Reducing Crime in Detroit:  

Wayne State University AmeriCorps  

Urban Safety Program 

AmeriCorps Midtown Urban Safety Program Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service Project Video Highlights

The AmeriCorps Midtown Urban Safety Program at Wayne State University is a national service program funded by the MCSC. In collaboration with other area partners, the AmeriCorps Midtown Urban Safety Program is part of a community effort to create safe and culturally rich neighborhoods in Detroit's Midtown District. Through the dedicated service of fourteen AmeriCorps members and proven crime reduction techniques, the program has improved levels of neighborhood guardianship, reduced victim attractiveness and susceptibility, and increased the reporting and tracking of crime and suspicious activities.        

To achieve this, sixty volunteers have been leveraged by members to serve through thirty-four "block clubs," which implement targeted strategies such as cleaning and boarding up vacant buildings, hosting crime prevention events, and establishing neighborhood patrols and watch groups. The AmeriCorps Midtown Urban Safety Program has also raised awareness and tracking of criminal activity by installing 70 resident computers with wireless broadband network connection. This technology enables mobile video surveillance by block club members and quick placement of video surveillance cameras that detect and record criminal activity in crime "hotspots."  

After just one year of service in Detroit's Woodbridge neighborhood, crime has declined by 33 percent overall, including a 69 percent decline in street robbery, a 63 percent decline in drug dealing, and a 40 percent decline in vandalism. The program is replicating its successful strategies and expanding into the Henry Ford neighborhood of Detroit. In 2011-2012, the AmeriCorps Midtown Urban Safety Program has already established nine new block clubs.  

 Faced with crime rates nearly twice
 as high as the state average, many  
 residents in the greater Kalamazoo  

 community do not feel safe in their
 own neighborhoods. To combat this growing problem, the local volunteer center, Volunteer Kalamazoo, decided to enlist volunteers to support the efforts of the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety, as well as other neighborhood associations working on the same issue.  

To do this, Volunteer Kalamazoo needed a large number of volunteers with many diverse skills. Thanks to a new national service program created to increases the capacity of volunteer connector organizations, the MCSC was able to provide Volunteer Kalamazoo with a small Volunteer Generation Fund grant that provided volunteer recruitment, management and training resources. As a result of their increased capacity, coupled with the passionate and focused efforts of the center, Volunteer Kalamazoo was able to recruit nearly 1,600 volunteers in their first year, as well as 28 community partners.  

These volunteers and community collaborative members served with Volunteer Kalamazoo to clean up three different neighborhoods, paint over graffiti, trim overgrown bushes, and maintain an orderly physical environment in some of Kalamazoo's most troubled areas. Together, Volunteer Kalamazoo and its many partners, as well as the hundreds of volunteers, are restoring order and safety to the greater Kalamazoo community.

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Service provided by members of the Next Steps AmeriCorps Program at Vanguard Community Development Corporation (CDC) address two major objectives in the Detroit area; community outreach and revitalization. Focused in the North End and historic North East neighborhoods, both are important facets to increasing safety and reducing crime. To achieve this mission, members perform activities such as vacant lot clean-ups, development of community gardens and parks, boarding-up of vacant homes, yard maintenance and snow removal for the elderly, and the removal of overgrown brush and debris in alleyways.

In addition to their community-wide efforts, the Next Steps AmeriCorps Program is also addressing safety in an unconventional way. Designed specifically for participants with a felonious past, the program provides the returning population with a valuable opportunity to earn employment skills and funds to further their education. As repeat offending most frequently occurs when opportunities are unavailable, the program is alleviating the high rate of recidivism amongst its members by building a bridge to successful reintegration into society. Throughout the course of the program, 12 members have successfully completed a full year of service with all 12 alumni obtaining gainful employment after their term of service.

The use of service as a strategy to create systemic change is not a new concept for Vanguard CDC Executive Director Scott Alan Davis. A former AmeriCorps member who served in the Grand Rapids Service Corps in the mid 1990's, Mr. Davis has long known the unique difference that service and volunteerism can make when addressing the state's most pressing challenges.