Charlotte East Community Partners, Inc.

Weed and Seed (U.S. Justice Department )

Weed and Seed information from Johnnie Wallace (10-31-03)

Operation Weed and Seed: A strategy within the U.S. Justice Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs that incorporates community-based initiatives. It is an innovative and comprehensive multi-agency approach to law enforcement, crime prevention, and community revitalization.

The Weed and Seed Strategy
Operation Weed and Seed is foremost a strategy...rather tan a program...which aims to prevent, control, and reduce violent crime, drug abuse, and gang activity in targeted high-crime neighborhoods across the country. Weed and Seed sites range in size from several neighborhood blocks to 15 square miles.

The strategy involves a two-pronged approach: law enforcement agencies and prosecutors cooperate in "weeding out" criminals who participate in violent crime and drug abuse, attempting to prevent their return to the targeted area; and " seeding" brings human services to the area, encompassing prevention, intervention, treatment, and neighborhood revitalization.

A community-orientated policing component bridges weeding and seeding strategies. Officers obtain helpful information from area residents for weeding efforts while they aid residents in obtaining information about community revitalization and seeding resources.

Elements of the Weed and Seed Strategy
"Weed" = Law Enforcement
(Narcotics traffickers and violent criminals, once arrested are often immediately returned to the streets to continue distributing drugs and terrorizing local residents. This environment of violence makes potential witnesses fear for their lives. Despite the best efforts of State and local prosecutors, often theirs is a lengthy delay between arrest and disposition of narcotics cases prosecuted at the local level. Moreover, even when such cases are resolved through a guilty plea of conviction, the criminal may serve little, if any, time in a county or State correctional facility. THE WEED AND SEED INITIATIVE IS DESIGNED TO BREAK THIS CYCLE OF ARREST, DELAY, AND MILD OR NO PUNISHMENT THAT BREEDS FRUSTRATION AND DESPAIR IN THE COMMUNITY)

The law enforcement element consists primarily of suppression of activities. These activities include enforcement, adjudication, prosecution, and supervision efforts designed to target, apprehend, and incapacitate violent street criminals who terrorize neighborhoods and account for disproportionate percentage of criminal activity. One example of an effective law enforcement strategy is Operation Trigger Lock, a Department of Justice initiative that targets violent offenders for prosecution in Federal Court to take advantage of tough Federal Firearms laws.

Some of the suppression activities will focus on special enforcement operations such as repeat or violent offender removal programs, intensified narcotics investigations, targeted prosecutions, victim-witness protection, and elimination of narcotics trafficking operations in these areas.

COMMUNITY POLICING
Community Policing serves as the bridge between the "weeding" (law enforcement) ands "seeding" (neighborhood restoration) components. The community policing element operates in support of intensive law enforcement suppression and containment activities and provides a bridge to the prevention, intervention, and treatment component as well as the neighborhood reclamation and restoration components. Local police departments should implement community policing strategies in each of the targeted sites. Under community policing, laws enforcement works closely with community residents to develop solutions to violent and drug related crime. In addition, community policing should help foster a sense of responsibility within the community and serve as a stimulus for community mobilization.

Thanks, Johnnie.