Creating a safer 6th Street: How another U.S. city transformed its entertainment district

Representatives from 25 New York police agencies gathered for searching conversations as departments reconsider established tactics amid a string of fatal confrontations. Scotland achieves its success in large part by building trust between police and the communities they patrol.

Girls Court brings an all-hands-on-deck approach to the lives of vulnerable girls, linking them to social service agencies, providing informal Saturday sessions on everything from body image to legal jargon, and offering a team of adults in whom they can develop trust.

After a policeman shot and killed a teenage African American, a community in Cincinnati blamed law enforcement for racial profiling and riots expanded throughout the city. With the help of the Department of Justice as a mediator, Cincinnati made policy changes. The city now has an African American Police Association that brings police officers in communication with representatives of communities.

Areas of High Point, North Carolina have suffered from crime, poverty, and neglect, until the city began implementing Operation Ceasefire, a policing program that uses data collecting, community support against crime. High Point is now leading the country in its success of Operation Ceasefire, boasting dramatic reductions in violent crimes, domestic abuse, robberies, and drug-related offenses.

Richmond, California ranked among the highest homicide rates in the country. The city created the Office of Neighborhood Safety to engage the community in the effort to curb gun violence and prevent homicides. ONS works directly with the young people who are at risk and have succeeded in reducing the homicide rate.

LAPD's special team, the Mental Evaluation Unit, is teaming up police officers with mental health clinicians to better approach and address individuals suffering from a mental health crisis. Rather than sending them to jail - where resources are limited and a vicious cycle often results - the teams help ensure patients get the medical care they need, preventing brushes with the law and county millions of dollars and freed up thousands of hours of patrol time. Their model is being replicated nation-wide.

In Fayetteville, the Mayor and Police Chief have taken a personalized approach in seeking a solution for blighted, low-income neighborhoods and are working to increase the number of city staff on-hand to help address issues like decrepit buildings, as well as decrease the disparity in resources allocated to maintaining these neighborhoods. But many challenges remain, and the line between the government's role versus the private homeowner's responsibility remains difficult to define.

Civic leaders in the U.S. struggle to effectively help their distressed neighborhoods. East Lake, Atlanta, created a replicable model that mixes residents of differing socio-economic status, and focuses on education and health in the area.

Researchers set out to measure the efficacy of a program called Becoming a Man, which seems to be proving that, for all the billions of dollars spent on complicated anti-crime programs, something as simple and cheap as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy seems more effective in reducing crime (and, not unrelated, keeping teenagers in school).

In Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood, an organization called Save Our Streets Crown Heights (S.O.S.) is taking steps to disrupt violence. The organization is modeled after Chicago's violence interrupters, which employ people from the neighborhood to connect with those most at-risk and disrupt conflicts and retalitory violence.