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Mayor also launches anti-violence public awareness campaign
07/03/08 - Today, joined by community leaders, city department heads, members of law enforcement and national violence prevention experts, Mayor Gavin Newsom released San Francisco’s Violence Prevention Plan at the Omega Boys Club. As part of the release of the plan, Mayor Newsom unveiled the "Alive and Free" public education campaign and summer resource guide. The "Alive & Free" violence prevention model will be adopted as San Francisco’s overarching violence prevention philosophy.
"The Violence Prevention Plan focuses on both the immediate response and long-term solutions to mitigating the problem of violence on our streets," said Mayor Newsom. "The Plan is a blueprint for how we collectively – as a city family and community – come together to transform San Francisco streets and neighborhoods into healthy, safe environments."
The Violence Prevention Plan contains a set of strategies to prevent violence and deal more strategically with factors that contribute to violence. There are five areas of focus of the plan:
- Stronger coordination between city agencies so local government is more capable of addressing violence prevention, particularly social services and law enforcement.
- Improved partnership with community organizations working to achieve violence prevention so they deliver high quality services within a uniform set of standards.
- Greater accountability to achieve concrete, measurable outcomes – both short-term intervention for the most at-risk community members and long-term outcomes in 10 major policy areas: jobs; housing; education; reentry; youth development and empowerment; community transformation; family and senior support; trauma reduction; community policing; and firearms, alcohol and drugs.
- Alignment of city resources to strategically address the "root causes" of violence (both social conditions and individual behaviors).
- A strong citywide violence prevention philosophy and multimedia public education campaign that support effective violence prevention efforts.
The Violence Prevention Plan will be formally implemented today by Mayor Newsom in the executive directive "Implementing San Francisco’s Violence Prevention Plan." The directive calls for the following measures:
- Individual agencies will continue existing efforts while participating in strategic coordination activities.
- A Violence Prevention Advisory Committee will be convened to oversee implementation of the Violence Prevention Plan and jointly develop effective policies and approaches to prevent violence that link human/social services and law enforcement strategies. There will be 10 at-large community seats to ensure participation of affected communities.
- An Interagency Council of city department directors will coordinate the 5 signature initiatives aimed at better serving and transforming vulnerable communities: Communities of Opportunity (C.O.O.), Transitional Age Youth, Hope SF, workforce development efforts, and the Violence Prevention Plan.
- Adoption of the Alive and Free methodology developed at the Omega Boys Club by Dr. Joe Marshall, recognized by the Annie E. Casey Foundation as one of 15 promising national practices for preventing violence, as San Francisco’s uniform philosophy for violence prevention.
"Our goal is to promote the message of Alive and Free with the people and places our young people come in contact with – schools, hospitals, churches, stores, buses, recreation centers," said Dr. Joe Marshall, Founder/Executive Director of the Omega Boys Club and Police Commissioner. "This means out of harm’s way, and free from incarceration."
Additionally, furthering the executive directive issued in 2006 to combat summer violence, the Mayor’s office has been convening the Summer Street Violence Prevention Council in February each year. This year, the Council identified several major activities in five "hot spot" neighborhoods: Mission, Bayview Hunters Point, Western Addition, Visitation Valley, and Tenderloin, which are captured in the "Stay Alive and Free" Summer Resource Guide released today.
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