Field Placement:
Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice
Location:
San Francisco
Preceptor:
Student Name: Nazneen Abullah
Year: 2008
Under the direction of Mayor Gavin Newsom, the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ), has assumed the responsibility of facilitating the development and implementation of San Francisco 5-year Violence Prevention Plan (VPP). (Appendix A) San Francisco currently spends more than $60 million annually on violence prevention by funding programs for vulnerable residents and communities, which is more than any other city nationwide. However, the rates of violent crimes have risen over the past couple of years despite the increased spending to combat violence, suggesting a need for a more strategic intervention via collaborative efforts between city departments and community agencies.
The implementation of the VPP began in July 2008 following a press conference where the mayor released the VPP to the public. (Appendix B) Initial implementation involved forming Neighborhood Action Teams (NAT) which consisted of various service providers within each of the five most violence-prone neighborhoods in San Francisco. Each NAT is responsible for planning neighborhood-specific violence prevention efforts which includes but is not limited to, creating a network for referral purposes, creating common objectives and developing evaluation standards for accountability. It is within these 5 neighborhoods that violent crimes have shown to be most concentrated and have therefore been targeted for immediate intervention by applying the VPP’s prevention continuum: prevention, intervention and response across ten different policy areas. In addition, initial implementation of the VPP involved the planning efforts of sub-committees formed as a result of executive directives ordered by the mayor, which include the Summer Street Violence Prevention Council and the Safe Communities Re-entry Council. (Appendices C and D) Furthermore, implementation of the VPP required securing further funding for violence prevention efforts by submitting the federal Weed and Seed grant, which would fund prevention and enforcement efforts in the Mission district for a period of 5 years. (Appendix E) In addition, the VPP implementation included launching the Alive and Free anti-violence public education campaign throughout San Francisco. (Appendix F) Development and implementation of the VPP has been and continues to be supervised by the mayor-appointed Violence Prevention Director, Maya Dillard-Smith while MOCJ as a whole is directed by former United States Attorney, the Honorable Kevin Ryan.
The program and policy internship at MOCJ was focused on three main areas: evaluation and data analysis; grant and report writing; and program development. All of these program and policy areas are aimed at supporting the implementation of the VPP in some degree or capacity. Interns are expected to support MOCJ staff to collect and analyze relevant criminal justice data, develop proposal narratives, revise/edit existing presentations, develop new consortiums or partnerships, and design new project ideas in an effort to support the implementation of VPP and any other pertinent program and/or policy issues that may arise over the course of the internship. As an intern, I had similar responsibilities to that of my supervisor who is a Program and Policy Associate. Interns are expected to perform at the levels of all junior staff members, which is why the hiring process for the internship positions is so competitive. Interns are responsible for being present at all planning meetings where progress and challenges of efforts are discussed. An intern’s participation in these meetings is encouraged and validated. All in all, the internship supports personal and professional growth by placing the intern outside of comfort zones and challenging him/her to take on complex tasks in a highly dynamic environment.
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