October 23, 2006

Trenton (NJ) Mayor Douglas H. Palmer’s approach to addressing guns and gangs is focused, strategic, and innovative, integrating enforcement and social service innovations into a comprehensive plan. Palmer is currently Vice President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Among the components are the following:

Trenton’s Police Director Joseph Santiago has made gun and gang violence the department’s highest priority. The resulting Regional Violent Crime Interdiction Task Force has taken the leadership of nine violent gangs off the streets and seized more than 400 guns in the past 18 months.

The Trenton city council passed a Street Gang Loitering Ordinance – second only to Chicago in having taken this step to remove known, drug dealing gang members from street corners.

The city is establishing police precinct stations in every ward, to elevate police presence and reinforce strong ties with neighborhoods.

Trenton’s holistic youth development program, SCOOP, counters gangs by putting nearly every kind of recreation, education and enrichment program imaginable within easy reach of children in every neighborhood after school and on Saturdays.

To bring the authority of the mayor’s office to bear directly on these issues, Palmer hired a 29-year veteran law enforcement professional to serve as Special Assistant and head of the Mayor’s Office of Anti-Gang Initiatives and Youth Development.

The Police Director’s Greater Trenton Safer Cities Initiative, in conjunction with the Rutgers Police Institute, puts research, enforcement, social service, and judicial professionals on the same page to customize regional crime fighting strategies.

The Mayor’s Office of Employment and Training (MOET) was created in March 2006, to provide training and placement services for residents who need help finding employment. In its first five months, MOET placed more than 200 people in jobs, including graduates of two Sherwin Williams Paint Company training programs and a technical program for medical assistants and billers and coders.

The city’s anti-truancy program pursues truants, gets them back in school – and has them assessed by a professional child study team. From March through June, the program interviewed and assessed 627 truant children with their parents; only 19 were repeat truants.

The Police ComStat derivative “YouthStat program” brings together representatives of every state, county and city agency involved with youth to identify kids who are headed to the next level of gangs, guns, and drugs, match them with the right intervention, turn them around, and monitor their progress.

The city’s Operation CeaseFire program with neighboring Ewing Township became the first under Governor Jon Corzine’s new budget, which will work to expand this strategy statewide. Cease-Fire, a problem'solving police strategy that has worked in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other cities, is a direct law enforcement attack on illicit firearms traffickers who supply youths with guns. The approach also refuses to tolerate violent behavior by following every legal avenue to prosecute those who engage in gang violence, illegal gun possession, and gun violence – and includes faith-based and social services offering help to those who are willing to redirect their lives.

The city has installed and is monitoring 36 video surveillance cameras in the city to combat drug sales and illegal dumping in known “hot spots.”

This past Spring, Palmer met with U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez at the U.S. Conference of Mayors Gang Summit to press for the federal prosecution of all gun crime offenders in Trenton. Palmer also signed the “Statement of Principles,” joining 15 U.S. mayors to systematically counter gun trafficking and gun crimes in American cities.

Following a Trenton Police study finding that with few exceptions, a person arrested with a gun is out on bail within four days, Palmer is working with the New Jersey Conference of Mayors and the state legislature to create a special Gun Court to place consistent focus and attention on chronic offenders who use guns. The mayor also joined the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ June 2006 resolution calling on Congress to reject legislative proposals that limit our cities’ ability to solve and prevent crime in our communities (including removing restrictions Congress has placed on the availability and use of ATF gun trace data) and collaborated with Philadelphia Mayor John Street to seek Pennsylvania state legislation curbing interstate gun trafficking.

“This approach is evolving, as we consult with specialists nationwide to put in place measures that are essential for effective prevention, intervention, and enforcement,” Palmer said. He noted that each component takes into account the need to address the underlying issues and causes of criminal activity – and to fundamentally change the way our criminal justice system responds to offenders who habitually use guns.

“We do not tolerate violent offenders who use guns,” the mayor told a recent New Jersey League of Municipalities Summit meeting on anti-gang initiatives. “At the same time, we will help those who want to turn their lives around. Those who work on our comprehensive plan for addressing gun and gang issues are dedicated to maximizing public safety and human potential. That’s what drives us.”

For information on Trenton's anti-gang and anti-gun violence comprehensive plan, contact Kent Ashworth, Aide to Mayor Doug Palmer at 609-989-3828.