Baton Rouge Partnership for the Prevention of Juvenile Gun Violence

The Baton Rouge (La.) Partnership for the Prevention of Juvenile Gun Violence targets the most chronic violent youths up to age 21 from two southern Louisiana high-crime zip code areas. The program refers to juveniles and young adults on probation for gun-related offenses as "Eigers," after a peak in the Bernese Alps considered among the world's most difficult to climb. Three-member police-probation teams intensely supervise and strictly enforce the conditions of probation for Eigers. The probation conditions are linked to risk factors associated with each youth's violent behaviors, which are addressed with program interventions. A comprehensive treatment plan is developed for each Eiger that includes services for family members. The teams make regular home visits with the Eigers, their parents, and their siblings to monitor probation compliance, record information for intervention services, and establish an ongoing dialog with the families. A life skills academy offers a host of education, training, and rehabilitation options for Eigers. Eiger teams monitor identified youths (non-Eigers) who are at risk of becoming serious habitual offenders. The strategy facilitates an immediate response to delinquent behavior when it occurs.

The partnership uses a comprehensive strategy with four specific goals:

1. Carry out a multi-agency law enforcement (suppression) strategy to reduce gun-related and other violent crimes committed by youths 17 and older.
2. Operate an intensive intervention program to reduce the risk factors for the highest risk youths, their families, and the community.
3. Mobilize the community at the grassroots level to address the problems of hard-to-reach families and the highest risk youths.
4. Operate a long-range prevention program that identifies, links, and strengthens existing resources to serve youths who may be at risk.

The evaluation used autoregressive integrated moving average model analyses to compare firearm offenses in the area targeted by the partnership with firearm offenses in the rest of the city over a 6-year period, 1995-2000. The evaluation of firearm offenses in Baton Rouge showed a decrease in firearm robberies in the target area during the 3 years following the start of the program. The average number dropped from 110 to 92--a 16.4 percent decrease--while in the surrounding areas there was only a 5.7 percent decrease, from 105 to 99. This is a significant difference. Analysis of firearm-aggravated assaults shows a significant drop of 30 percent in the target area, while the surrounding area showed an increase of 22 percent during the beginning of the evaluation, before finally falling in 1999.