Melissa Ross
During his successful campaign for Jacksonville mayor, Lenny Curry made public safety a key campaign issue, and repeatedly pledged to bring back the city’s Jacksonville Journey anti-crime initiative.
The “Journey,” as it was known, began under former mayor John Peyton as a response to Jacksonville’s skyrocketing violent crime rate. A series of interlocking initiatives focusing on the root issues affecting at-risk youth were implemented, everything from after-school programs to re-entry initiatives for ex-offenders having trouble finding jobs.
The Jax Journey was initially robustly funded, but during the financial crisis and the Alvin Brown administration, it saw spending cuts.
But with a new mayor, the Journey (which still exists) could see a comeback.
“One of our main charges is to look at where the Journey is today and decide whether we need to ramp it back up, do a Journey ‘2.0,’ or go another route,” says former US Attorney Paul Perez. Perez is chairing a transition team subcommittee for the new Curry administration on prevention and intervention programs for at-risk youth.
“During the last administration, some of the Journey programs went back to several agencies within City Hall. So one of the things we’re going to be doing is looking at is 2015 right now – where is the crime problem? We did that with the Journey, looking at the problem in terms of contributors, looked at existing programs and decided whether they were effective, and made suggestions as to funding or whether other programs were needed and what were best practices.”
Perez says the subcommittee may also looking at setting up a 501c3 for a Journey-like effort that gets its funding from outside the city.
“For the next few weeks during transition, we’ll be very focused on this,” he said.
Jacksonville has on and off been Florida’s murder capital for more than a decade and inspired this Emmy-award winning documentary on the topic (full disclosure: this reporter is the executive producer of The 904.)
