JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – This week the city has been learning more about Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan’s plan for Jacksonville’s future.
On Wednesday, she looked to the past.
Deegan’s transition team is working to revive the Jacksonville Journey, a crime-fighting program that started in 2007. There were numerous meetings this week on the program and other issues that Deegan is working on.
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The Kids Hope Alliance building, which came about when the Jacksonville Journey ended, could be where the Jacksonville Journey will begin again.
In 2007 Jacksonville was the crime capital of the state and at that time 16 years ago many of the victims and criminals were children. That’s why then-Mayor John Peyton formed the Jacksonville Journey.
The Journey’s goal at the time included intervention, education and figuring out how to pay for more police.
Did it work?
Reports at the time showed crime did drop but the success of the Journey was questioned by elected leaders and others. After several mayors, the Journey changed, eventually morphing into the Kids Hope Alliance. Its primary focus now is overseeing after-school and early learning programs.
Mayor Deegan is now trying to bring back the Jacksonville Journey and that is what one of Wednesday’s meetings was all about.
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The focus of the subcommittee was literacy. The committee discussed how Duval County’s low reading scores could be contributing to crime.
“In fact, there’s a high percentage of children who, if they are not proficient readers, at the end of third grade, a high percentage up in dependency or going to jail. Okay, so we want to stop our crime problem. We’ve got to start educating our children so they could get out and get a good job and be productive members of our community,” said W.C. Gentry, who is part of Deegan’s transition team.
So, part of the Journey’s revival will be literacy, which would involve more reading skill programs after school and in the summer. The committees are also looking at crime prevention measures that could be taken directly into neighborhoods. We’ve seen some of that in the past with groups like Cure Violence, a civilian crime intervention initiative that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year which may or may not be renewed.
No decisions were made on Wednesday, only a discussion about what could be recommended.
The group and other transition committees will present a final report about its findings to the mayor in August and from there she will make recommendations. And if it involves public spending that will more than likely need city council approval.