Safe Schools Initiative • Hennepin County, Minn.
The Safe Schools Initiative is a program bringing together juvenile prosecutors, school administrators, law enforcement officers and other juvenile justice system professionals to address common concerns. The program helps ensure that students throughout the county will have a safe, orderly environment for learning in their schools.
This initiative encompasses two major strategies: more timely and more serious responses to school-related crimes; and strong links between professionals, police and schools.
In 2000, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office received police referrals on more than 11,000 delinquent matters from 21 law enforcement agencies within the county. Of these referrals, approximately 12 percent were school-related.
Prior to this program, the county attorney’s office placed no special emphasis on school-related crimes. However, as a result of the Safe Schools Initiative, prosecutors now are able to ensure an expedited and serious response to all referred crimes on school property.
The county took several steps to speed the processing of cases related to offenses at the county’s schools. Police assigned to schools were instructed to print the words “school crime” in the bottom right-hand corner of their referral cover sheet or citation. County police created a new rotating position, “school crime officer of the day,” who reviews all reports the same day they are received and makes declination, diversion, or charging decisions. And finally, each of the county’s 22 prosecutors has been assigned as a liaison to one or more high schools.
As a result of the program, the number of inadequate police referrals has declined, in part because the role and appropriate use of the formal justice system has become more clear. Another added bonus was that no significant costs were incurred in the design or implementation of this program.
The Fire and Life Safety House • Chesterfield County, Va.
As part of Chesterfield County’s commitment to citizen safety and its goal to be the safest and most secure community of its size in the United States, the county’s Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department embarked on a program to teach citizens, in a more practical way, about fire safety. The result: the Fire and Life Safety House.
This house is an actual mobile structure. It is a place where everyone can learn about home safety in a realistic setting. Each person who enters the Fire and Life Safety House is taught vital life-saving lessons. These include how to crawl in low smoke, how to develop a home escape plan and practice it, and how to make an emergency 911 call.
The program has two parts: an inside-classroom lecture and the outside-classroom practical exercise. The inside-classroom lecture demonstrates smoke detector alarm systems and safe exit strategies.
The outside-classroom exercise puts the students inside the structure in a controlled environment with instructors. The students are taken to the bedrooms, given information about the type of fire detection systems in the house, and then after an alarm sounds are expected to use their classroom training to escape to safety.
Capital cost associated with the construction of the Fire and Life Safety House to the specifications was $34,022, most of which was donated through private contributions. Operating costs for classes conducted in the school system are estimated at $12,000 per year, and this cost was also covered by private donations.
To date 19,877 children and adults have participated in the life-saving training.
