Weed And Seed Program Analysis

Law enforcement officials are known to create a program to enhance the community safety needs. They do so by taking steps such as handing out flyers in local communities attempting to advertise the program online or even in the newspaper so people can become aware of the resources that are offered and get involved. Whenever new programs are implemented people have questions and concerns about the objectives and goals which they are attempting to accomplish. Some people are eager to join the program because they assume it will bring about change and make a difference in the community. The programs law enforcement officials generate aim to serve one main purpose for everyone in the community to benefit from. That benefit is protection from

the criminals who targets to deteriorate the neighborhood. The deterioration of the neighborhoods leads, increase crime statistics, and tons of arrest for the activity itself. The groups that officers try to target the most are the youth and young adults because they so easily influenced, and they tend to become manipulated by criminals in the neighborhoods to commit certain crimes.
The majority of the time criminals offers the young people incentives such money, shoes, or drugs to perform their illegal activities. Some of the criminals threaten their lives if the youth decides to decline their offer. So officers send out messages to warn them before actions are taken against criminals. The Federal Government created the Weed and Seed program to make the community a better environment to live in. In this paper, I will discuss how the Weed and Seed program was developed and how it became successful over time.
In 1991, the Weed and Seed program began with challenges to weed out violent crime, gang activity, drug use, and trafficking in target areas, then attempt to seed out a target area by restoring the neighborhood through social and economic revitalization.

The Weed and Seed program is a community-based methodology that aims to avoid and reduce violent crime, drug mishandling, and gang movement is targeted in high-crime neighborhoods across the country. The goal of the method is to “weed out” violent crime, drug use and gang activity from selected neighborhoods and then to help prevent crime from reoccurring by “seeding” those sites with a wide range of public and private determinations to enable and advance them (“National Weed and Seed Program, n.

d.”).
The main objective for this program is to restore control and gain access over the communities that have been taken by corrupted offenders. According the U.S. Department of Justice’s Weed and Seed program was developed to establish an original and wide-ranging approach to law enforcement and community recovery and to prevent and control violent crime, drug abuse, and gang activity in target areas (“National Weed and Seed program,” n. d.).
The Executive office for Weed and Seed (EOWS) within the Office of Justice Program is responsible for the overall policy and improvement, organization and how the policy is instructed.

“According to the (EOWS) there are four elements of the Weed and Seed Program, which are law enforcement, community policing, crime and substance prevention, intervention and neighborhood restoration (Federal Grants More Can Be Done to Improve Weed and Seed Program Management, 1999). All of these elements work together like a well oil machine which ends in making adjustments to the root of the problems that are transpiring in the community.

“The Weed and Seed program has three main components that attempt to help the community become a better place to live. The initial phase is to “develop a comprehensive multiagency strategy to prevent violent crime, drug trafficking, and drug related crime in targeted neighborhoods. (“National Weed and Seed program,” n. d.). The second component is to coordinate and participate with new ideas concentrating on resources to increase the impact of all illegal activities pertaining gangs, drugs, and violent crime. The third component consists of the communities and residents in specific areas to help law enforcement identify and remove violent offenders from the community so they would not be able to cause additional damage or harm to the people in that environment.t The Weed and Seed program is not offered in all states, grants have only been given to five sites

and they are “Atlanta, GA, Dyersburg, TN, Philadelphia, PA, San Diego, CA and Woburn, MA (Federal Grants More Can Be Done to Improve Weed and Seed Program Management, 1999). I think the Weed and Seed program should be offered in more states so the crime rates can decrease and people will not feel as if their city is a dangerous place to reside.
According to EOWS the weakness of the Weed and Seed program is that it does not have sufficient internal control with the new existing sites that meet qualification for the funding and decisions so important events could be documented. The Standards for Internal Controls in the Federal Government requires that all systems and transactions with significant events are be clearly documented and readily available for examination. (Federal Grants More Can Be Done to Improve Weed and Seed Program Management, 1999).
If the success of the Weed and Seed program is documented then maybe the federal government would decide to offer additional funds for a program that has finally become successful. In my opinion if no events are documented it will seem as if the program is not effective nor would it be needed. Another weakness that the Weed and Seed program faced was the lack of sufficient funding from the federal government. This was due to the certain sites not accurately reported unspent grant award balances and compliance with the reporting requirement.
I believe the Weed and Seed program was successful because it targeted and identified the key targets of the crime that occurred in numerous of communities. However the EOWS measured the success of the Weed and Seed Program by generally tracking activities rather results or outcomes. “The EOWS has developed numerous of performance indicators, in an attempt to respond to GPRA. GPRA seeks to focus their attention to the federal management and decision-making away from activities performed, and also focusing on results or outcomes of the activities undertaken”. (Federal Grants More Can Be Done to Improve Weed and Seed Program Management, 1999). Their main concern was about the program actually working and functioning properly so it can continue to remain active.

Overall the Weed and Seed program does attempt to target issues in the community, but like any other program it has flaws. Whenever there is attempt to get rid of any drugs, gangs, or trafficking it hard to solve because the criminals tend to migrate in another area to avoid getting caught and running the risk of going to jail. Crime will always remain in city, state, or country so the only thing law enforcement officials can attempt to accomplish is cut down on crime. One way law enforcement can cut down on crime is by joining together with other local law enforcement officials in certain areas they desire to target and bust.
The policy that I would create for the Weed and Seed program would be to implement stricter punishments towards gang affiliated members and for drug trafficking I would force them to give up who the key people are in charge of the operation. If they decide not to come clean about who is in charge I would allow them to serve the maximum prison sentence for each count and serve it concurrently. Normally this method tends to the change the thought process of the criminal mind and eventually decided to give a name to avoid a long prison sentence. The changes that I would make to the Weed and Seed and program is to form stronger ties with the community so we all could put a stop towards the violent crime, drug use and gang activity.
If the community collaborate with law enforcement officials the gang members won’t stand a chance to put fear in them and attempt to deter people from calling authorities based upon the relationship and partnership they established with them. If law enforcement officials could guarantee people safety people safety from the criminals they would not think twice about supporting to capture the criminals in their neighborhood. The biggest issue that might not solve or changed entirely is the drug usage. This has always been a major issue with the criminal justice system. I do not think there is much control over this particular battle.