Community Partners: ‘Doing Doors’ as a Community Crime Prevention Strategy

Abstract

Research shows that strengthening social networks in neighborhoods is key to addressing the social disorder that breeds crime. However, citizen involvement in crime prevention partnerships presents a challenge in high crime areas. The use of intermediaries as an organized strategy to work with residents, law enforcement, and various community agencies and organizations has been introduced as a way to mitigate the problems of mobilizing urban dwellers and as a means to bridge the gap between the interests of the various constituents. The Community Partners Program is a community organizing and outreach initiative that uses intermediaries ‘doing doors’ as its primary approach. This paper will present the findings from interviews with 22 Community Partners working in targeted, high crime urban neighborhoods. The roles, perceptions, and experiences of these ‘Partners’ are described in detail. The findings suggest that using intermediaries may be a promising strategy for crime prevention partnerships.

Keywords:

• Community Partners
• Community Organizing
• Crime Prevention
• Crime Prevention Partnerships

Notes

[1] The Weed and Seed Program, sponsored by the Department of Justice, was piloted in 36 cities across the country. The Program involves an effort to both arrest and prosecute criminal offenders (weeding) and to develop services and resources to reduce risk factors associated with crime (seeding) (Conly & McGillis, 1996, p. 24). Milwaukee was awarded a federal grant in the early 1990s to implement a pilot Weed and Seed Initiative in three areas in the city.

[2] The neighborhoods were selected because they have been plagued by a variety of social problems, including the highest percentage of unemployment in the city, the greatest incidence of reported child abuse and neglect, the highest rate of teen pregnancy, prolific street gang activity, and widespread availability of guns and drugs (Zevitz, 2002, p. 128).

[3] The Lopez family was a violent drug ring terrorizing residents in an eight block neighborhood on the Southside of Milwaukee. The family owned a chrome plating business (where over 1 million dollars was laundered), more than a dozen houses and apartments, two dozen cars, and an arsenal of 46 weapons (McBride, 2001).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mary Ann Farkas

Mary Ann Farkas is an associate professor of criminology and law studies at Marquette University. She has coauthored the books The Dilemma of the Sexual Offender with George Palermo and Correctional Leadership. A Cultural Perspective with Stan Stojkovic. She has published numerous articles and chapters on correctional work, sex offender laws, policies, and practices, and women and the criminal justice system. Her work has appeared in such journals as the Criminal Justice Review, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Journal of Criminal Justice, Journal of Criminal Justice Education, and Women and Criminal Justice. Her present research explores the experiences of family members of convicted sex offenders.

Richard S. Jones

Richard S. Jones is an associate professor of sociology at Marquette University. He has conducted a number of ethnographic projects on constructed social worlds, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between social world membership and identity. His recent research on the male and female prison experience, as well as the problems of re‐entry has been published in The Prison Journal, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, Perspectives on Social Problems, Women and Criminal Justice, Symbolic Interactions, and the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. His book Doing Time: Prison Experience and Identity with Thomas Schmid was published in 2000 (JAI Press).