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Safe Communities at LISC

Since 1994, LISC’s Community Safety Initiative has supported teams of community developers and law enforcement working to improve safety in neighborhoods nationwide.

Building Partnerships for Safe Communities

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Welcome to the Community Safety Initiative Resource Center

In neighborhoods around the country, residents and community organizations are stepping up to tackle persistent crime problems in concert with progressive law enforcement agencies. These leaders know that enforcement alone rarely yields sustained reductions in crime. Safety partnerships which have aligned organizing, enforcement and physical revitalization have achieved double digit reductions in crime, replacing trouble spots with quality housing, active businesses and safe playspaces.

In this Resource Center, LISC’s Community Safety Initiative shares lessons and tools from hundreds of such partnerships to guide and inform efforts in other communities. Join us in this exchange of strategies for building safe and healthy neighborhoods.

Department of Justice Names LISC to Guide Comprehensive Safety Strategies

LISC CSI TO SUPPORT BYRNE CRIMINAL JUSTICE INNOVATION GRANTEES IN 15 CITIES

The U.S. Department of Justice has named LISC Community Safety Initiative (CSI) to support programs that tackle crime hotspots in 15 cities as part of a sweeping effort to improve the quality of life in troubled communities. LISC CSI was awarded $1 million to guide the Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Program (BCJI), bringing law enforcement, civic and economic leaders to the table with the neighbors themselves with the goal of making communities safer. LISC's grant was part of $11 million in BCJI funds awarded to help lift up cities from San Bernardino, CA, to Buffalo, NY. As the national training and technical assistance provider, LISC's role is to help local neighborhoods across the country implement the strategy.

Read the DOJ press release to learn more about this program and the BCJI grantees

Two LISC cities to receive DOJ Building Neighborhood Capacity Program support

Neighborhoods in Flint, Michigan and Milwaukee, Wisconsin will receive capacity-building support through the federal Building Neighborhood Capacity Program (BNCP) over the next two years per a recent announcement from the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance on behalf of the White House Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative. The BNCP model is closely aligned with LISC's Building Sustainable Communities approach in its emphasis on helping distressed neighborhoods transform themselves into neighborhoods of opportunity by strengthening partnerships and activities around public safety, education, housing, human services and health. LISC supported the applications from both Milwaukee and Flint. Other neighborhoods in Memphis, Tennessee and Fresno, California will also receive support from DOJ and the BNCP technical assistance provider, the Center for the Study of Social Policy.

Learn more about LISC's work in Flint, Michigan and Milwaukee, WI

"Residents and businesses often have conflicting interests and in diverse communities, there are always cultural and perception issues that have to be addressed. We are fortunate to have a very receptive police department on the ground but often times there are also real or perception issues between the community and the police."