LOS ANGELES, Calif. /California Newswire/ — L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and LAPD Chief Charlie Beck today announced the 2011 results of the City’s Gang Reduction and Youth Development (GRYD) program including a successful 2011 Summer Night Lights (SNL) program resulting in a 35 percent reduction in gang related Part 1 crimes for all SNL sites.
“In 2008, we changed the face of gang prevention and intervention in this city and launched the Gang Reduction and Youth Development Program,” Mayor Villaraigosa said. “GRYD’s comprehensive strategy represents a sea change in the way we reduce gang violence. Today, the Summer Night Lights has become a crowning achievement of these efforts and a source of pride in some of our most crime-ridden communities.”
The Mayor’s Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development is an initiative to prevent at-risk youth from joining gangs. It intervenes with gang members to help them safely leave the gang life and responds to gang-related crisis situations across the City. Twelve geographic zones—areas with the highest levels of gang violence—are targeted for prevention and intervention services.
The highly innovative GRYD program is designed to prevent and reduce gang violence using research driven tools, law enforcement, and family-focused psychological theories. The comprehensive gang violence reduction strategy has drawn national attention.
“The GRYD program is the cornerstone of our gang crime reduction efforts,” said Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck. “If we are to see a significant decrease in gang crime here in Los Angeles in 2012, GRYD will play a pivotal role. GRYD is a model program that combines gang intervention with youth development, in an effort to reduce gang crime and create healthy communities here in LA.”
GRYD partners with the LAPD on several intervention program and activities that builds bridges between the community and law enforcement. In addition, GRYD in collaboration with the Advancement Project oversees LAVITA, the first comprehensive gang intervention academy in the country which provides certification for gang intervention workers.
The Mayor and Chief Beck recently released the City’s 2011 year-end crime statistics showing that overall gang crime dropped 15.2% representing a reduction of nearly 843 gang crimes last year. The LAPD also reported a 9.4% reduction in gang-related shots fired. Violent crime and property crime were also reduced across Los Angeles for the ninth consecutive year.
As part of GRYD’s comprehensive strategy, Summer Night Lights (SNL) keeps City parks open until midnight from Fourth of July weekend through Labor Day weekend. For these nine weeks, SNL provides extended and expanded programming between the hours of 7 PM to midnight, activities for at-risk youth and their families, job opportunities, and a safe place to spend the summer evenings at 32 recreation centers and parks in and around the City’s GRYD zones.
Communities around SNL parks experienced a 35% reduction in gang-related part 1 crime for all SNL locations combined, 35% reduction in gang-related homicides, 43% reduction in aggravated assaults and 55% reduction in shots fired. This past summer, an estimated 774,800 visits were made to the 32 SNL sites combined, an increase of 64,800 visits from 2010. A total of 484,250 meals were served throughout the program at all SNL sites combined.
In addition, over 1,600 jobs were made available in the summer through SNL including 320 Youth Squad members.
