Blue Ribbon Panel

Blue Ribbon Task Force for the Reduction of Youth Violence

Seaside has a long history of gang activity, dating back to the 1970s. The City's demographics have changed dramatically in the past decade, and today the Hispanic Norteños and African-American Crips are at the forefront of the growing problems of gang and gun violence.

The Blue Ribbon Panel aims to stem gang violence in Seaside by implementing the Seaside Gang Violence Prevention and Intervention Program (GVPIP) based on OJJDP's Comprehensive Gang Model.

About the Panel

The Panel, made up of stakeholders from various community and government organizations, has two goals: community mobilization and the completion of a Comprehensive Youth Violence Reduction Plan (the Plan) and its implementation to prevent future youth gang delinquency, crime, and violence. The Plan will document the negative affects “youth violence” has within our community and why it should be combated using a “community health” framework which includes core gang reduction strategies of prevention, intervention, reentry, and suppression.

Over the next several months the Panel will continue our in-reach efforts to gather information from community forums (listening tours), collect statistical data from local, county and state agencies. Using this information as well as best practices from successful programs for reducing youth violence from other communities, the National Gang Center, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) we will work do develop and adopt a program specific to the needs of Seaside.

Community Partners

The Panel is comprised of stakeholders from various faith and community based organizations, business and non-profits, social and community health services, street intervention workers, police, prosecution, and probation personnel, local grassroots organizations, education and public officials and concerned citizens. Each of the stakeholders work to find opportunities to leverage existing programs and offerings to identified needs of the community.