The Dallas Police Department is collaborating with community leaders to help rehabilitate repeat violent criminals and increase public safety in crime-ridden neighborhoods.
DPD began working with the South Dallas Employment Project (SDEP) last year to convince repeat offenders to ditch a life of crime. This focused deterrence initiative, launched under the Dallas Violent Crime Reduction Plan, includes police outreach to gang members and violent criminals that is intended to raise awareness about the risks of their lifestyle while offering opportunities to achieve stable financial outcomes through legal means.
Wes Jurey, a managing partner of SDEP, which operates as a nonprofit, said the project connects offenders with partners who are willing to provide jobs, training, education, housing, transportation, digital devices, financial advising, and other resources to aid them with changing their lifestyles. This includes a network of 187 partners in the city and Dallas County, from nonprofits to businesses to government entities.
“We have two choices: If someone has done their time and paid for their crime, we can help them become a productive, taxpaying citizen, or we can continue to see them recidivate and then go back into incarceration where the taxpayer supports them,” Jurey, the former chairman of the Texas Workforce Investment Council, told The Dallas Express.
SDEP is set to release a report this month showing positive early results. Jurey said the program has served roughly 60 offenders so far, none of whom have purportedly committed a crime since becoming involved with the program. He said the low-income communities plagued by crime that are targeted by the program in collaboration with DPD have shown several areas of growth, such as decreased incarceration rates and increased employment and wages.
DPD identifies repeat violent criminals and requires them to attend quarterly meetings through probation or parole agreements with community leaders led by SDEP. Jurey said the three meetings over the past year included roughly 20 to 30 criminals with early sign-up rates of about 60%.
Lt. Matthew Allie of DPD’s violent crime reduction planning unit said meetings include testimonies from community members such as businessmen, former gang members, and victims of violent crime.
“It’s modeled after, do we have a voice of pain? We do. We have someone who is a victim of violent crime to share their story,” Allie told The Dallas Express. “Do we have a voice of aspiration for someone they can aspire to be, someone who has been in their shoes, been there and done it and changed their life as a positive voice they can relate to, which is very impactful.”
Jurey said employment is the initial priority for offenders looking to rehabilitate and rejoin society as a positive force, but there remain policy barriers that can prevent them from obtaining certain job licenses.
“I understand if you were at a child daycare center and were convicted of molestation, we shouldn’t give you your license back to run a daycare,” he told The Dallas Express. “But if a barber had a minor conviction with nothing to do with his profession and who he serves, why do we make it difficult for him to get back to his profession and make a livable wage?”
The mission of SDEP extends beyond simply increasing employment. Jurey said communities need better financial literacy to create lasting change.
“Our real goal is to move that region from generational poverty to generational wealth,” he told The Dallas Express. “It’s going to take this type of partnership. When you think about the challenges in South Dallas, there’s not one organization big enough to do it all. It has to be a collaboration, or it will never ever change.”
While DPD’s Violent Crime Reduction Plan has resulted in decreases in some categories of violent crime over the last few years, property crimes have steadily increased as the department continues to labor under a significant staffing shortage, as previously reported by The Dallas Express. DPD fields only around 3,000 officers, whereas a City report calls for approximately 4,000.
Moreover, City officials budgeted the department just $654 million this fiscal year, far below the spending levels seen on police in other high-crime jurisdictions such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.