SITE OVERVIEW ♦ PROVIDENCE | RHODE ISLAND
Target Area: Olneyville • Population: 5,600
Fiscal Agent: Olneyville Housing Corporation
Research Partner: Roger Williams University, School of Justice Studies
Crime Concerns: Violent crime
BCJI Funding Year: 2013 Planning & Enhancement
Neighborhood Profile
Olneyville is a community located in the western part of Providence, which has a disproportionately high number of chronically vacant residences compared to other similarly situated neighborhoods. It is currently among the most economically distressed neighborhoods in Providence, with a public housing development accounting for 33 percent of the neighborhood’s violent crime in 2012. Additionally, Olneyville is among the top ten neighborhoods in the state of Rhode Island where individuals return to after release from state Department of Corrections facilities. For example, approximately 6 percent of the state’s reentry population returned to Olneyville in 2008, which contains only 0.06 percent of the state’s population. In part due to the neighborhood’s economic challenge and public housing conditions, the community has been the focus of a Choice Neighborhoods Initiative which ran concurrently with BCJI over the first six months of BCJI activity, enriching and corroborating the BCJI process.
Planning Process
During BCJI planning in 2014, Olneyville Housing Corporation along with the Providence Police Department, Rhode Island LISC and Roger Williams University, consulted numerous data sources to refine an overall picture of crime including crime trends, dynamics of criminal events, locations of hotspots, and crime drivers. The findings confirmed hotspots and highlighted the influence of problems like nuisance properties, as well as resident concerns about prostitution and narcotics activity. While serious violence did not emerge as a core community concern, and police noted decreases in violence in recent years, quality of life crime emerged as substantial issues.
Implementation Strategies
Beginning in early 2015, BCJI implementation strategies are organized into three broad intervention areas. These are:
- Community policing, including implementation of problem-solving fueled by Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) principles, targeted foot patrols and gang/gun violence interventions through Operation Ceasefire and Project Safe Neighborhoods. In addition, local service organizations are implementing empirically-tested strategies for street intervention with sex workers and programming for youth and police.
- Community building, including a Safer Cities initiative, parent and child social skills training programs, and youth violence prevention programming, bolstered by consistent neighbor organizing around community issues and events.
- Real estate development targeted to crime-producing blighted properties and public spaces, continuing the longstanding work of the Olneyville Housing Corporation to rehabilitate properties for affordable rental and homeownership by local people.
These activities significantly leverage the work of a variety of ongoing initiatives in Olneyville, and are proving to yield a deeper focus on crime reduction that is advancing neighborhood goals. Recent wins include the acquisition of a long vacant church building which will now serve as the community’s library.
Featuring this Site
- Listen to Captain Dean Isabella of the Providence Police Department describe how helping gang-involved young people fits into his philosophy of policing
- Watch this video about the long-standing safety work in Olneyville, which spurred the BCJI project launched in 2013
This web site is funded in part, through a grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Neither the U.S. Department of Justice nor any of its components operate, control, are responsible for, or necessarily endorse, this web site (including, without limitation, its content, technical infrastructure, and policies, and any services or tools provided).