Fighting Juvenile Gun Violence. Juvenile Justice Bulletin

This bulletin describes the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's efforts to fight juvenile gun violence. The Office awarded four community demonstration grants to implement "Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence." Partnership goals include increasing the effectiveness of existing strategies by enhancing and coordinating prevention, intervention, and suppression efforts and strengthening linkages among community residents, law enforcement personnel, and juvenile justice professionals. These programs help reduce youth's illegal access to guns; reduce the incidence of youth carrying guns illegally and committing gun-related crimes; increase youth awareness of the consequences of gun violence; increase community residents' participation in youth violence reduction; and increase and coordinate services and resources for at-risk youth. Three sites developed and implemented seven program strategies: firearms suppression, juvenile justice, communication, positive opportunities, education, public information, and community mobilization. A national evaluation team provided technical assistance and assessment via capacity-building. Lessons learned include: a comprehensive and accurate needs assessment is critical to strategic planning; partnerships should develop a comprehensive plan using the logic model process; and partnerships can use performance data to inform planners as they refine their gun violence strategies. To date, each site has successfully developed a comprehensive plan. (Contains 13 references.) (SM)