About Safe & Sound
Safe & Sound’s proven, three-pronged approach is based on the successful Weed and Seed pilot program that “weeded” out crime and “seeded” three Milwaukee neighborhoods with positive alternatives for youth.
Safe & Sound was established in 1998 as a pilot initiative to reduce crime, especially violent crime, in high-crime, generally low-income neighborhoods through strong public-private partnerships. Today, the three-pronged initiative operates in 21 City of Milwaukee neighborhoods. The community of Milwaukee adopted a comprehensive, proactive, collaborative approach to reducing crime. This strategy was tested for three years by the Milwaukee Weed & Seed initiative (1994-1997), adopted and recommended by the Youth Crime & Violence Task Force.
VIDEO: Safe & Sound’s founders provide a brief history of the beginnings.
The Safe & Sound Initiative is based upon the respected work of Milwaukee’s Youth Crime and Violence Task Force, founded by U.S. Senator Herb Kohl, former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist and former U.S. Attorney Thomas Schneider. The Task Force consisted of a broad coalition of neighborhood leaders, government officials, heads of youth-serving agencies, law enforcement chiefs, and business and community leaders. The thrust of the Task Force’s conclusions was a need for a balanced approach between tough law enforcement and community-based prevention to achieve effective crime reduction, increased economic viability and proactive youth development. The Safe & Sound Board represents all of these groups.
The Area Specific Policing Initiative of the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD), Safe & Sound, Milwaukee High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), Community Partners and Ceasefire were designed to work together, complement each other and produce a significant reduction in violent crime.
Using the MPD’s Comstat (crime mapping) system, primary attention was given to the roughly 270,000 person, highest-crime, lowest-income areas of the City of Milwaukee. This area accounts for the overwhelming majority of violent felony offenses, drug offenses, weapons crime and gang activity. Therefore, from the beginning it was stated that one clear measure of success or failure of this initiative would be the extent to which there was, or was not, a decrease in violent felony offenses. In other words, are these initiatives making Milwaukee’s neighborhoods safer places in which to live, work and raise a family?
Collaboration has been a key element of the Safe & Sound initiative. It was acknowledged that no one approach, by itself, would reduce crime. Safe & Sound has relied on a three-pronged strategy to reduce crime: positive alternatives for youth through Safe Places, door-to-door neighborhood organizing by Community Partners and tough law enforcement through HIDTA. This approach is a unique model in the U.S.; no other city incorporates these strategies.
