Attorney General Lockyer Releases Second Edition of Violence Prevention Publication

Monday, December 22, 2003
Contact: (916) 210-6000, agpressoffice@doj.ca.gov

(SACRAMENTO) – Attorney General Bill Lockyer today released the second issue of a new community-oriented publication devoted to preventing violence.

"This publication will help local communities determine how well their efforts to prevent violence are working and how best to improve them by identifying other parties whose participation is critical to their success," Lockyer said. "It's always a challenge to bring together different groups and agencies to stop violence, but the benefits to the community of a coordinated approach are well worth the effort."

In the second issue of "At the Local Level: Perspectives on Violence Prevention," author Sid Gardner, president of the Irvine-based nonprofit Children and Family Futures, discusses the importance of developing violence prevention programs that include ways to measure results, define immediate and long-term resources, identify potential participants and involve a wider community.

Gardner, who has published widely on the subjects of children's services, offers suggestions on how community coalitions can develop successful strategies, from issuing "report cards" that objectively measure the program's progress to compiling budgets that measure the resources spent.

In his article, he highlights two communities that have launched successful, strategy-driven programs. San Francisco's Department of Children, Youth and Families developed a multi-year plan for its Children's Fund, a dedicated tax that finances more than 170 separate projects. And San Joaquin County has developed a multi-pronged strategy for addressing youth violence and making a long-term investment in developing a network of family resource centers.

The Attorney General produces the publication several times a year to provide articles on issues of interest to local communities that reflect both the law enforcement, public health and education perspectives on preventing violence.

About 4,000 copies of this edition will be sent to law enforcement agencies, city and county governments, school districts and community organizations. The article also may be downloaded from the Attorney General's Crime and Violence Prevention Center website at www.safestate.org.

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