As part of its continuing effort to enhance the safety and security of communities throughout the United States and the world, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), in partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and a broad-based group of private sector/law enforcement professionals, released a comprehensive report entitled: Building Private Security/Public Policing Partnerships to Prevent and Respond to Terrorism and Public Disorder. 

The 38-page report outlines a national strategy to strengthen existing partnerships between private security and public law enforcement agencies and to assist in the creation of new ones. The report is the outgrowth of a national policy summit on this issue.

In May 2009, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), in collaboration with the Bureau of Justice Assistance of the U.S. Department of Justice, JEHT Foundation, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the Department of Health and Human Services hosted a National Policy Summit on Building Safer Communities: Improving Police Response to Persons with Mental Illness.

The goal of the summit was to begin a dialogue resulting in recommendations for local, state, federal, and tribal organizations that will improve the safety of community members and law enforcement officers when responding to crisis calls involving a person with mental illness. These recommendations are intended to reduce trauma, injury, or death during mental health crisis calls and to promote dialogue between law enforcement, community providers, and partners that will sustain short and long term improvement in crisis call response, treatment, and recovery around the United States.

Child maltreatment is epidemic in our nation. Abuse and neglect are indiscriminate, affecting children of families across all income levels and from all races and ethnic groups. Three children die each day as a result of abuse and neglect by those entrusted to care for them, and 38% of those that die are less than a year old. Close to three million reports of abuse and neglect are received each year by child protective services of which nearly two-thirds are accepted for investigation. Yet, current research suggests that only a minority of child victims is brought to the attention of child protection services. A tragedy in itself, child maltreatment too often sets the stage for still other tragic consequences. The destructive impacts of child abuse and neglect ripple out from its immediate victims to affect profoundly the health and safety of all our citizens and communities.

The causes and effects of child maltreatment are complex and intertwined while the systems traditionally expected to respond to them are fragmented and increasingly overburdened. The partners sponsoring this Summit recognize that only sustained collaborative efforts to engage communities in partnership with justice, child protection, physical/behavioral health, and education systems can significantly reduce child maltreatment.

Summit participants recommended approaches to protecting our children that are child focused, community-based and integrated across many disciplines.

Law enforcement executives and intelligence experts from across the country who met at the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Criminal Intelligence Sharing Summit held in Alexandria, Virginia, March 7-8, 2002 came to a similar conclusion, and their proposal aligns itself well with the President’s initiative. Participants engaged the issues through discussions on the capacities for and barriers to intelligence sharing, the standards and guidelines that direct intelligence sharing, technology and training related to intelligence sharing, and important legal and civil rights that must guide all criminal intelligence gathering and sharing processes. Discussions also focused on the unique potential for community oriented policing initiatives to aid in the gathering of locally driven intelligence. Summit participants articulated a vision in which non-federal agencies are more than adjuncts to a national strategy for improved intelligence communication, but founding partners of any organization – and leading participants in any process – that helps coordinate the collection, analysis, dissemination and use of criminal intelligence data in the U.S.

This summary provides an overview of the details of their proposal.

In this report, participants in the Law Enforcement Summit on Going Dark detail the technological and legal landscape surrounding the issue of Going Dark, they define the barriers to access faced by law iv enforcement every day, and they outline the key ideas that their law enforcement peers should know when discussing the issue of Going Dark. They also outline seven concise recommended strategies and action steps necessary to move law enforcement and industry toward a balanced approach to 21st Century public safety, data and privacy.

Advancements in forensic DNA analysis continue to have a tremendous impact on the criminal justice system. The positive side of this revolution is that it offers enhanced opportunities to convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent. For example, new DNA technologies permit the analysis of smaller and different kinds of biological samples than was possible just a few years ago. However, to realize the full potential of DNA in criminal cases, substantial challenges must be overcome. Perhaps those with the most valuable perspective on these challenges are crime victims whose cases involve in DNA evidence. On February 13, 2003, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime and Office on Violence Against Women, sponsored a gathering titled DNA, Victims and the Criminal Justice System: A Roundtable Discussion. At the roundtable, victims, victim advocates, crime lab specialists, and members of the law enforcement and legal professions identified some of those challenges and proposed steps to solve them. The roundtable was held as a ‘pre-summit’ event to inform and help design the full summit (Volume I).

Too many American children witness violence in their communities and homes. Too many of these children are physically abused themselves. Routine exposure to the violence that pervades our culture is damaging to children. Witnessing family violence is particularly traumatic for children and youth. Child witnesses of family violence are at higher risk for substance abuse, failure in school, and, for boys, aggressive behavior, and for girls, depression. These behaviors can later contribute to violence against future partners and others in their families and communities.

In April of 1997, the International Association of Chiefs of Police convened a body of influential policymakers and practitioners to appraise the state of current policy and practice and to develop innovative strategies to help communities break the intergenerational cycle of family violence. Participants brought wide-ranging knowledge and perspectives on current policies, practices, and resource requirements to the Summit.

Two categories of recommendations emerged from the Summit, 43 recommendations in all.

• Establish a clear vision and meaningful missions. Vision statements describe the future that we would like to actualize. Mission statements clarify what we are committed to do to move closer to that vision. Agencies, groups of agencies, organizations and systems that plan and deliver services to children who witness family violence must have a cohesive vision of the future and a roadmap to move toward that vision. Recommendations from this summit can serve as a foundation for both vision and mission statements.
  
   
• Establish multidisciplinary and interagency policy and planning arrangements. All summit work groups stressed the critical importance of establishing and maintaining policy planning and service delivery systems that are multidisciplinary and interagency. These systems should include representatives of public and private agencies, as well as business leaders, victim advocates, police officers, and private citizens.
  
   
• Clarify roles, responsibilities and lines of communication among high level policy- and decision-makers. Successful collaboration depends upon clarifying the authority and responsibilities of all high level policy- and decision-makers, both at agency and individual staff levels. Agency missions, organizational structures, job descriptions, and policies regarding decisionmaking and information-sharing must be carefully defined to provide a basis for effective communication and ongoing cooperation in the effort to reduce family violence and its impact.
  
   
• Promote consistency in decisionmaking policies, procedures and criteria. Decision-makers must develop a common language and consistent criteria for making choices about victims and perpetrators of family violence. Choices ranging from arrest to referrals will benefit from ollaborative, community-based planning. Clarified statutes, policies, and procedures will enhance consistency.
  
   
• Nurture community involvement and empowerment in strategy development. To reduce family violence and its impact on children, key players in local communities must be involved in developing and implementing prevention strategies. With the ongoing participation of grass-roots community activists, church groups, youth groups, and other key players, a community can work toward long-term solutions rather than invest in simplistic quick fixes to this complex social problem. Locally based policymaking can also be more culturally sensitive and consider differences between urban and rural jurisdictions.
  
   
• Pool monetary and other resources to accomplish shared goals. Collaborative planning and policy development will present an opportunity to look beyond the confines of agency budgets and to develop strategies to make optimal use of all available resources. Since resources are not likely to ever be sufficient to fully meet identified needs, prevention and intervention goals are most likely to be attained through comprehensive interagency resource allocation. Directors of victim advocate agencies, judges, prosecutors, police chiefs, hospital administrators, and the heads of community service organizations can work together to plan resource sharing.
  
   
• Integrate family violence victims and witnesses databases. To eliminate duplication of information-gathering and assessment functions and to promote consistency of responses to victims, agencies should integrate information systems and share appropriate information about clients in a way that doesn't compromise victim safety. This requires that protocols for screening and assessment of children who witness family violence, and their families, be comprehensive in scope and consistent in format across agencies. Protocols for access to such systems must balance privacy and confidentiality considerations with system efficiency and response goals.
  
   
• Consolidate and share knowledge on critical issues and effective practices. Mechanisms should be established to enable policymakers and practitioners to share information on the incidence and nature of family violence and its impacts on children, as well as on effective prevention and intervention approaches. Model public education and professional training curricula should also be widely disseminated.
  
   

CLARIFY AND UNIFY STATUTES, POLICIES AND PROTOCOLS

• Redefine child abuse to include witnessing family violence. To raise public and professional awareness of the traumatic impacts of exposure to family violence on children, child abuse should be redefined to include witnessing family violence. It is important to clarify that the perpetrator of domestic or family violence alone is the abuser of child witnesses.
  
   
• Develop guidelines to encourage appropriate and consistent responses to family violence incidents where children are present. Agencies called to respond to family violence incidents must consistent in their treatment of child witnesses, particularly first-responding police officers to 911 calls. Consistency of policies, procedures and intervention approaches should grow out of locally based collaborative planning across traditional agency boundaries. National guidelines can suggest general intervention approaches based on knowledge of effective practices, while leaving room for local creativity and fine-tuning.
  
   
• Preserve the family by placing children with the non-abusive parent. To serve the best interest of children, most child welfare agencies are committed to supporting and enabling family preservation. Children who witness family violence should not be further traumatized by unnecessarily removing them from non-offending parents. Domestic violence advocates recommend that, when possible, the offending parent be removed from the home. When not possible, the battered partner and children should be placed together in a safe environment. Substitute care should be used only as a last resort, when the non-offending parent is unable or unwilling to care for the children.
  
   
• Establish national guidelines for reporting children who witness family violence incidents. Mandatory or other guidelines for reporting of children who witness family violence is needed. Policy makers must be aware that the practice could have unintended negative consequences. In particular, it might reduce the willingness of victims and child witnesses to disclose family violence information to health care, school and social service personnel. The Family Violence Prevention Fund has developed a prototype state statute that outlines a "permissive" or voluntary reporting standard that could serve as a model for developing reporting policies for children who witness family violence.
  
   
• Prohibit consideration of victims' battering for their health, disability or life insurance eligibility. Neither battered victims of family violence nor child witnesses should be denied insurance coverage solely because of their status as abused or formerly victimized persons. Federal and state statutes should prohibit this form of discrimination.
  
   

AUGMENT TRAINING OF SERVICE PROVIDERS

• Ensure that police and family violence professionals receive comprehensive training to identify, assess, and refer children who witness family violence. Professionals who should be trained include all first responders?law enforcement, fire department and EMT workers; religious leaders; teachers and other school personnel; child care workers; health care providers; social service providers?mental health, pastoral care, substance abuse, domestic violence, child welfare and public assistance workers and volunteers; prosecutors; defense attorneys; and judges. Training should be tailored to local contexts, taking into account community values and available resources.
  
   
• Ensure that first responders receive training in empathy, child development issues and interpersonal and support skills. A supportive response increases the likelihood that victims and children will be willing to talk openly to first responders. Training in empathy, and interpersonal and support skills is crucial.
  
   
• Foster interagency, multi-disciplinary training. To implement consistent policies and practices, to foster mutual trust and respect, and to establish ongoing communication, professionals from various agencies should collaboratively design and utilize training opportunities. New Haven's Child Development-Community Policing program is a promising example of cross-disciplinary training designed to promote effective intervention in family violence by teams of community policing officers and mental health professionals.
  
   
• Continually update pre-service, in-service, and continuing education curricula. Because knowledge about family violence and its impacts on child witnesses is continually expanding, training of professionals and volunteers who work with them must be continuous and constantly updated. 
  
   

ENHANCE PUBLIC AWARENESS

• Focus attention on the traumatic impact of family violence on children who witness and the long-range implications for public safety. The importance of heightening public awareness of the seriousness of this problem is often overlooked. Citizens are more likely to be motivated to take positive actions to reduce family violence and intervene with victims if they understand the link between family violence and community well-being.
  
   
• Ensure that information provided to the public is credible, consistent, understandable, and culturally relevant. Facts about family violence and its impacts on children should be clearly and accurately presented. The format and timing of messages should be tailored to target audiences and local contexts. Agencies should coordinate public information efforts to maximize cost-effectiveness.
  
   
• Reassure children and youth that they are not to blame for violence in their families and that support is available from a variety of sources. Employ age-appropriate media. Messages for children can be communicated via comic books, cereal boxes, television advertising during children's programming, posters in schools, and palm cards. Children inherently attribute family unhappiness to aspects of themselves that adults have described as mad or misbehaving. Children often blame themselves for divorce, parental strife, and sibling unhappiness.
  
   
• Encourage hospitals and health care providers to supply information about children who witness family violence at health fairs, at public forums, and through other public education opportunities. Health care professionals should use their credibility and influence with community members to promote awareness of and responsiveness to the issues of family violence and children's exposure to it.
  
   
• Ensure that law enforcement and justice system professionals maximize opportunities to speak out about the impacts of family violence on children. Police officers, prosecutors ,and judges make presentations to schools, community groups, and business associations on a variety of topics. They can help direct public attention and galvanize community action on issues of family violence and its traumatic impacts on child witnesses. 
  
   
• Urge the media to provide thoughtful and accurate news coverage, as well as public service and educational messages. Policymakers and practitioners who work with family violence victims must educate members of the media who report on these incidents. The media (TV, newspapers, and radio) should be discouraged from sensationalizing or exploiting family violence incidents, and encouraged to protect the privacy and dignity of all victims, particularly child witnesses.
  
   

IMPROVE PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT AND OUTCOME EVALUATION

• Compile baseline information on the rates of children who witness family violence. To determine whether prevention and intervention efforts are reducing incidence of children who witness family violence, the current baseline incidence must be documented by each community, county, and/or state. This will require standardization of reporting protocols by law enforcement and other first responders.
  
   
• Design agency information systems to support both case management and program evaluation. Information systems should be designed to provide case managers with essential information on individual clients and families and to provide data for program outcome measurement.
  
   
• Ensure that performance measures focus on outcomes, not simply on program activity levels. It is not enough to document the volume of families or child witnesses served, or the number of activities performed with or for them. Agencies must define programs in measurable outcome terms and document the extent to which intended impacts are achieved.
  
   
• Ensure that performance measures are culturally sensitive. Outcome measures should be developed, reviewed, and approved by a team of individuals representative of the cultural-ethnic backgrounds of the target populations.
  
   
• Design performance measures to reveal positive definitions of success as well as reductions in negative outcomes. It is certainly desirable to measure reductions in the incidence of children who witness family violence. Many other outcomes of prevention and intervention strategies can and should be measured, such as increases in stability of families, enhanced quality of interactions between parent and child, and/or increased availability of social support resources for parents and children.
  
   
• Distinguish between short-term objectives and long-range goals when designing program monitoring and evaluation strategies. It may take a relatively long time in some communities to achieve a significant reduction in family violence, and thus a reduction in the incidence of children who witness it. Accordingly, it is important to define shorter-range interim indicators to permit a community or jurisdiction to assess whether it is moving in desired directions.
  
   
• Undertake research to document the impacts of witnessing family violence on children and youth. Although some excellent research has already been conducted in this area, many unanswered questions remain. It is particularly important to separately document the impacts on children who witness violence in the media, in their communities, and in their families. Enhanced understanding of the full range of risk and protective factors that affect children of violent families will contribute to development of more effective prevention and intervention strategies.
  
   
• Establish and maintain collaborative links between practitioners and researchers to ensure that evaluations are user-friendly. Researchers should work closely with practitioners to ensure that research designs and analyses of information are understandable and provide useful information useful for policy and practice.
  
   

PREVENTION AND INTERVENTION RECOMMENDATIONS

To expand the continuum of effective services community organizations and public agencies are urged to do the following:

• Strengthen the family through an array of programs that include the following:
  • Comprehensive prenatal care for expectant mothers, to help ensure healthy babies and support women to become competent, nurturing parents, and home visitation for new parents, to enable public health nurses, early interventionists, or public health trainers to assess family violence risk factors and initiate long-term supportive services for high-risk families.
    
     
  • Parenting skills training, which can be offered in many settings, including schools, community-based family resource centers, and health care facilities.
    
     
  • Family skills training, to enhance interpersonal communication, conflict resolution, and time management skills. This "family coaching" can be particularly effective when offered to families in their homes.
    
     
• Prepare children and youth to deal with the violence in the outside world and give them the skills to solve conflicts constructively. Schools should provide the following:
  • Conflict resolution education through such methods as
    • a process curriculum approach, in which "the principles and processes of conflict resolution are offered as a distinct lesson or course"*
      
       
    • Peer mediation, wherein trained youth work with their peers to resolve conflicts 
      
       
    • Peaceable classroom and peaceable school approaches in which conflict resolution principles are incorporated into core subjects, classroom management strategies, and school policies and practices.
      
       
  • Life skills curricula that focus on topics such as violence prevention, parenting skills, and abusive dating relationships.
    
     
  • Cooperative learning approaches that empower children and youth through peer leadership and collaboration.
    
     
  • Parent education offerings on topics such as the impacts of family conflict and domestic violence on children, conflict resolution, and parenting skills.
    
     
• Ensure that schools and other community-based agencies provide the following:
  • Information to parents and children regarding available support and services for victims and witnesses of family violence. 
    
     
  • Curriculum offerings for children that teach coping skills and safety planning.
    
     
  • Safe environments in which children and youth can talk about concerns and fears regarding family violence and/or abusive dating relationships, and be reassured that they are not to blame if they are a victim or witness.
    
     
  • Referral to appropriate child protective, justice system and/or treatment resources for child witnesses and victims.
    
     
  • Ongoing monitoring and support for child witnesses and family victims.
    
     
• Revamp law enforcement's approach to domestic violence calls that involve children who have been witnesses to violence. Even with current sensitivities to the issue of domestic violence, police responding to 911 calls still do not have sufficient protocols and policies to deal with the children present at these calls. Using a "victim response continuum" model, police must be clear on their mandate to assist the children who witness, providing instant support from officers at the scene, but also setting in motion a series of follow-up actions and visits by professionals in the field of victim services and children's services.
  
   
• Offer safe haven for children of high-conflict or violent families in respite day care centers and "relief nurseries," as well as supportive services to battered parents. Such centers can provide a variety of family strengthening and preservation services, including therapeutic interventions for children, parent education and counseling, and crisis response.
  
   
• Make shelters and affordable housing available for battered parents and their children. Children who witness domestic violence should not be further traumatized by separation from their non-battering parent. All victims and witnesses of family violence should have access to safe emergency housing, including transportation to safe locations as needed.
  
   
• Develop screening protocols for children to enable first responders, including shelter workers, to make appropriate referrals to health care, support groups, and other treatment options. Since all children entering shelters with battered parents have at least witnessed family violence, and perhaps were targets themselves, shelters should systematically assess their needs, and either provide or refer them to appropriate support and intervention services.
  
   
• Arrange for health care screening to identify and refer victims and child witnesses of family violence to appropriate education, treatment, and justice system resources.Health care providers are often the first to notice evidence of family violence, and are thus in a position to ensure that appropriate interventions occur as early as possible, to minimize both physical and emotional damage.
  
   
• Organize multidisciplinary teams to provide specialized mental health and treatment services for appropriate children as needed. Although not all children who witnes domestic violence will require intensive, long-term psychotherapy, assessment systems should identify those for whom specialized treatments are appropriate. Both assessment and treatment services should be provided through multidisciplinary teams of specialists drawn from a wide range of agencies and service providers.
  
   
• Make follow-up and support services for victims and child witnesses of family violence available on a continuing basis. Because the impacts of witnessing family violence are not always immediately apparent, many child witnesses of family violence will continue to require supportive and educational services long after their immediate needs for safe haven and crisis intervention are met.
  
   
• Provide therapeutic and educational interventions to adults who witnessed family violence as children, especially those who are parenting, are substance abusers, and/or correctional supervision. Many adults who witnessed family violence as children did not receive appropriate or adequate support or services at the time. Since the negative impacts of witnessing family violence can be pervasive and long-lasting for many victims, they must have access to appropriate treatment and interventions throughout their lifetime. Adults who are substance abusers and/or who are under correctional supervision (in prison and on probation or parole) are particularly likely to have been witnesses to family violence as children.
  
   
• Create community-based prevention and intervention initiatives that are coordinated across agencies and settings, and sustained over time. Community-based programs need to be available through a variety of organizations including churches, schools, and social service agencies in order to ensure that prevention education and strategies are made available to anyone in need of such initiatives.
  
   

*LeBoeuf, D. and Delany-Shabazz, R. V. "Conflict Resolution", Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Fact Sheet # 55, March 1997

Collectively, the recommendations constitute an action agenda to advance understanding of hate crime, prevent hate crime, and improve the effectiveness of our response to this complex and challenging social problem. The agenda sets forth roles and responsibilities for a coordinated, community-wide response by citizens, schools and colleges, police, justice system agencies, social service agencies, and victims.

How Can We Prevent Hate Crime?

Investing in prejudice reduction and violence prevention is vital to reducing the incidence of hate crime. Summit participants were hopeful that communities, schools, and justice system agencies can work together to create and maintain conditions in which prejudice gives way to tolerance and bias-motivated violence is replaced with peaceful problem-solving. Summit participants recommended 18 proactive initiatives to help communities prevent bias-motivated incidents and hate crime.

Increase Public Awareness

 An informed citizenry is the cornerstone of our democratic society. Citizen involvement is essential to the success of any program to reduce prejudice and prevent bias-related crimes.

Create multidisciplinary planning processes to develop coordinated approaches to prevent and respond to hate crime. Some communities already engage in crime prevention planning processes that include representatives of business, religious institutions, advocacy groups, public and private schools and colleges, and the full spectrum of justice agencies. Every community should maintain or develop a strategic crime prevention planning process that includes a focus on hate crime, and view planning as an ongoing responsibility, not just a one-time project.

Create local Human Rights Commissions or other forums to promote community harmony and stability. All citizens should be encouraged to talk about their differences and commonalities and to share their visions of safe and healthy communities. HRCs or other organized forums can sponsor community events that bring people together to learn about and celebrate one another and provide multicultural training in many facets of community life.

Focus public attention on issues of prejudice, intolerance, and the ways that hate crime affects community vitality and safety. Community and justice system leaders, particularly police chiefs, must continue to speak out forcefully against intolerance, bigotry, and hate crime, not only in the aftermath of high-profile incidents, but at all times. Citizens must recognize that hate crimes, and even bias-motivated behaviors that are not criminal, victimize not only the targeted individuals or groups, but the entire community. Communities become victims when hate crime erodes mutual respect and civility, and undermines the citizens' sense of well-being and safety.

Develop public information to promote values of tolerance and social equality. Justice agencies, private foundations, and community groups should collaborate to develop hard-hitting, culturally relevant endorsements of the value of tolerance and understanding that can be disseminated through print and electronic means to diverse audiences.

Raise awareness of the goals and activities of organized hate groups. Hate groups are less effective in sowing seeds of social unrest and conflict when their activities (including Internet hate sites) are brought to light. Continuous monitoring of hate group activity is vital for contravening their influence on children, youth, and other groups vulnerable to their toxic diatribe. Their messages of bigotry and intolerance can be countered by community leaders, schools, and justice agencies with truthful information that promotes mutual understanding and honors diversity.

Develop national, regional, and/or state task forces to understand and counter the influence of organized hate groups. Because the influence of many organized hate groups is national or regional, strategies to counter their hate-producing efforts must also be national or regional, and be developed by broad-based coalitions of political, business, religious, community, and justice system leaders. Strategies to contain and counteract the negative influences of hate groups, while respecting their First Amendment rights, require creativity, persistence, and constant vigilance. The United States Department of Justice/United States Attorney Hate Crime Task Force Initiative can serve as a model and a vehicle for coordinated efforts.

Educate Children and Young Adults

Teaching our children to respect differences and celebrate diversity is essential to prevent development of prejudiced attitudes that can lead to hate crime. Because conflict is a fact of human life, children must also be given tools to deal with conflict constructively, to become "peacemakers."

Involve parents in efforts to prevent and intervene against bias-motivated behavior of their children. Parents should be engaged in hate crime prevention in a variety of ways, from helping to design and deliver conflict-resolution and hate crime prevention curricula, to participating in mediation and conflict resolution activities in their children's schools. Schools should consider involving parents of children expressing prejudicial beliefs or behaving in discriminatory ways in interventions to prevent the speech or behavior from escalating into more harmful criminal acts.

Foster a "zero-tolerance" atmosphere in schools and colleges. Written codes of conduct for students, teachers, and other employees should express support for peaceful conflict resolution and clearly delineate the consequences for engaging in bias-motivated behavior. Codes of conduct should be readily available to students, parents of students, faculty, and other employees.

Provide every student and teacher the opportunity to participate in hate crime prevention courses and activities. Hate crime prevention curricula can be used in general and alternative classroom settings, schools experiencing bias crime problems, with student government leaders, in after-school programs, and in teacher training. The Education Development Center, with support of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, has prepared a model curriculum for middle and high school students designed to reduce prejudice and prevent crimes based on intolerance. The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice collaborated to produce a manual that provides guidance to schools and communities to develop school-based hate crime prevention programs.

Incorporate hate crime education into existing curricula. Schools and colleges should encourage faculty to incorporate hate crime education into existing curricula in subject areas such as health, geography, social studies, history, and civics. Studies in these and other areas offer many opportunities to promote tolerance and to illustrate the negative individual and societal impacts of prejudice and bigotry.

Reinforce diversity training and multicultural education at early ages. Multicultural education diminishes reliance on stereotyping, and reduces the chances of miscommunication between members of cultural groups. To develop an appreciation of similarities and differences among groups of people, children and young adults should learn about the many cultures that make up American society.

Provide conflict resolution training to all children. Children should be taught skills essential to peaceful conflict resolution, including active listening, appropriate expression of feelings, negotiation, and interruption of expressions of bias. There are model curricula and approaches appropriate for various age levels and contexts, including New York City's Resolving Conflict Creatively Program (RCCP), peer mediation initiatives, the "peaceable school" approach, as well as parent-led and community-based efforts.

Intervene with students who express discriminatory beliefs before their behavior escalates. Standards for recognizing and responding appropriately to discriminatory expressions and behavior should be clearly articulated and widely disseminated to students, teachers, and parents. Faculty and other staff should be trained to identify early warning signs of risk of hate incidents and crimes. Schools and colleges should offer counseling, mentoring, and educational opportunities for all students who exhibit prejudicial beliefs and behaviors. Efforts of organized hate groups to disseminate information to students or recruit them as members should be carefully monitored.

Educate Community Groups and Leaders.

Community leaders and citizen groups should have the skills and knowledge to recognize and actively resist intolerance and hate-motivated actions in their neighborhoods and jurisdictions.

Inform vulnerable groups and individuals about ways to protect themselves from bias-motivated incidents and crime. Individuals or groups that could be a target of hate crime because of race, religion, ethnic/national origin, gender, age, disability, or sexual orientation should be informed about ways to prevent being victimized. Justice system and other professionals should train and counsel potential victims to help them recognize threatening situations and to provide conflict resolution and other coping skills to enable them to deal effectively with bias-motivated behaviors. Vulnerable individuals should be informed about the importance of reporting bias-related incidents and the support that is available for seeking redress of discriminatory actions. Training materials should be published in different languages to reduce language and cultural barriers to reporting.

Provide knowledge and impart skills to recognize and defuse high-risk situations. Community groups and leaders should seek training and support from a coalition of justice system agencies, teachers, social service professionals, and victim advocacy groups to identify patterns of prejudice and discrimination before they escalate into hate incidents or crimes. Coalitions should also train community leaders in techniques for defusing and addressing identified high-risk situations. Professional mediation and conflict resolution services should also be available to support the ongoing prevention efforts of community leaders and neighborhood groups. The Department of Justice Community Relations Service can provide support in this area.

Encourage Strategic Planning and Collaborative Problem-Solving.

Ongoing collaboration of citizens, elected officials, and public employees to develop strategic hate crime prevention enhances chances for success. Citizens who participate in governmental decisionmaking processes are more likely to assume their share of responsibility for specific outcomes and the overall quality of life in their communities.

Develop mechanisms for ongoing problem-solving within local communities. To prevent unresolved racial, ethnic, or other tensions from erupting into hate incidents or crimes, communities should establish coalitions of political, business, religious, and justice system leaders to encourage ongoing dialogue about current problems and recommend collaborative approaches for resolving them. These coalitions could be the same groups that are involved in long-range strategic planning to prevent hate crime.

Encourage responsible and accurate media coverage. The media should be urged to report on hate crimes accurately, to treat victims with dignity and sensitivity, to provide balanced coverage of organized hate group activities, and to highlight community partners' successes in preventing and responding to hate crimes.

Improve accuracy and completeness of information about the incidence of and response to hate crime. Citizens need to know the facts about hate crimes and current responses to them, so they can more effectively prevent hate crime and deal with its impact on communities. Achieving greater accuracy in documenting hate crimes depends to a large extent on developing shared definitions and reducing barriers to comprehensive reporting, as discussed in several recommendations that follow.

How should we respond to hate crime?

Summit participants reached consensus that the following are effective responses to hate crime:

• The definition of hate crime must be clear and commonly understood. 
  
   
• Offenders must understand that hate crime will not be tolerated and those who commit it will be apprehended and appropriately sanctioned.
  
   
• Victims must be taken seriously and supported in dealing with the social, emotional, physical, and financial impacts of hate crime.
  
   
• Justice system practitioners and their community partners must hold hate crime offenders accountable for their actions and provide opportunities for them to broaden their perspectives and change their values.
  
   

These general principles helped summit work groups craft 22 policy and program recommendations to guide communities and public agencies toward more effective responses to hate crime.

Develop Shared Definitions of Hate Incidents and Hate Crimes.

Prejudicial behavior exists along a continuum including negative speech, discriminatory practices, property damage, physical assault, and murder. Legally, a hate crime is any crime enumerated in a hate crime statute in which a perpetrator is subject to an enhanced penalty if the crime was motivated by bias, as defined by the statute. Hate incidents involve behaviors that, though motivated by bias against a victim's race, religion, ethnic/national origin, gender, age, disability, or sexual orientation, are not criminal acts. Communities and justice agencies should develop a common language for these attitudes and behaviors so that their responses can be consistent, equitable, and effective.

Broaden statutory definitions of hate crimes to eliminate disparities between laws. Disparities between federal and state hate crime laws should be eliminated by supporting new laws, which encompass criminal offenses committed against persons, property, or society, which are motivated in whole or in part by offenders' bias against an individual's or a group's actual or perceived race, religion, ethnicity/national origin, disability, sexual orientation, or, where legally permissible, gender. For example, federal law includes sexual orientation, while some state laws do not.

Clarify the difference between hate incidents and hate crimes. Definitions of reportable incidents (hate crimes) should distinguish hate crimes from hate incidents. Hate incidents, in which an individual or group is subjected to negative or offensive speech or behavior that is not a criminal offense, still harm the sense of safety of victims and communities.

Eliminate Barriers to Hate Crime Reporting

Encourage reporting of all hate incidents and crimes. Citizens should be informed through a variety of sources that reporting crimes as bias-related can result in enhanced penalties for perpetrators and specialized support for victims. Schools and colleges should report all hate crimes occurring on campuses to local police. Law enforcement agencies, school administrators, and other first responders should encourage citizens to report all bias-related incidents to the police, even if these incidents do not constitute hate crimes, so high-risk situations can be tracked and appropriate problem-solving actions can be taken.

Make it safe and easy to report bias-related incidents and crimes. To ensure comprehensive reporting of hate incidents and crimes, victims and witnesses must feel safe from retaliation or stigmatization. Telephone hotlines are one way to encourage community members, including students, to report incidents. Crimes reported on hotlines must be reported to a law enforcement agency to be effectively investigated and prosecuted. Police must ensure that both victims and witnesses feel safe.

Develop and disseminate hate crime reporting protocols. Law enforcement agencies, schools and colleges, medical professionals, and community organizations should collaboratively develop and issue standard operating procedures (SOPs) and memoranda of understanding (MOUs) that detail how and to whom individuals should report hate incidents and crimes. SOPs should include criteria to identify incidents as bias-related and determine whether a crime has occurred. They should include specific procedures for reporting both crimes and incidents. These SOPs should be communicated to citizens and community groups in user-friendly, culturally relevant and language-sensitive formats. Hate crimes should always be reported to the police; other hate incidents may be reported to community organizations and kept in some central repository or database.

Provide Adequate Support to Victims of Hate Incidents and Hate Crimes

Ensure that responses to hate incidents and crimes are swift, thorough and sensitive to the feelings of victims. First responders must obtain accurate information about an incident; conduct a preliminary assessment of physical, emotional, and financial injury to a victim; and reassure victims that their concerns and needs will be addressed. First responders must be prepared to assist victims whose initial emotional reactions to an incident may include rage, terror, and grief. Victims and their families should be immediately referred to victim assistance agencies and other community services when needed.

Develop coordinated community plans to respond to and manage public demonstrations by organized hate groups. Plans should specify the responsibilities of law enforcement agencies, including protection of First Amendment rights, techniques to prevent violence through separation of demonstrators and counter groups, and notification and communications responsibilities. Community groups should partner with justice agencies to develop constructive ways to counter the potential negative impacts of such events and to use demonstrations as opportunities to educate citizens, students, and justice system professionals regarding precipitating factors and effective responses. The Department of Justice Community Relations Service can be an excellent resource for help in designing a peaceful response to hate group marches and gatherings.

Assign organizational responsibility for coordinating and monitoring hate crime response. Every law enforcement agency should fix responsibility for coordinating and monitoring responses to hate crime in a specific individual/operating unit. Other first responder organizations, particularly schools and colleges, should also designate individuals who will ensure that responses to hate incidents and crimes are timely and appropriate.

Accord community recognition to "Good Samaritans" who protect victims of hate incidents or crimes, or who report incidents to appropriate authorities. Individuals who risk their own safety to assist victims of bias crime, as well as those who take the time to report threatening or harmful hate incidents, should be publicly recognized for their efforts.

Provide specialized support to hate crime victims through existing victim assistance programs. Victim assistance programs should individualize support for victims of hate incidents and crimes in recognition of the unique and severe impacts they may suffer. Programs should recognize that hate crimes that involve "only" minor property damage or assaults still may have serious long-term impacts on victims. Programs should partner with schools and community groups to provide ongoing support for all hate crime victims, so victims' alienation from their communities can be ameliorated. Agencies and groups providing ongoing services to hate crime victims should be co-located to permit better coordination.

Establish Mechanisms for Repairing Harms to Communities

Support, console, and assist targeted communities. Hate crimes harm not only individual victims but also the groups and communities of which they are a part. Justice and victim assistance agencies should convene and facilitate community meetings in the aftermath of hate crimes to provide opportunities to express feelings and begin the process of restoring a sense of safety and well-being to community members.

Develop coordinated community incident response plans. Communities should create hate crime response teams that comprise representatives of law enforcement, other justice agencies, schools, health care providers, victim assistance programs, and cultural diversity advocacy groups. These teams should develop policies and procedures to respond to bias-motivated incidents or hate crimes. Communities can turn to the United States Department of Justice/United States Attorney Hate Crime Task Force for guidance.

Ensure that schools and colleges establish processes to respond to bias-related incidents. Schools and colleges are self-contained communities that should support students victimized by hate incidents and crimes, and provide for appropriate school-based disciplinary actions and remedial interventions for student perpetrators.

Engage the media as partners to restore communities to wholeness. Through responsible reporting, the media can play a critical role in defusing community tensions, preventing further bias-motivated incidents in the wake of identified hate crimes, and educating the public to understand and prevent hate crime. Justice agencies and community groups should establish a single point of contact to provide media representatives with accurate information about the nature and impact of hate incidents and crimes while respecting individual victims' rights to privacy and security.

Develop More Effective Sanctions for Hate Crime Perpetrators

Impose enhanced sentences for violent or repetitive hate crime offenders. Most hate crime statutes provide enhanced penalties, usually longer sentences, for crimes determined to be bias-related. These enhancements are particularly appropriate for chronic, violent hate crime offenders who pose a significant and continuing risk to community safety.

Use restorative justice options for first-time nonviolent hate crime offenders. Restorative justice options can promote healing of victims and change offender attitudes, while restoring the trust of the community. They are appropriate whenever victims and communities are willing to hold hate crime offenders accountable for repairing the physical and emotional harm caused by their actions.

Involve parents of juvenile hate crime offenders in post-adjudication sanctions and interventions. Families can have a powerful influence, for better or worse, on the outcomes of correctional interventions for youthful offenders. Involving parents and their children in treatment and education opportunities can teach whole families to practice peaceful conflict resolution and exercise tolerance of individual differences.

Develop strategies to counter the influence of organized hate groups in correctional in institutions. Efforts to change attitudes and behavior patterns of hate crime offenders sentenced to prison may be thwarted by the influence of organized hate groups operating within prisons and jails. Corrections administrators must develop strategies to contain or counter the bias-motivated activities and expressions of these inmate groups.

Enhance Professional Training.

Professionals who must respond to hate crimes, assist victims and communities, and impose sanctions and interventions on convicted offenders require ongoing training and technical support. In 1995, a model curriculum for training law enforcement and victim assistance professionals was fashioned by the Education Development Center, with funding from the Office for Victims of Crime and the Bureau of Justice Assistance. A few years before, the FBI published a guide to assist law enforcement agencies with hate crime data collection and training program design. Many other resources can be tapped to help design and implement essential training.

Summit participants recommend four types of training:

Train first responders, investigators, and leaders. Topics should include the following: recognizing bias-related incidents, utilizing standard criteria to determine bias and assess perpetrator intent, interviewing victims and witnesses, collecting and preserving evidence, referring victims to appropriate community agencies, providing information to prosecutors and the courts, and standardizing documentation of hate incidents/crimes. The U.S. Department of Justice has available four hate crime curriculums that are excellent training resources: Patrol and Responding Officers; Detectives and Investigators; Core Curriculum for Patrol Officers, Detectives, and Command Officers; and Command Officers.

Train victim assistance providers. Topics should include assessing impacts of hate incidents and crimes on victims, reviewing hate crime reporting protocols, exploring the continuum of support options, and engaging community groups in the healing process.

Train judges and prosecutors. Topics should include creative alternative sentencing approaches, outcomes and impacts of all types of sanctions, and treatments for perpetrators. Prosecutors and judges must be fully apprised of community and law enforcement strategies for hate crimes, so subsequent charging and adjudication decisions are consistent.

Provide cross-disciplinary training for all those who respond to hate incidents and crimes. Cross-disciplinary training that involves educators, law enforcement officers, victim assistance providers, court personnel, and correctional officers should promote closer collaboration for response to hate crime.

How will we know we are succeeding?

Summit participants cited three types of research that are needed to better understand hate crime, its consequences, and promising responses:

• Conduct basic research to shed light on the causes of hate crime and to provide insight into promising ways to deal with the causes.
  
   
• Evaluate research to identify the most effective prevention efforts.
  
   
• Evaluate research to identify the most effective strategies to heal community harm and reform offenders. 
  
   

Six recommendations were developed:

1. Conduct Basic Research.
2. Clearly define expected outcomes of hate crime prevention and response efforts. Useful program evaluation relies on clear and measurable definitions of outcomes. In addition to reducing the incidence of hate crime (all hate crime or particular offense types targeted by a prevention strategy), positive outcomes could include changes in attitudes of children or community members who participate in hate crime prevention training, improved conflict resolution skills, increased victim satisfaction, enhanced perceptions of safety and well-being, reduced recidivism rates, and positive changes in the behavior or attitudes of offenders.
   
    
3. Define valid measures of expected outcomes. To assess the impact of prevention and response efforts, outcome measures must be carefully specified and the results interpreted validly. For example, in communities with growing populations, the number of hate crime incidents may increase over time even though prevention and response efforts may be contributing to an overall reduction in the rate of hate crimes. Quantifying changes in other outcomes involving attitudes, values, or perceptions is a challenging evaluation task, but can be accomplished through careful design of survey formats, data collection protocols, and methods of "counting" that ensure uniformity and objectivity.
    

   EVALUATE OUTCOMES OF PREVENTION AND RESPONSE EFFORTS

4. Ensure that all hate incidents and crimes are documented thoroughly and consistently. To assess correlations among characteristics of victims, perpetrators, and the situations in which hate crimes occur, detailed information about these variables should be routinely collected by first responders and stored in central data repositories accessible to researchers.
   
    
5. Collect data on expected outcomes where particular prevention and intervention efforts are being implemented, over time, across jurisdictions, and in a variety of settings. By documenting trends in such outcome measures as the rate of reported hate crimes or the recidivism of convicted perpetrators, the long-range impact of prevention and response strategies can be demonstrated. However, in jurisdictions where the rate of hate crime reporting has been low, a desirable short-term or interim outcome may well be to increase the rate of reported hate incidents or crimes. Analyzing differences in trends across jurisdictions and settings may also yield insights about the impacts of contextual factors on outcomes.
   
    
6. Share quantitative and qualitative information about the elements of successful prevention and response programs. Researchers and program evaluators should collaborate with justice professionals and those who implement prevention and response strategies to design evaluations that will generate information useful for program design, public information campaigns, and professional training efforts. Evaluators must document the qualitative case studies of successful efforts to prevent and respond to bias-motivated incidents. Human-scale stories can enrich the pictures painted by quantitative data, and encourage others to invest in similar efforts in their own communities. 
   
    
7. Systematically record characteristics and activities of organized hate groups. Documenting the extent to which organized hate group activities are linked to hate incidents and crimes is important. Through study of hate group goals, tactics, and impacts, researchers may be able to pinpoint promising ways to counter their influence, both with their members and on the larger society.

Law Enforcement Action Agenda

Law enforcement agencies must assume a central role in implementing the hate crime prevention, response, and performance measurement strategies outlined above. To encourage and enable law enforcement agencies to lead community-wide endeavors, summit participants recommended 12 actions:

• Establish a "zero-tolerance" atmosphere in every law enforcement agency. Police leaders and officers must be positive examples for their communities by actively discouraging bias-related behavior or speech in their own organizations. To be leaders in preventing hate crimes, law enforcement professionals must ensure that they exemplify the values of tolerance and peaceful conflict resolution, and that any bias-related behavior by police officers is dealt with swiftly, equitably, and severely.
  
   
• Encourage local jurisdictions to conduct hate crime summits. Local hate crime summits or focus groups can elicit community views on pressing issues, educate community leaders, and galvanize public support for investing in hate crime prevention and response. Law enforcement agencies can use the IACP summit model to engage community organizations, first responders, schools, and justice system agencies to collaborate closely with police to address hate crimes.
  
   
• Participate in collaborative development of coordinated approaches to prevent and respond to hate crimes. Law enforcement agencies must be architects of and active participants in ongoing planning processes to enable communities to assess hate crime issues, inventory current policies and practices, and devise strategies to improve prevention and intervention efforts.
  
   
• Sponsor and participate actively in community events, forums, and activities concerning diversity tolerance, bias reduction, conflict resolution, and hate crime prevention. Police leaders and officers should be an influential presence at public events that encourage community members to talk about differences and commonalities and share visions of safe and healthy communities. Law enforcement leaders must continue to speak out forcefully against intolerance, bigotry, and hate crimes, not only in the aftermath of particular incidents, but at all times.
  
   
• Respond to and support the individual victims of hate crimes and their communities. Police officers must obtain accurate information about a hate crime or incident; conduct a preliminary assessment of victims' physical, emotional and financial injuries; and reassure victims that their concerns and needs will be addressed comprehensively. Police should encourage members of the community at large to express their feelings and should take action to restore a sense of safety and well being in the community.
  
   
• Employ community policing strategies to prevent and respond to hate crimes. Community policing principles encourage law enforcement agencies to foster close connections with the communities they serve, and to support officers in creative problem-solving that will prevent or discourage criminal behavior. These principles can readily be applied to the work of preventing hate-motivated incidents and crimes.
  
   
• Continuously investigate, track, and deal appropriately with the activities of organized hate groups. Continuous intelligence-gathering about hate group activities is a primary responsibility of law enforcement agencies that requires cross-jurisdictional collaboration and significant investment in information systems technology and training. Law enforcement agencies must protect the First Amendment rights of hate groups while simultaneously ensuring the safety and well-being of communities that hate groups attack verbally or in other non-criminal ways. 
  
   
• Identify and report all bias-related incidents and hate crimes completely and accurately. Law enforcement agencies should collaborate with other first responders to specify how and to whom citizens should report bias-related incidents and hate crimes. Detailed information about characteristics of victims, of perpetrators, and the situations in which hate incidents and crimes occur should be routinely collected by police.
  
   
• Ensure that all law enforcement professionals are trained to recognize and respond appropriately to hate crimes. Police officers must be trained to recognize potential bias-related incidents, use standard criteria for determining bias and assessing perpetrators' intent, interview victims and witnesses, collect and preserve evidence, refer victims to appropriate community agencies, provide information to prosecutors and the courts, and standardize documentation of all hate incidents/crimes.
  
   
• Assist schools and colleges to design and deliver hate crime prevention curricula and to develop response protocols. Hate crime prevention curricula can be used in general and alternative classrooms, in schools experiencing bias crime problems, with student government leaders, in after-school programs, and in teacher training. The Education Development Center, with support of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, has prepared a model curriculum for middle and high school students designed to reduce prejudice and prevent crimes based on intolerance. The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice collaborated to produce a manual that provides guidance to schools and communities to develop school-based hate crime prevention programs. Police leaders and officers should be involved in planning and delivering such curricula in a wide variety of school and college/university settings. Law enforcement agencies can also assist schools and colleges in developing protocols for recognizing and responding appropriately to hate incidents and crimes.
  
   
• Engage the media as partners in preventing hate crimes and restoring victimized communities. Law enforcement leaders and their public information officers should encourage the media to report on hate crimes accurately, to treat victims with dignity and sensitivity, to provide balanced coverage of organized hate group activities, and to highlight community successes in preventing and responding to hate crimes.
  
   
• Collaborate in defining measurable outcomes of efforts to prevent and respond to hate crimes. Police leaders and officers should work with community members and researchers to define standards for success in preventing and responding to hate crimes. Performance measures should focus not only on reducing negative behaviors, but also on enhancing the quality of life in communities. Law enforcement participation in evaluation efforts can help to ensure that research results will be used to continuously improve the effectiveness of prevention and response strategies.
   

  Law enforcement leaders and officers will continue to contribute significantly to stopping violence and preventing hate crimes. However, the work outlined in this report cannot be accomplished solely through the efforts of law enforcement agencies. Implementing summit recommendations requires the continuing collaboration and commitment of community leaders, parents and families, schools, and other public agencies in the ongoing enterprise to create a society of peacemakers.

Partnerships between law enforcement leaders and academic researchers have resulted in remarkable successes over the last thirty years. Policing practices in vital areas of criminal justice have been influenced by robust research projects that have led to substantive and sound policy recommendations. Despite notable successes, much remains to be done. The powerful potentials of law enforcement/researcher partnerships haven’t yet been fully realized. Existing research partnerships too frequently suffer from a number of predictable but unresolved problems and only a small minority of the 17,580 law enforcement agencies across the country have even realized the benefits of research partnerships.

In 2003, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) embraced the goal of promoting effective law enforcement/research partnerships in every agency across the United States. Joining with the Association of Doctoral Programs in Criminology and Criminal Justice (ADPCCJ) and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the IACP hosted the October 2003 roundtable Improving the Partnership Between Law Enforcement Leaders and University Based Researchers. The goal of the roundtable was to identify the problems that hinder the establishment and perpetuation of effective law enforcement/research partnerships and draft solutions to those problems. The IACP is grateful to the NIJ for its financial support of this exploratory meeting.

Beyond the development of policy recommendations, a set of long-term implementation goals was part of summit planning. IACP intends to work with its Indian Country Law Enforcement Section, the Office of Tribal Justice, the Office of Justice Programs and all other relevant U.S. Department of Justice agencies, as well as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to implement summit recommendations.

Recommendations

LAW ENFORCEMENT INITIATIVES

• Exercise leadership to develop community-wide murder reduction strategies. 
   
• Intervene against all forms of violence as early and decisively as possible. 
   
• Intensify use of community policing and murder-specific problem-solving 
  strategies.
   
• Intensify use of tactical teams and task forces to regain control of high crime and violent environments.
   
• Maximize substance abuse prevention and enforcement programming.
   
• Use emerging technology to improve homicide clearance rates.
   
• Enhance ability of police to conduct field-based (patrol car) record and warrant checks.
   
• Supply responding officers with enhanced domestic dispute and violence history information.
   
• Improve witness protection in violent crime cases.
   
• Acknowledge and reward successful efforts by officers to reduce gun-related violence and murder.
   
• Intensify use of gun buy-back programs.
   
• Intensify efforts to improve physical plant security (target-hardening) for community businesses and facilities. 
   

COMMUNITY AND GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES

• Create crime advisory committees to assist law enforcement agencies with murder reduction.
   
• Involve all segments of the community in violence and murder prevention and control, including the business community.
   
• Augment detention capacity by adapting existing available facilities such as closed military bases.
   
• Intensify alcohol consumption reduction programs.
   
• Provide cash and other incentives to citizens for information on violent crimes and crimes involving use of guns.
   
• Provide safe havens for youth after normal school hours.
   
• Increase use of risk factor assessments for children by schools and health professionals.
   
• Provide additional shelters for abused women and children.
   
• Expand use of electronic monitoring of domestic/intimate violence and other offenders who are granted intensive probation.
   

LEGISLATIVE INITIATIVES

• Increase sanctions for gun-involved crimes, particularly robberies.
   
• Allow police to seize weapons during domestic/intimate violence calls.
   
• Prohibit gun ownership by stalkers and intimate and domestic violence offenders.
   
• Reorient the juvenile justice system to promote swift and sure intervention against career juvenile offenders. 
   
• Allow police to photograph, fingerprint, and document criminal behavior of career juvenile offenders.
   
• Allow interagency and interstate sharing of juvenile information among police and other agencies.
   
• Require a 72-hour cooling-off period in domestic violence cases.
   
• Expand mandatory hospital and medical personnel reporting of suspected violence caused injury.
   
• Require states to enact "responsible beverage service" laws.
   
• Raise the minimum drinking age, increase state or central control of alcohol sales, and limit prevalence of liquor stores through stringent store/population ratios. 
   

EDUCATION AND TRAINING INITIATIVES

• Intensify programs to teach citizens how to avoid becoming victims of violent crime.
   
• Conduct symposia to promote and increase school administrators' support for anti-violence programs.
   
• Train teachers to identify, confront, and control violent and potentially violent students and situations.
   
• Conduct school awareness programs to deglorify violence and violent offenders.
   
• Train students in elementary, middle, and high schools in dispute resolution techniques.
   
• Train police officers to recognize and respond to different types of violence, including domestic and intimate.
   
• Provide comprehensive ethnic and cultural awareness training to law enforcement officers.
   
• Conduct nationwide public service announcement campaigns emphasizing family values, the dangers of firearms in the home, and targeting various forms of violence.