Youth Focused Policing
Youth Focused Policing (YFP) is a proactive strategy to enable police to intervene with youth to reduce delinquency, crime, victimization, long-term health and criminal justice costs and prolonged involvement in the juvenile and criminal justice systems.
About Youth Focused Policing
IACP, in partnership with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, launched the Youth Focused Policing Online Resource Center in October 2011. The YFP Resource Center provides law enforcement with:
- information and resources relating to youth crime, delinquency and victimization
- information on IACP’s projects and resources
- an online guide to evaluating law enforcement youth program(s)
Program Impact Tools
Why Should You Evaluate the Impact of Youth Programs?
Evaluation is an important step in the development and improvement of law enforcement youth programs. Since many departments have limited budgets, it is beneficial to know whether or not resources are being allocated to programs that are effective in reducing and preventing juvenile crime, delinquency, and victimization. To assess the impact of youth programs in your department, it is essential to identify key features of the program, including specific goals, objectives, and activities. The steps outlined in this section will enable you to determine the program’s effectiveness on achieving your intended goals—data that can be used in reports within your department or to showcase your youth program externally, to your city or partner agencies. Collecting program data and demonstrating the impact of your program can prove valuable if your department seeks funding opportunities to support youth programs and services.
How Do You Measure the Impact of Your Youth Program?
Evaluation Steps: You can apply the eight step evaluation process by identifying your program type, problems, goals, objectives, activities, output data, and outcome measures. Capturing this information will enable you to assess the impact of your program on its intended goals. Click here to learn more.
How Can IACP Help?
IACP has developed several tools for law enforcement departments to help evaluate youth programs and services. These tools will enable you to apply the eight evaluation steps to your department’s youth program.
- Sample Youth Program Evaluations: View some sample evaluation plans for various law enforcement youth programs. You can tweak these samples to create your own plan for measuring the impact of your program(s).
- Program Impact Template: This template can help you organize your ideas to guide you through the evaluation process. Use the blank program template to start measuring the impact of your youth programs today!
Questions? For additional assistance in using IACP’s impact evaluation tools, contact us at iacpyouth@theiacp.org or call 1-800-THE-IACP x 831.
Children Exposed to Violence
Why is this topic important to law enforcement?
A 2008 national survey revealed that, in the previous year, 60% of children and adolescents reported at least one victimization, 46.3% experienced a physical assault, 25.3% witnessed violence, 9.8% witnessed intra-family assault, 10.2% were subjected to child maltreatment, 10.2% experienced a victimization-related injury, and 6.1% experienced sexual victimization. Children who are witnesses to or victims of violence are at risk of suffering severe consequences. They are at greater risk as victims and offenders of higher physical aggression, delinquency and violent behavior in adolescence. In 2010, it was estimated that 3.3 million allegations of child maltreatment were reported to child protective service agencies, involving approximately 6 million children.
Violence interrupts a child’s experience of safety and care, and fills it with danger, overwhelming stimulation, and helplessness. Law enforcement are the leading first responders to violent and catastrophic events that affect children’s lives and are uniquely positioned to identify and intervene with CEV more quickly than any other profession. They can benefit greatly from increased knowledge of trauma-informed response and assisting children and families exposed to violent or traumatic events.
IACP’s Enhancing Law Enforcement Response to Children Exposed to Violence Initiative
With the support of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, IACP launched the Enhancing Law Enforcement Response to Children Exposed to Violence project in October 2012. This project focuses on increasing the understanding of CEV among law enforcement leaders and officers. In partnership with the Yale University Child Study Center, IACP will provide law enforcement professionals with resources and tools to effectively identify and respond to violent events involving children.
Enhancing Law Enforcement Response to Children Exposed to Violence and Childhood Trauma
Related Resources
This project is supported by Cooperative Agreement No. 2012-CV-BX-K056 awarded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions contained herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific agencies, companies, products, or services should not be considered an endorsement by the author(s) or the U.S. Department of Justice. Rather, the references are illustrations to supplement discussion of the issues.
i Finkelhor, D., Ormrod, R. K., Turner, H. A. (2009). Lifetime assessment of poly-victimization in a national sample of children and youth. Child Abuse & Neglect, 33(7), 403-411.
ii Jenkins, E., & Bell , C. (1997). Exposure and response to community violence among children and adolescents. In J. Osofsky (Ed.), Children in a Violent Society. New York: Guilford Press.
iii U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families Children’s Bureau. (2011). Child Maltreatment 2010. Retrieved August 14, 2012
