JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Jacksonville Task Force on Safety and Crime Reduction has delivered its first preliminary report outlining its recommendations to the City Council.
News4Jax reported last year that the Jacksonville City Council formed the task force to help cut down on crime across the city. On Wednesday, News4Jax got an inside look at its findings, which included the recommendation of more services for teens.
Residents said it's no doubt Jacksonville has its share of crime across the city. Westside resident Eugene King said on a scale of one to 10, the crime is "roughly between an eight or nine."
He and others said they are hoping for change.
"It's very dangerous," said a woman who didn't want to be identified. "It doesn't matter where you are in Jacksonville."
But Pastor Mark Griffin, chair of the Jacksonville Task Force on Safety and Crime Reduction, said members of the panel have logged nearly 800 hours to put a stop to crime. While their recommendations are in the draft phase, he said they realized there's a gap in services provided to teenagers that must be addressed.
Griffin said their report also recommends a new comprehensive approach for mentoring across the community.
"The real focus of the task force is to really try to identify what are the common factors, common denominators with crime and violence in our city," Griffin said.
The task force will create a computerized database that will house the demographics of the victims of crime and the perpetrators to figure out where resources are needed the most.
"Whatever the data tells us is where we're going to try as a task force or commission influence our city government to redirect funding and other resources," Griffin said.
The unnamed woman said it's unsafe to let their children play outside.
"They can't even go outside and play in their own backyard without seeing a car come through and then police come through," she said.
Griffin said the task force will be the solution.
"I feel like bringing this to community, they'll start seeing some positive things will happen," King said.
Griffin said they're hoping this task force will turn into a long-term commission and the next steps will be to meet with the City Council to move forward with implementation of the panel's recommendations.
Griffin added they're hoping the task force will be a model for other urban areas to show how to best deploy resources where crime is happening.