Community Partnership for Public Safety

·        The Community Partnership for Public Safety will assist DYRS in learning more about the community factors affecting DYRS youth prior to their release from custody. Selected community groups such as, the Peaceaholics, the East of the River Clergy Police Community Partnership, and the Columbia Heights/Shaw Collaborative will provide outreach services to youth and ensure that participants are given the necessary tools to generate positive life outcomes.

Service Coalition

• Working with local organizations and advocates that serve District youth, and with their families, DYRS has designed the Service Coalition initiative to provide and coordinate a wide range of key services needed by youth in trouble. The initiative will help rebuild fragmented communities and involve young people in community development, thereby improving their communities’ outcomes by:
  • Promoting community cohesiveness
  • Encouraging reliance on community resources
  • Contributing to community development
  • Enhancing community capacity to respond to the needs of DYRS youth and families

DYRS will work to build the capacity of participating organizations to provide the highest quality service and will monitor youth to ensure their participation. The Service Coalition has received philanthropic support that is unprecedented in the history of the agency.

Graduated Sanctions/Rewards Grid

• DYRS has created the Graduated Sanctions/Rewards Grid to hold youth more accountable for their misbehavior and reward them when they behave well. The sanctions range from requiring an earlier curfew to as severe as ending the youth's community release and placing the youth in secure confinement. Sanctions have been in place to deal with non-compliance and violation of the agreement for community release. Now these sanctions can be imposed more timely to ensure public safety.  Feedback on the program has been provided by DC Superior Court, the Office of the Attorney General (OAG), the Public Defender Service (PDS) and the Community Partnership for Public Safety. 

“Our goal in creating these initiatives is to bring everyone to the table to develop solutions to the challenges our communities face. We can’t do the work of rehabilitating youth without opportunities, supports, and services for the youth in the neighborhoods in which they spend most of their lives, and I'm confident that the community can and will take ownership of that process,” said Vincent N. Schiraldi, Director, DYRS. “Through these initiatives, we are collaborating with youth and their families, community members, law enforcement, the Courts, prosecutors and defense to further improve our system with the twin goals of rehabilitating young people and making communities safer.”