History of STANCE
On February 15, 2006, the United States Attorney General identified gang violence as a top priority and announced the creation of a Comprehensive Anti-Gang Initiative (CAGI). Cleveland was selected as one of six cities to receive CAGI funding. From this CAGI Initiative, Cleveland STANCE was created. STANCE focuses on three gang-violence reduction activities: Prevention, Enforcement and Prisoner Reentry.
Prevention
The Ohio U.S. Attorney has organized a summit of law enforcement and community leaders to discuss best practices, identify gaps in services, and create a prevention plan to target at-risk youth within their individual communities. The Ohio U.S. Attorney is utilizing all local prevention resources, including existing programs that have successful track records like Weed and Seed and Project Safe Neighborhoods.
Enforcement
The Department of Justice has created a new gang task force composed of representatives from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Marshals Service, among others. The task force is a data-driven law enforcement strategy aimed at dismantling local, national and transnational violent gangs. The task force is coordinating overlapping investigations, ensuring that tactical and strategic intelligence is shared between law enforcement agencies and serving as a central coordinating center for multi-jurisdictional gang investigations involving federal law enforcement agencies.
Reentry
Persons sentenced to prison may be gang-involved before conviction, become gang-involved while incarcerated, or risk gang involvement upon release. To help address those risks and realities, the Northern District of Ohio has mobilized corrections officials and community partners to design a pilot strategy that will prepare a group of these offenders for successful integration into the community.
