Photo credit: Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel
Tuesday, Orlando’s Mayor Buddy Dyer and Chief Val Demings launched a new initiative to support existing crime reduction efforts.
The new “Choose Peace” campaign is a citywide public safety campaign designed to start a community- wide conversation about the choice everyone has whether or not to engage in violent or criminal behavior.
Over the past three years the percentage of the year’s homicides over the summer months has increased. Sixty three percent of the suspects in 2008 homicides were age 25 or younger.
The collaboration between citizens, businesses, pastors and the Orlando Police Department, the centerpiece of “Choose Peace”, aims to spur discussion with youth about choices and consequences.
The “Choose Peace” campaign takes a three tiered approach:
1. Community Engagement. The Choose Peace campaign is driven by a need to engage residents in promoting peace and educate the community on its role and responsibility to prevent crime. The campaign utilizes posters, wall art, radio commercials and video to raise awareness among youth, parents and the community at large about Choose Peace.
2. Building Partnerships. Recognizing that the greatest achievements will not be reached alone but through partnerships, a wide range of community organizations are supporting the Choose Peace campaign. These partnerships will:
a. Generate Awareness – collaborations with Star 94.5, Power 95.3, Rumba, and Clear Channel Outdoors have resulted in donated billboard space, the creation of video and radio spots including nationally-recognized recording artists.
b. Leverage Community Youth Programs – Youth involved in the After-School All-Stars program and the Orlando Police Departments Operation Positive Direction will learn to Choose Peace with character building and life skills lessons.
3. Specialized Enforcement. Under Chief Demings leadership, the Orlando Police Department continues to implement innovative approaches to addressing crime. Under the most recent effort, each week OPD will mobilize a Captain and a team of officers to address the latest crime trends. This is in addition to existing efforts which include hot spot policing, monitoring of the habitual offenders list and special operations teams.
As regards funding, financial support for the Choose Peace campaign was made possible through community partnerships and FAST (Federal Asset Sharing Trust) funds.
FAST funds are state funds and are generated through forfeiture actions and may only be used for activities that focus on crime prevention, safe neighborhoods and drug prevention programs. These funds can not to be used as a source of revenue to meet normal operating needs of the law enforcement agency. No City general funds were used to implement this campaign
The “Choose Peace” campaign complements existing crime fighting initiatives, including the 2006 Public Safety Initiative, which did put additional police officers on the streets, opened new community substations and established the Safe Orlando Task Force; Operation Delta Felony (ODF) Zone which developed a zero tolerance policy, designed to prohibit certain felony offenders arrested in ODF Zones from returning while on probation; and IRIS, which utilizes specially trained OPD personnel to monitor safety cameras placed throughout Downtown 24-hours a day.
