Youth Firearms Violence Initiative Case Study

As a result of the high number of crimes being committed by juveniles, with the weapon of choice being guns, in 1995, COPS took action to help selected police departments in the United States with the fight against these crimes; The Youth Firearms Violence Initiative. Ten cities in total were selected to take on this task (Baltimore, Maryland; Birmingham, Alabama; Bridgeport, Connecticut; Cleveland, Ohio; Inglewood, California; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Richmond, Virginia; Salinas, California; San Antonio, Texas; and Seattle, Washington) each eligible to receive “up to $1 million” (Juvenile Justice, 2013) individually, with a total of $10 million collectively. To help the police departments in this fight against gun violence, COPS encouraged the …show more content…
In addition, this unit formed a collaboration with the deputy district attorney and with the probation department. These collaborations benefited the SAGE unit’s operations greatly. As SAGE officers heavily patrolled “the bottoms” they would look for evidence against the gang members, such as loitering, which would make them in violation of a civil court injunction. Therefore, the deputy district attorney could then request a restraining order for the police department and the police department would then be able to take these gang members into custody, instead of waiting for criminal activity to occur. The second part of this collaboration is equally as important to the success of the SAGE team’s tasks. With the help of a deputy probation officer, the officers were able to implement “Knock and Talk”. “Knock and Talk” consisted at first of a deputy probation officer riding around with a SAGE officer. They would go to probationer’s place of residence and search for guns. After a time, the deputy probation officer’s position became institutionalized and they were able to conduct the work on their own, with the support of the police