December 2004

It is difficult to make large dents in the crime and violence statistics that continue to be fact-of-life conditions in too many urban areas.  The comprehensive strategies needed to do so involve the often-insurmountable obstacles of turf battles and inadequate funding, to name a few.

But, according to preliminary analyses, Philadelphia is implementing a strategy that appears to be contributing to a significant decline in youth violence in certain areas, and to achieving the goal of keeping high-risk youth “alive at 25.”  The strategy, known as Philadelphia’s Youth Violence Reduction Partnership (YVRP), is assessed in a new document, “Alive at 25:  Reducing Youth Violence Through Mentoring and Support”, written by Wendy S. McClanahan and published by Public/Private Ventures. 

Alive at 25 documents the greatly improved violence statistics in the high-crime and economically depressed Philadelphia police districts where YVRP was first implemented.  For example:

• The 25^th District saw a decrease of an average of 2.4 homicides per quarter. Before YVRP there was an average of 5.8 youth homicides per quarter, compared to 3.4 after YVRP.
   
• In the 24^th District, youth homicides were cut in half, from an average of two per quarter before YVRP to one per quarter after YVRP.
   
• The overall rate of homicide reduction was greater in the YVRP districts than the city as a whole.

In addition, the publication details the operation of YVRP, which focuses on youth ages 14-24 with criminal and delinquent histories:  Half of the YVRP participants have been convicted for violent crimes, 85 percent have been convicted or adjudicated on a drug offense, two-thirds have been incarcerated.  In short, YVRP focuses on youth “at greatest risk of killing or being killed.”

YVRP is a collaboration of many agencies and individuals in Philadelphia.  Among them is Philadelphia Safe and Sound, which provides the executive support necessary to ensure agency participation and intra-agency coordination. 

Components of the YVRP model include:

• Identification: through a variety of sources, YVRP seeks to identify those youth ages 10 to 24 who are most at risk on either killing or being killed. Police, probation, and the street workers are key contributors to this process of selecting the “youth partners.”
   
• Increased supervision—Participants and their families are visited dozens of times each month by probation officers, street workers and police – meaning the youth are the beneficiaries of virtually daily contact with various YVRP partners, an unprecedented level of supervision and monitoring.  The visits are geared to making sure the participants stay out of trouble and abide by probation restrictions.  Among other things, probation officers conduct drug tests and have the power to take participants engaging in risky behavior to court, where sanctions like incarceration may be applied.
   
• Increased supports—Probation officers and street workers (street-savvy employees of nonprofit Philadelphia Anti-Drug/Anti-Violence Network) aim to involve the participants in positive supports such as school, job searches or work, community service, drug treatment programs, counseling and organized recreation.  With a strong referral network, street workers and other partners help participants make good decisions and stick with them.
   
• Graduated Sanctions: another core component to deter criminal behavior is the graduated imposition of sanctions that range from area and association restrictions, curfews and hourly reporting requirements to required treatment, electronic monitoring and confinement.
   
• Gun suppression: working with local, state and federal authorities, YVRP intends to implement effective deterrents to both the access and use of firearms by young people.

Alive at 25 cites four main conditions that allowed YVRP to overcome administrative, coordination and funding challenges:

• Strong leadership—The effort has been supported by the city’s leadership, such as Mayor John Street and his predecessor and now Governor Ed Rendell.  Also vital to the effort are the top leaders from the police department, District Attorney’s office and the courts.  Direction at the “ground level”, from probation and other partners, has been key to successful program implementation.
   
• An accountable collaboration—For YVRP to be successful, partner agencies must cooperate fully, for example, share funding and fundraising efforts.  The partners have also put procedures in place that require constant collection and review of data.  Performance and outcome measures help the organization coordinate efforts and assess performance in order to make mid-course corrections.
   
• A commitment to fieldwork and strong links to the neighborhood—Partners must adopt an approach that brings probation, support staff and police together in the neighborhoods where young violent offenders live.
   
• A clear theory of action—YVRP is based on the successful “Boston model.”  And, its formation benefited from the recommendations of the national 2000 Reinventing Probation Council.  A clear course of action was charted from research-based principles.

In conclusion and as stated in Alive at 25, “Unfortunately, many organizations and agencies are reluctant or unable to work with youth who are most at risk, like those in YVRP…initiatives designed to assist this population remain underfunded, and high-risk youth remain underserved.  But crime and violence are at the core of the problems facing urban communities…Philadelphia officials realized that without addressing this situation, they would not only continue to have violence plaguing their neighborhoods but they would be unable to solve many of the city’s other problems.  These officials confronted barriers and challenges head on, putting aside individual and agency turf and dedicating funds to address the issue of youth violence.”