On September 28, 2015, Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates and Assistant Attorney General Karol V. Mason of the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) announced five new sites in the Violence Reduction Network (VRN). The network is a comprehensive program to deliver strategic, intensive training and technical assistance in an all-hands approach to reduce violent crime in communities nationwide. The new sites are Little Rock, AR; West Memphis, AR; Compton, CA; Flint, MI; and Newark, NJ.
Launched in 2014, VRN helps communities access a broad array of U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) resources, empowering the federal government to strengthen partnerships with local law enforcement leaders and collaboratively tackle persistent challenges caused by violent crime. The other partnering VRN cities are Oakland/Richmond, CA; Wilmington, DE; Chicago, IL; Detroit, MI; and Camden, NJ.
—Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates
The announcement was made at the second annual Violence Reduction Summit, a 3-day meeting of more than 300 U.S. Attorneys, police chiefs, sheriffs, mayors, local leaders from the 10 VRN cities, and DOJ representatives. Held in Detroit, the summit featured working sessions analyzing the cities’ violence reduction challenges and discussing the variety of DOJ resources available to address the issues.
Representatives of DOJ’s federal law enforcement agenciesthe Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Drug Enforcement Administration; and the United States Marshals Servicewere on hand to discuss opportunities to access federal law enforcement resources.
Chyrl Jones, Deputy Administrator for Programs at OJJDP, joined other officials from DOJ—the Community Oriented Policing Services Office, the Office on Violence Against Women, and OJP’s Bureau of Justice Assistance and Office for Victims of Crime—to provide an overview of how DOJ programs, publications, and training and technical assistance can support VRN sites as they engage in violence reduction efforts.
Resources:
Learn more about the Violence Reduction Network.
For more information about OJJDP’s youth violence prevention and anti-gang initiative, visit the Office’s website.
OJJDP’s user-friendly TTA request system may also be accessed online.