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Abstract: 

This issue focuses on ideas for making our communities safer. The first submission, the ICCA Policy Statement on Community Responsibility and Engagement, summarizes the association's policies on services for victims, improved reentry services for offenders, and recommendations for facilitating engagement with the community. The impact of an offender’s crime on his or her family members, and also the important role family members can play in supporting positive reentry, have been neglected areas of research. Dr. Timothy Sim discusses these issues in part two of his article on a project in Singapore about working with families of ex-offenders. Dr. Sim examines the value and the difficulties of this work, reports on the lessons learned from working with offenders’ families, and reports on the results of discussions with policymakers and stakeholders regarding the research. The article by Adam Matz, Nathan Lowe, and Matthew DeMichele, research associates with the American Probation and Parole Association (APPA) provides an informative discussion of a serious problem facing many cities. The emphasis on partnerships is a key element in this paper and is illustrated by the fact that Project Safe Neighborhoods was a partnership with a local U.S. district attorney and other stakeholders. The authors provide a clear summary of what was involved in targeting gang-involved youth with the purpose of making the community safer and ending gang violence. An interesting outcome of this project was the development of the APPA’s C.A.R.E model—that is, collaboration with justice and community organizations, analysis of the problem, emphasis on reentry, and incorporation of evaluation research. Our book reviews explore women’s imprisonment, European policy and practice in the release and reentry of offenders, the death penalty, and in light of the gangs and guns article in this issue, a book about the Rochester Project Safe Neighborhoods program and the lessons learned from it.

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Affiliations:  1: Journal Editor.