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Date: November 22, 2024 Fri

Time: 12:26 pm

Results for neighborhoods and crime (new york city)

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Author: Hynynen, Suvi

Title: Community Perceptions of Brownsville: A Survey of Neighborhood Quality of Life, Safety, and Services

Summary: In 2010, the Center for Court Innovation began exploring the possibility of creating a community court in Brownsville, Brooklyn. A community court is a neighborhood-focused court that attempts to harness the authority of the justice system to address local problems. As part of the planning process community members were asked to voice their opinions about their neighborhood and community through an “Operation Data” survey, a tool to assess community needs and inform future initiatives. In October 2010, 815 residents, merchants, or people who work in Brownsville completed the survey. Their perceptions of quality of life, safety, services, and youth issues in their neighborhood are presented in this report. The Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn covers less than two square miles and has a population of 113,484 (Citizens’ Committee for Children in New York, 2010). Median income for a family in Brownsville is $26,802 with 32.1 percent of families living below the poverty line (New York City Department of City Planning, 2011). Brownsville has the highest concentration of public housing developments in New York City (New York City Housing Authority) and 48 percent receive income support in the form of public assistance, SSI, and/or Medicaid (New York City Department of City Planning, 2011). The majority of residents (80 percent) are African- American. Crime is a major concern in Brownsville—in 2008 it had the highest homicide rate in the city, and along with the surrounding communities of East New York, Bushwick, and Bedford-Stuyvesant accounted for nearly a fifth of the city’s murders and almost half of those in Brooklyn (Wright 2008). The 2010 Brownsville survey was conducted by 25 members of the Juvenile Justice Corps (JJC), the Center for Court Innovation’s AmeriCorps program. The survey consisted of 82 questions asking respondents about their perceptions on a wide range of community issues including youth, the justice system, community problems and safety. Assigned to four teams of about six individuals each, the JJC members conducted surveys with people on the street in seven specific zones in Brownsville. For the purposes of the survey, Brownsville was defined by the official census boundaries that coincide with the area of the 73rd Precinct. The zones (see Appendix A for a map of the Brownsville zones) were high pedestrian traffic areas, such as around public housing complexes, in the main shopping district, and close to subway station entrances. In five of the zones, the volunteers conducted surveys at least twice a day (once in the morning and once in the afternoon). The other two zones (Zone 5 and Zone 6) were in the Ocean Hill part of Brownsville (north of Eastern Parkway) and were only surveyed once. The Juvenile Justice Corps members conducted surveys Monday through Saturday for one week in October. They approached individuals in public spaces and, with permission, in some businesses. They asked if they were interested in participating in the survey (no incentives were offered). The survey took approximately 10 to 15 minutes to complete. While a total of 815 surveys were completed, for some questions the number of responses was as low as 639. Descriptive statistics are reported for most of the questions. Where appropriate, t-tests and regression analysis were used to indicate any significant difference between results based on respondent background characteristics and the relationship between variables.

Details: New York: Center for Court Innovation, 2011. 18p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 30, 2013 at: http://www.courtinnovation.org/sites/default/files/documents/Brownsville%20Op%20Data%20FINAL.pdf

Year: 2011

Country: United States

URL: http://www.courtinnovation.org/sites/default/files/documents/Brownsville%20Op%20Data%20FINAL.pdf

Shelf Number: 127441

Keywords:
Community Courts
Neighborhoods and Crime (New York City)
Problem-Solving Courts