Tenn. city gets grant to fund anti-crime programs

By Randall Higgins
Chattanooga Times Free Press

CLEVELAND, Tenn. — An $800,000 grant will fund efforts to reduce crimes related to alcohol and drug abuse in targeted neighborhoods here.

The Tennessee Targeted Community Crime Reduction Grant includes 18 partner organizations working together to help people living in southeastern areas of the city, the police department's sectors one and two.

"It is going to affect a change in our community. That's what the grant is all about," City Manager Janice Casteel said Tuesday to representatives from participating agencies.

"It is spending money on children, through the Boys and Girls Club, identifying folks through our juvenile court system who need help, identifying even adults who, through counseling sessions, can make a life cycle change in their behavior," Castell said. "That's going to impact families. And that's what our goal is."

The grant is awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice through the Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration. The grant program ends June 30, 2013.

The Going Respectfully Against Addiction Behavior Coalition will administer the grant.

"This grant has three components: enforcement, intervention and prevention," said Assistant Police Chief Gary Hicks. "Basically, it's community policing with everybody working together."

"In two or three years we would like to be able to write this up, not just as a bunch of numbers. To me it is important to take numbers and put them into the story. How is Cleveland better as a result of this grant?" program evaluator David Watts said.

"One of the reasons we were selected is we are a community that works together," said Joyce Vanderpool, coalition program manager.

What the Grant Funds

• Two police officers
• One marked police vehicle
• Boys and Girls Club programming
• Behavioral Research Institute programming
• Bradley County Juvenile Court programming (city residents)
• Administration by the GRAAB Coalition
• David Watts, evaluator

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