CDC Funds Nashville Youth Violence Research

As overall crime rates drop around the country, crimes committed by juveniles continue to climb in Nashville, according to police chief Ronal Serpas.

“We cannot arrest our way out of this problem. It is not appropriate to think that we’re going to arrest our way out of this problem.”

Serpas spoke at Meharry Medical College (today/yesterday) where he thanked the Centers for Disease Control for a 4-point-2-million dollar grant to study youth violence in the city.

The grant will create the Youth Violence Prevention Academic Center of Excellence – one of nine centers around the country. Researchers from Tennessee State University, Vanderbilt University and Meharry will conduct three separate projects. One explores the roots of bullying in schools and the origins of gang activity. Another evaluates the effectiveness of programs run by non-profit organizations in schools, and the third one will take stock of Nashville’s crime hot spots.

Vanderbilt professor Maury Nation says the research dollars will be targeted at middle schools in a crescent band stretching from North to Southeast Nashville, where almost all of the city’s homicides occur.

“We’re catching them by working particularly with middle schoolers. We’re catching them on the cusp of becoming involved in gangs, so hopefully we’ll be able to, again, do some primary prevention.”

Grant money will also establish a county-wide surveillance system that will take data from hospitals, police and social services to track youth violence.

The surveillance project should be up and running in about a year.