Description of the Community

Norfolk is one of Virginia’s largest and most populous cities (pop. 261,229). Located on the Chesapeake Bay, it covers approximately 50 square miles. Norfolk’s target area for the Weed and Seed program is located directly south of the downtown district and is referred to as Southside. This area covers just over two square miles and consists of three neighborhoods: Berkley, Campostella, and Campostella Heights.

Berkley is the largest of the three neighborhoods and consists about equally of industrially developed waterfront and residential areas. Campostella and Campostella Heights are predominately residential and include two of Norfolk’s subsidized housing developments, Oakleaf Forest and Diggstown.

Overview of Program Strategies

Norfolk’s Weed and Seed program emphasized reducing drug trafficking and drug-related crimes, maintaining good police / resident relations, attending community meetings with target area residents and reducing juvenile crime by increasing youth opportunity. Norfolk’s Weed and Seed activities closely followed its original program structure for all three years of funding. Some changes occurred in Seed programming as was necessitated by staff turnover. It is notable that Norfolk developed some measurable outcome objectives for both the Weed and Seed programs. However, data limitations, most markedly the UCR to IBR transition, precluded the ability to accurately assess attainment of these objectives.

Suppression activities in Norfolk’s target area initially focused on enhanced drug traffic investigations. Using information gathered from the investigations, the police conducted drug crackdowns and sweeps. Other enforcement activities included increased foot, bicycle and vehicle patrols, and conducting traffic checkpoints.

Community-Oriented Policing activities in the target area were primarily conducted through the officers’ interactions with area residents. These interactions took place at local events where the officers provided security and at Neighborhood Association and Neighborhood Watch meetings, which were attended by the area Weed and Seed officers.

Activities that comprised the Seed effort, such as prevention, intervention, treatment and neighborhood restoration, were primarily designed for youth involvement. All Seed programs were operated by or with the assistance of the local Boys and Girls Clubs that serve the target area.

Description of the Norfolk Program – Third Year

For the third year, funding was approved for the following activities:

• Overtime (5,096 hours) for police officers to increase undercover and patrol efforts in the target area.
• A part-time and / or full-time program coordinator for each of the Seed programs, as well as training expenses.

• Speakers’ fees, conference space, and supplies for a youth conference.
• Program supplies (e.g., advertisement costs, activity materials, etc.)

Weed and Community-Oriented Policing Activities

The goals of the Weed initiative in Norfolk concentrated on increasing the number of arrests, weapons seized, illegal narcotics recovered and police man-hours spent on target area patrols. Other goals included reducing the number of reported offenses, decreasing the number of calls-for-service, and maintaining a high degree of police presence. When remaining grant funds became limited, the increased police presence was slightly curtailed in order to expend funds less rapidly.

Norfolk’s Weed activities focused on additional and high-impact patrols in the target area neighborhoods. Patrols consisted of four officers, usually in uniform, who worked four hours a day. Patrols were conducted on foot, in vehicles, or on bicycles. Foot patrols were sometimes directed in parks and playgrounds where it was felt they could be most effective in deterring drug activity. Sweeps and high impact patrol operations also targeted illegal drug activity. Assistance with sweep operations was provided by the Virginia State Police and the Virginia Probation and Parole office, upon request.

In addition to the increased patrols, Norfolk’s Weed effort included: officers attending regular monthly meetings of the neighborhoods’ civic leagues, Advisory Boards, Southside Task Force, and the Weed and Seed Steering Committee; conducting security details for various Southside events; conducting a bicycle regulations enforcement operation, safety seminars, and traffic safety checks. Partners in these efforts included Southside’s Community Resource Officers. The Community Resource Officer program assigns community police officers to provide programs and services to the youth and families in public housing neighborhoods. These officers were assisted, as necessary, by the Weed and Seed officers and will continue to work cooperatively with the Seed programs conducted at the Campostella Boys and Girls Club.

Seed Activities

Norfolk’s Seed initiative had as its broad focus the reduction of youth gang activity in the target area. This objective was addressed through several youth activity and delinquency prevention programs that focused on at-risk youth and were implemented at the neighborhood level. There were five key programs that benefited from Weed and Seed funds: Targeted Outreach Program, or TOP; Positive Confrontation; Youth Employment Program; Mothers Against Gangs; and Life Prep.

Targeted Outreach Program

The Targeted Outreach Program (TOP) focused on youth (ages 10 - 18) who were identified as at-risk for gang involvement. The program sought to match youth with activities that they found interesting and that could provide needed direction and guidance. This was accomplished with one-day Boys and Girls Club passes distributed to at-risk youth by partnering agencies. Youth were invited to join the Boys and Girls Club and given a scholarship to cover membership fees, if needed. Each child was assessed and referred to activities based on the assessment’s findings. Activities were designed to teach health and physical education, citizenship and leadership, personal and cultural enrichment, outdoor recreation, and academic achievement. Additional programs attended by TOP participants included: Power Hour, a homework group; Smart Moves, a program designed to teach youth the dangers of sexual behavior, drugs, and alcohol; and Kids in Control, a 15-session safety awareness program designed to help kids develop crime prevention and personal safety skills.

Positive Confrontation

Positive Confrontation was a 12-week course established in five schools that serve target area youth. There was also a 4-week summer course conducted at the Boys and Girls Club. Each class consisted of 6 - 15 youth, elementary through high school age, who were referred to the program because of disruptive behavior in the classroom or at the Club. The course curriculum included sessions such as Knowing Yourself, Ways to Say No, Success and Failure, Making Decisions, Anger Management, Leadership, Teen Pregnancy, etc. Special presentations were also made to the class on a variety of topics, such as maintaining positive attitudes and anger management, education and career opportunities, and job-seeking advice.

Youth Employment Program

Youth Employment Program (a.k.a. People Getting Paid or PGP Enterprises) taught youth how to start and operate a small business. The program included one-hour sessions on topics such as making goals, writing a business plan, dress and interview skills, and working as a team and business operations. Tutoring was offered to participants because the Youth Employment Program requires each member to improve or maintain passing grades. The program coordinator also informed participants about federal employment services programs such as Summer Aid Employment and Welfare to Work.

Mothers Against Gangs

In the Mothers Against Gangs program, parents (85% of whom were single mothers) volunteered for bus stop patrols, hall duty at school, chaperoning, and street patrols. The patrol activities focused on areas in the neighborhoods where youth interaction often led to youth conflict. The coordinator of this program was terminated in February 2000. At that time, the remaining funds were used to start the Life Prep program.

Life Prep

The Life Prep program replaced Mothers Against Gangs midway through the third grant year. Life Prep was designed as a weekly 50-minute youth discussion session. Each week a topic was introduced and a brief overview was given, followed by discussion. The program curriculum included discussions on topics such as problem solving, decision-making, job readiness, career exploration, coping with violence, alternatives to drugs and alcohol, and parenting skills. Additionally, the program provided recreational activities, educational programs, guest speakers, and educational field trips. All activities were aimed at improving interpersonal skills. Individual conferences were also conducted with each child to discuss any problems they might have.

Grant funds also supported the Weed and Seed Youth Conference 2000. This conference was organized by two Seed program coordinators and attended by youth from the target area. Speakers from area agencies and schools presented workshops on topics such as health, safety, and employment.

In addition, Norfolk’s Seed programs collaborated with many area agencies and organizations. Some of these patrons assisted by referring youth to the programs while others donated space for activities, materials, or snacks for the children. Volunteers acted as speakers for workshops, and also provided tours of area facilities.

Obstacles to Program Implementation

Boys and Girls Club membership dues rose from $3 to $10 for a year’s membership. This created a hardship for some youth. To remedy this, membership fee scholarships were made available to those youth participating in the Norfolk Seed programs as needed. In addition, the coordinator of the TOP program noted he did not encounter the kind of community and parental support he had hoped for the program. This lack of support hindered the program’s outreach goals, but overall the coordinator was pleased that many of the youth who joined the Club have stayed active.

The Youth Employment program had difficulties scheduling speakers on a routine basis as originally intended. The Mothers Against Gangs program also endured problems, specifically, ineffective leadership, which led to dismissal of the coordinator and program termination.

Summary of Program Activities

Norfolk’s Weed and Seed activities focused on increased police presence through additional patrol hours and increased youth activities offered through a variety of youth-oriented programs.

During the third year of the Weed and Seed program in Norfolk, Weed funds supported an average of 34 part-time and full-time officers who worked an average of 334 hours in the target area per month. Over the span of the final grant year, 30 law enforcement special operations were conducted. Of these, 11 sweeps were executed, which resulted in 47 arrests. Seventeen percent of these arrests were for drug violations. Additionally, Norfolk Police were assisted by the Virginia State Police on six of the reported sweeps and by Virginia Probation and Parole on three sweeps. A detailed list of additional enforcement activities is displayed in Table 5.

Calls-for-service in the target area averaged 524 a month, or about 3% of the citywide total. A total of 11 firearms were seized in the target area during the third grant year, comprising about 2% of the firearms seized citywide. A total of $56,634 worth of illegal drugs was seized in the target area during the last grant year, accounting for approximately 5% of the city’s total dollar amount of illicit drugs seized.

In addition, Norfolk’s Seed programs provided services to youth and families in the target area neighborhoods. Table 6 details the number of participants in each program and the age groups that each programs served.

During the third grant year, TOP distributed over 400 one-day passes to the Boys and Girls Club, of which 47 were used. Of the 47 youth who used the passes, 43 became members. Positive Confrontation conducted workshops and field trips in addition to their weekly class curriculum. In addition to the regular participants noted in the table, these workshops were attended by a total of 25 parents and 10 youth, and field trips were attended by 30 youth. The Weed and Seed Youth Conference 2000 was also attended by 83 youth from the target area neighborhoods.

Arrest Statistics for the Norfolk Target Area

In analyzing Norfolk’s IBR offense and arrest data for the third year of Weed and Seed, no significant trends or patterns were found. The three most common types of arrests made in the Norfolk target area are displayed in Table 7.

* Includes drug equipment violations

The arrests made for these three offenses, drug / narcotic violations, trespass, and simple assault, represent 34% of all arrests made in the target area. Simple assaults made up 40% of all assaults in the target area. (See Appendix C for a breakdown of IBR offense and arrest data for Norfolk’s target area.)

Summary Assessment by Local Weed and Seed Coordinators

At the end of the third year of the Weed and Seed program, program coordinators were asked their opinions about the grant activities they were most pleased with as well as those which did not fulfill expectations. They identified several different facets of the Weed and Seed program with which they were particularly pleased. Coordinators reported that the police department developed invaluable ties with the community. These relationships will reportedly help the community and police work together more effectively for a long time to come. Norfolk also noted that youth outreach efforts succeeded in involving many Southside children in healthy and positive activities. The Positive Confrontation program particularly helped bridge the relationship between parents and schools by creating more communication and trust between them.

However, some desired accomplishments were not realized. The TOP program, which was so successful in its youth outreach efforts, was reportedly hindered by the lack of community and parental support it received. The Youth Employment Program coordinator was not satisfied with the year’s accomplishments and believes that the program would benefit from a redesigned curriculum that emphasized business and entrepreneurial education. According to the local program administrator, the Mothers Against Gangs program had a promising start, but suffered from poor leadership.

Continuation Plans

Although the additional police patrols funded through Weed and Seed will no longer be active in the Southside, the focused community initiatives and knowledge gained over the last three years have informed the regular patrols of better ways to provide services in the area.

Two of the funded Seed programs will continue to provide services to youth in the target area. The TOP program will operate from the Diggstown Boys and Girls Club location, and the Positive Confrontation program will function in one or two schools during the academic year.

Norfolk hopes to provide other similar activities and services as those that were funded under the Weed and Seed grant through a four-year federal grant program called "Community Quest." The program emphasizes reducing substance abuse among youth and will involve parents and adults in its efforts.

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