Teens, Crime, and the Community

Teens, Crime, and the Community is a nationally recognized program to help teens understand how crime affects them, their families, friends, and community and what they can do to keep from becoming a victim of crime and violence.  An engaging restorative justice program for middle and high school youth, it couples an interactive curriculum with service learning projects, using community resource persons (lawyers, judges, police officers, etc.) as active participants in the learning experience.  Topics covered include teens and crime prevention, violent crime, vandalism, juvenile justice system, child abuse, acquaintance rape, substance abuse, drunk driving, shoplifting, and others.  This program has been successfully implemented in Hibbing and now is being made available to Minnesota through the Minnesota Center for Community Legal Education, working in partnership with the national TCC sponsors: the National Crime Prevention Council and the Street Law, Inc.  The Center is the regional expansion site for the upper midwest.

In May 1999 a new national study of Teens, Crime, and the Community by SPEC Associates of Detroit MI was released.  In part, the study showed that the TCC youth:

• held stronger positive views against breaking laws or generally accepted rules;
• were more likely to view themselves as responsible for and capable of changing their community for the better;
• showed themselves more strongly supportive of altruism, fairness, goal-setting, and consideration of others and of potential consequences of actions;
• had more positive attitudes toward police, judges, and similar criminal justice system authority figures;
• bonded better to school in terms of attitudes toward teachers, classes, and other students;
• and more strongly supported the idea and value of teamwork.

Community Works Site Survey(MSWord)PDF Format
Calendar of Events

Of note: