Violence Prevention

The Community Based Crime Reduction grant initiative is a US Department of Justice funded partnership with the City of Madison Police Department and Community Development Division along with a local researcher. Common Wealth Development serves as the community partner to foster community organizing, engagement and participation. Since 2018, the DOJ grant has been used to fund mentoring, driver’s licensing and fatherhood projects, community engagement activities, community policing and a community safety worker pilot and a safe passage program.

The Raymond Road target area is located in southwest Madison. It consists of several neighborhoods: Meadowood, Prairie Hills, Greentree and Park Ridge/Park Edge. The community, made up of 8,800 people, consists of single-family homes as well as several large apartment complexes and townhomes.

The project’s multi-focused goals based on input from the area’s residents through the Southwest Action Coalition, focus groups and stakeholders developed three strategies: support for parents, engagement of youth and community policing.

Dr. Jeffrey Lewis of Sustaining Natural Circles, LLC serves as the grant’s research partner to support participatory, evidence-based approaches to gathering and using data to help evaluate the strategies of the grant.

The organizations funded under the grant are: Charles Hamilton Houston-Dear Dairy; 100 Black Men of Madison-Project Soar; Intentional Mentoring; Operation Fresh Start-Drive; Toki Middle School-Family and Community Engagement, Meadowood Neighborhood Center, Mellowhood Foundation-People on Premises, Urban League of Greater Madison-Fatherhood Initiative, Madison Police Department community policing efforts and Focus Interruption-Community Safety Worker pilot.

For more information, please contact Stephanie Bradley Wilson at stephanie@cwd.org.

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