programs solicitation provides funding for localities to enhance coordination of federal, state, and local resources in support of community partnerships implementing the following antigang programs: primary prevention, secondary prevention, gang intervention, and targeted gang enforcement.

Durham County implemented the OJJDP Comprehensive Gang Model in 2009, but has experienced a dramatic upsurge in gang-involved violence over the past 3 years. The majority of these violent crimes involve black and Hispanic males ages 16 to 24 as both suspects and victims, and are occurring within two police districts with a high level of accumulated risk factors in multiple domains. As a component of an in-depth assessment of the community's violence problem conducted by OJP’s Diagnostic Center, the city of Durham has been advised to incorporate evidence-based Cure Violence strategies into the community's existing OJJDP Comprehensive Gang Model structure and improve coordination between the Durham Police Department and the community. The target area for this initiative is Durham Police Department districts 1 and 3, covering nine economically distressed census tracts in southeastern Durham. The target population for this initiative is black and Hispanic males ages 16 to 24 who are at high risk of involvement in violent crime (robberies, aggravated assaults, and homicides).
CA/NCF