Memphis strategic team against rape and sexual assault: One city's struggle to find a new way of doing business, The

University of Memphis Law Review, The, Winter 2002 by Jones, Christopher Leon Jr

I. INTRODUCTION

In 1998, five cities were chosen as SACK pilot sites: (1) Indianapolis, Indiana, (2) Memphis, Tennessee, (3) New Haven, Connecticut, (4) Portland, Oregon, and (5) Winston-Salem, North Carolina.5 Each city selected a crime problem to target.6 In Indianapolis, the target problems were homicide and gun violence; in Memphis, the target problem was sexual assault; in New Haven, the target problems were gun-related crime and community fear; in Portland, the target problem was youth gun violence; and in Winston-Salem, the target problem was violent crimes committed by youth, age seventeen and younger.7 Each city was provided the opportunity to choose a crime problem that may have been difficult to address in the past, but one that local leaders believed might be attacked by a new approach.8

The Strategic Approaches model is a new way of doing business that relies upon the use of statistical data and information analysis to make decisions; "[it] asks researchers to serve as navigators-observing, analyzing, and recommending changes in direction."12 In addition, the Strategic Approaches model was fashioned to develop the role of the prosecutor as a problemsolver.13 As described by the five United States Attorneys14 in the federal districts where SACSI was piloted, there are three key roles in the implementation of the Strategic Approaches model:

[United States] Attorney.-Through SACSI, [United States] Attorneys are demonstrating a new, emerging role for Federal lawyers: that of prosecutor as proactive problem solver. They are taking a more direct, active interest in finding solutions to the problems that jeopardize public safety in particular communities.

Researchers.-Unlike traditional research involving neutral observation, SACK expects research partners to be fully engaged in problem solving. The researchers are charged with gathering crime data and street-level knowledge, analyzing it, and reporting on what they find. They bring knowledge of crime control theory and the literature about "what works" into the strategy development and help craft an intervention to reduce the target crime problem.15

In addition to the key roles described above, the SACSI experience in Memphis demonstrates that the effective use of the Strategic Approaches model requires the balancing of three key factors:

(1) Allowing the decision-making process to be driven by data analysis;

(2) Completion of work in a collaborative fashion; and

(3) Sharing of responsibility.

There are five separate stages involved in using the Strategic Approaches model:

(1) Form an inter-agency group;

(2) Gather information and data;

(3) Design the intervention;

(4) Implement the intervention;

(5) Assess and modify the strategy.16

Each stage has its own unique set of challenges; however, before discussing each stage of the process, one should understand how SACSI was developed to test the Strategic Approaches model, the significance of prosecution, and the function of the Project Coordinator.

The traditional and statutorily mandated role of the United States Attorney's Office is to prosecute federal crimes.22 Federal law specifically sets out the duties of the United States Attorney for each federal district:

While the United States Code sets forth the duties of the United States Attorney, there is also a role that the United States Attorney plays in each community where he or she serves. As the chief law enforcement officer in each federal district, the United States Attorney holds a unique place within the law enforcement community to serve as a convener to marshal federal and state resources.24 This model of the United States Attorney as convener was utilized by United States Attorney Don Stem in the District of Massachusetts during the Boston Gun Project and serves as the standard for the Strategic Approaches model.25

The first Ceasefire intervention was with the Vamp Hill Kings, a gang with turf on Bowdoin Street in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, in which an internal struggle led to three homicides over a short time in early 1996. The Working Group's intervention employed a substantial menu of measures, including heavy police presence, street drug market disruption, heavy probation enforcement, DYS surrenders, warrant service, a small number of federal indictments, and more. The Kings did not comply readily; the dispute ebbed and flared, with one homicide occurring in the midst of the Ceasefire intervention. By mid-May, however, things were quiet, and the Working Group held the first of what it came to call "forums": a sit-down meeting at Dorchester Courthouse with about a dozen members of the Kings (who attended voluntarily at the behest of gang outreach workers) and several members of the community. The forum included posters and handouts intended to summarize the Vamp Hill King intervention and its connection to the Ceasefire strategy; these were also shown and distributed subsequently to other Boston gang members by police and probation officers. Included was a poster and flyer summarizing the case of Freddy Cardoza, an active member of another gang who had, based on a long history of violent felonies, been indicted for possession of ammunition under the federal armed career criminal statute and sentenced to a substantial term. The Cardoza prosecution was pre-Ceasefire, but the Working Group deployed it anyway as an example of what could be done if the authorities deemed it necessary.