SITE OVERVIEW ♦ DENVER | COLORADO
Target Area: Sun Valley • Population: 1,500
Fiscal Agent: The City and County of Denver and the Denver Police Department
Research Partner: Health Resources Consortium
Crime Concerns: Gang-related violence, aggravated assault, robbery, and other violent crimes
BCJI Funding Year: 2014 Planning & Implementation
Neighborhood Profile
The Sun Valley neighborhood is an area just under a square mile that is primarily comprised of public housing units. Compared to other neighborhoods surrounding Denver, Sun Valley has limited access points to the city. This has put its residents at a disadvantage by disconnecting them from resources and employment opportunities. Findings from the BCJI planning phase revealed that Sun Valley suffers from a high unemployment rate (68%) and poverty rate with more than 77 percent of households living below the poverty line. In addition to being physically disconnected, there is a lack of cohesion among residents fueled by linguistic and cultural barriers dividing the various ethnic groups in the community. At the 2010 Census, the population was approximately 54 percent Hispanic/Latino, 26 percent African American, 8 percent White, and 12 percent some other race.
Sun Valley is also impacted by significant crime. The initial assessment for the BCJI project revealed that the crime rate in Sun Valley is nearly five times higher than Denver as a whole. During the BCJI planning phase, it was discovered that 3,414 arrests were made between the years 2010 and 2015. Males between the ages 23 and 29 accounted for 75 percent of those arrests. The neighborhood also has a growing gang problem. Findings from the planning phase revealed that gang-related offenses increased by 67 percent between the years 2010 and 2015.
Planning Process
The Denver Police Department embarked upon planning and implementation projects designed to support crime prevention through community revitalization. In an effort to carry out core BCJI components, the Department deployed evidence-based strategies, such as Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED), by strategically placing street lighting to curb crime. The Denver BCJI site also aimed to fill the gap in resources in the target area by providing youth and family programming and services to foster community support.
The cross-sector partnership team consisted of the Denver Police Department, Servicios de la Raza, Denver Treatment Accountability for Safer Communities (TASC), Denver Housing Authority (DHA), and other community partners. These leaders in the Sun Valley Partnerships Project, as it has been named, worked with researchers from Health Researchers Consortium to examine data, review existing planning documents and analyze survey results about crime and neighborhood conditions. The goal was to balance resident and police perspectives. Analysis revealed that the entire Sun Valley neighborhood could be considered a hot spot for crime, with high levels of calls and arrests related to thefts, and residents concerns about gangs outpacing formal rates of gang-related offenses as noted by police. Community-police relations were found to be generally positive, though citizen-initiated calls for service have declined in recent years. The planning findings fueled selection of a robust mix of strategies for CBCR implementation.
Implementation Strategies
Launched in summer 2016, the BCJI implementation strategies are designed to bolster ongoing work of the Choice Neighborhood Initiative (CNI) in Sun Valley, applying comprehensive prevention and intervention strategies to contribute to enhance safety. Major strategies include:
- Targeted foot patrol in hot spot areas, supported by a variety of smart technology including geo-mapping and gunfire detection tools.
- Mental health and substance abuse services for high risk individuals.
- Truancy intervention and youth programs to connect disconnected youth and engage others who may be on a path toward high risk behavior. The focus is on education, training, employment and leadership.
- Family navigation services to connect families to employment, counseling and other services, recognizing the impact of families on individuals’ criminal behavior.
- Law Enforcement Advocacy Program, pairing offenders with officers for relationship-building and support.
- Resident engagement strategies, including neighborhood watch, a Youth/Family Citizen Academy, Crime Preventoin Through Environmental Design and women’s self defense classes.
All of these implementation strategies are informed by ongoing resident participation in the BCJI steering committee, as well as a variety of community events.
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