Minneapolis juvenile crime trends look good, but don’t credit prevention work—yet

Start digging into the Blueprint’s work plan and it's tough to conclude that prevention programs, most of which are less than a year old, are already paying big dividends. Prevention efforts take time. Declaring success after less than a year oversimplifies the work.

Here is what the city’s Web site says: “Recent statistics indicate that the array of prevention programs is beginning to have an impact on violence reduction when coupled with increased law enforcement programs. From January to June 2008, citywide violent crime fell 14 percent compared to 2007.”

An October 3 city media release said juvenile violent crime is down 46 percent compared to 2006. That same day, a Star Tribune news story carried the headline: “Minneapolis ‘blueprint’ to attack youth violence is a success.” The Star Tribune editorial page opined on the Blueprint ten days later, saying: “Violent crime among young people is down significantly in Minneapolis, and at least some credit should go to a city-sponsored community-wide antiviolence effort.”

Here’s the timeline. The city presented the Blueprint January 7. The program coordinator started in April. The implementation plan was completed by May.

How could the Blueprint impact crime in the first six months of 2008, before it was even implemented?

In a Nov. 13 interview, Rybak downplayed prevention’s role. “The significant drop in juvenile crime is, I believe, primarily because of some of the smart enforcement strategies we have used,” he said. “Youth violence prevention will be about keeping juvenile crime down and driving it even further down.”

Knock, knock. Who’s there? The Shiloh Zone Pastor Andre Dukes in front of a map of the Shiloh Zone. The Blueprint for Action: Preventing Youth Violence has some early bright spots and they need to be applauded. Ask city leaders about early successes and Shiloh Zone is on the short list. Shiloh Temple International Ministries, 1201 Broadway Ave., is located in heart of a troubled north side neighborhood. Pastor Andre Dukes said the mayor met with Bishop Richard Howell about youth violence shortly after the Blueprint’s release. They shared their visions and the upshot was the Shiloh Zone, a 100-block area where Temple volunteers would work to reduce violence. The church, partnering with MADDADS door-knocked from 26th Avenue North to Plymouth Avenue, and from Bryant Avenue North to Penn Avenue North. They started June 9 and completed the door-knocking July 21. Church leaders are planning follow-up phone calls and a second round of door-knocking soon. In the first round, they went to 458 homes and made contact with 320 people, trying to find out what they needed and connect them with resources. “We would just go out and hand out ice cream on hot days and develop positive energy throughout the community,” Dukes said. “That was our goal, to push as much positive energy out into the community as we could.” There was a murder a block from the church this year, and other troubles within the Shiloh Zone, he said. But the church is expanding services in response to what it has learned. It is starting a program from women in crisis. It is negotiating with a nonprofit to lease space for a welfare-to-work program. In late October, it started a juvenile diversion program for first- and second-time low-level violent offenders. It’s a collaboration between the church, the city and the Northern Star Council of the Boy Scouts of America. Youth Pastor Broderick Austin facilitates the diversion program. The youth are referred by court or probation. Once up and running, classes will have 10-15 young people, but on a recent night there were four youth and three adults. One boy talked about how he got in a fight because some kid kept kicking his desk. The boy was pretty quiet and it was a brief exchange. But they talked about choices, such as telling the teacher or moving. “We are empowering you with options right now,” Broderick said. “This program is getting rid of your first mistake.”

Increased intervention and law enforcement

The Blueprint includes intervention efforts such as the Juvenile Supervision Center, a joint city-county venture. Police pick up youth for curfew or truancy violations, take them to the Center; and staff connects them with community supports to get them get back on track.

Rybak said 83 percent of youth who go through the Center don’t return. He called it the most successful part of the Blueprint.

Lt. Bryan Schafer, head of the Minneapolis Police Department’s Juvenile Investigative Unit, said the Center is the third most important factor in juvenile crime reduction.

The biggest contribution to reducing juvenile crime was the department’s 2006 decision to recreate the juvenile crime unit, he said. The city didn’t have a juvenile unit from 2003-2006, a time when juvenile crime was among the lowest priorities.

Schaefer said the second most important factor was the department's creation of the Juvenile Criminal Apprehension Team in 2006. Working with U.S. Marshals and probation officers, it focuses on juvenile offenders with outstanding warrants.

About six percent of youth cause 60 percent of the crime, Schafer said. “By focusing on that small group of youth with warrants, “we believed it would have a tremendous impact on crime.”

These law enforcement efforts are not included in the Blueprint.

Mentoring still a start up

What of the “array of prevention programs” in the Blueprint? Some are in their early stages. For instance, the city identified mentoring as one of the Blueprint’s highest priority areas, and that critical work is barely underway.

According to the Blueprint update, the Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota is working to support mentoring programs in targeted neighborhoods. Mentoring Partnership Executive Director Joellen Gonder-Spacek, said start-up work includes identifying what programs exist, how they operate and the supports they need. Discussions about improved mentor recruiting haven't started yet.

Even if new recruiting efforts were well underway, mentoring would not have an immediate impact on crime prevention, academic success, or any of the other mentoring benefits. “You really need at least a year before you can start to see the effect on both the kid and the mentor,” Gonder-Spacek said.

Prevention accomplishments

The city’s October 3 media release announced “tangible progress” on all 34 Blueprint recommendations. It highlighted nine accomplishments. Here are the first four bullets:

• Expanded summer hours and youth programming in city parks;
• Efforts to recruit 50 city employees as Big Brothers/Big Sisters;
• Placing city police in middle schools and high schools to better align violence prevention efforts, and
• Increased funding for home-visiting nurses helping teen parents stay in school and care for their babies.

These initiatives do not seem to add up to immediate crime reductions. For instance, according to the Blueprint’s September update, the city had only recruited 16 of the 50 hoped-for Big Brothers/Big Sisters mentors.

Further, schools have had a contract with the city or park police for years. The city police got the contract back this fall, and impact from that change has yet to play out on crime stats.

Perhaps most important, the city doesn’t have a comprehensive view of prevention programs. Recommendation 1D in the Blueprint says the city should: “Increase the number of high-quality community-based youth programs, services and opportunities.” Yet the city has no way to judge whether the number of opportunities—in sports, arts or community service—are up or down. It lacks data on programs or participation.

Here is the challenge. The Blueprint touts increased public health visits to teen moms. Yet it takes no measure of cuts to Hennepin County child protection funding. What is the net effect on prevention?

The Blueprint points to expanded summer hours at city parks (a modest increase costing less than $50,000). Meanwhile the Blueprint takes no notice that the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board has lost 20 to 22 recreation staff during the past six to seven years because funding hasn’t kept pace with expenses.

It’s a huge task to monitor public and nonprofit prevention programs. Yet, if that monitoring is not done, how will the city know if efforts are in fact increasing?

Gretchen Musicant, Commissioner of the Department of Health and Family Support (DHFS), oversees the Blueprint and said the city needs a better accounting of supports for youth and families.

“We don’t have the numbers,” she said. “That is part of the ongoing work of implementing the Blueprint … stronger and stronger tracking.”

Cause and effect

Do the Blueprint’s prevention efforts deserve at least some credit for the sharp drop in juvenile crime at this early date? Musicant, Schafer and Bass Zanjani, the youth violence prevention coordinator at DHFS, weighed in.

“It is not saying that it is exclusively prevention work that somehow is miraculously doing it,” Zanjani said. “It is augmenting the work that law enforcement is doing.”

Musicant and Schafer were more circumspect.

Musicant said it's good to report when violent crime goes down, but tying it to the prevention work, “is a generous thought.”

Schafer believes people are paying more attention to youth violence. He commended community prevention efforts. But those efforts haven’t taken off yet, he said: “It’s baby steps.”

Scott Russell

Scott Russell (scott@tcdailyplanet.net) wrote for the Southwest Journal and Skyway News (now the Downtown Journal) in Minneapolis from 1999-2005. He also wrote for The Capital Times, a Madison Wisc