Spotlight Announcement

10/23/2008: U.S. Department of Justice Selects Eight "Weed and Seed" Sites to Receive Technical Assistance Aimed at Improving Reentry Efforts

The U.S. Department of Justice Community Capacity Development Office (CCDO) has selected eight "Weed and Seed" sites to participate in a 13-month technical assistance project to build, promote, and sustain a variety of initiatives aimed at helping individuals reenter communities after they are released from prison or jail. The selected sites are Phoenix, AZ; Palm Beach, FL; Indianapolis, IN; San Antonio, TX; St. Louis, MO; Pawtucket, RI; Irvington, NJ; and New Bedford, MA.

Weed and Seed, a community-based program overseen by CCDO, is a comprehensive, multiagency approach to law enforcement, crime prevention, and community revitalization. Most Weed and Seed communities have high crime rates and high concentrations of individuals returning to their communities from prisons and jails. The Weed and Seed program helps local officials to effectively address these problems by leveraging resources in the community.

The current initiative will provide technical assistance to community and faith-based organizations, reentry committees, neighborhood associations, and other local officials in the selected sites to help them improve services for people released from prisons and jails. Technical assistance efforts will focus on capacity-building, forming strong partnerships and referral networks, improving data-collection processes, and raising awareness in the community, among other things.

The Center for Community Safety of Winston-Salem State University, with funding support from CCDO, will coordinate all training and technical assistance activities in conjunction with experts from the Department of Justice. For more information about this initiative, please contact Alvin Atkinson at the Center for Community Safety at atkinsona@wssu.edu.