Suffolk County Gang Program

OJJDP’s gang and youth violence prevention strategy is based on the recognition that preventing and reducing gang crime and violence require a shared framework of strategic and coordinated delivery of programs, services, and practices across multiple sectors that balance community development, prevention, intervention, and targeted suppression and enforcement. The OJJDP FY 2018 Gang Suppression: A Law Enforcement and Prosecutorial Approach To Address Gang Recruitment of Unaccompanied Alien Children program is designed to reduce violent crime, gangs (specifically transnational gangs), and victimization and promote public safety through implementation support for eligible communities that demonstrate their readiness to put a comprehensive strategic plan into action, based on a multilateral data-driven strategy.

The Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) will use the OJJDP Comprehensive Gang Model as the guiding force in its program implementation efforts. The areas outlined in the model require significant collaboration with other agencies and partners, which SCSO incorporated into its enforcement model. For this implementation initiative, SCSO will focus on the communities of Brentwood and Central Islip, which are located in Suffolk County, New York, on Long Island. SCSO will implement a multifaceted strategy designed to address the unique and demonstrated gang crime and youth violence landscape in these two communities, in collaboration with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The overall goal of the project is to stop gang violence and increase public safety by implementing a data-driven, evidence-based, multiagency, and multilayered program of prevention, suppression, intervention, and enforcement designed to provide support to unaccompanied alien children. Support will be provided by offering the tools needed to avoid gang involvement, deter gang violence and recruitment, and provide youth with opportunities and support so they may be turned away from gangs and toward a productive life. SCSO will develop and implement a customized gang suppression strategy to support these community stakeholders in their efforts to address the gang and youth violence that is prevalent in their communities, as well as to build on the relationships and initiatives already implemented through their Project Safe Neighborhoods and Gun Involved Violence Elimination programs. SCSO was awarded a Project Safe Neighborhoods grant in 2017 and has been working with a research partner to analyze the crime in Suffolk County. This initiative will build on this analysis to fully address the issues in Brentwood and Central Islip to ensure that suppression efforts are directed in the most effective way. Information-sharing protocols will be established between jurisdictions and agencies regarding unaccompanied alien children and their gang affiliations. Increased collaboration between law enforcement, prosecutors, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office is fundamental to their strategy in an effort to enhance gang suppression strategies, to include the ever-changing nature of gangs, gang structure, and behaviors.

CA/NCF