Rainier Beach: A Beautiful Safe Place for Youth

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED)

The Corner Greeters engages a passerby as she is getting off the Rainier Beach Light Rail.

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED)

CPTED improves physical elements of a neighborhood to deter crime. Changes to lighting, landscaping, fencing, and windows on storefronts and in public spaces decreases the opportunity for crime to occur. [Read more...]

The Corner Greeters engages a passerby as she is getting off the Rainier Beach Light Rail.

Corner Greeters are youth-led, pop-up style events that rotate weekly between the 5 hotspot locations that feature creative, fun activities designed to engage passers by and foster the kind of connections that build community. [Read more...]

Business Engagement

We provide multi-lingual, multi-cultural outreach of crime prevention education and resources to help business owners and their staff to prevent crime.

"Safe Passage" Youth Violence Prevention Initiative

Two Safe Passage Team members talk with a student during dismissal. Safe Passage increases guardianship during hours that youth are present in large numbers as schools let out in Rainier Beach. [Read more...]

Community-wide PBIS

Rainier Beach community members high-five Emerson Elementary Students as they walk into school on Jan 22. Getting the broader community involved in what our Rainier Beach schools are doing is part of our community-wide implementation of positive behavioral Interventions & supports (PBIS).

RAINIER BEACH: A BEAUTIFUL SAFE PLACE FOR YOUTH

We use an innovative, community-led approach to reduce violence that affects youth in the Rainier Beach neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Our initiative builds on the community’s vision for the Rainier Beach neighborhood as a beautiful and safe place where youth can grow and thrive, developed through the Rainier Beach Neighborhood Plan Update process in 2012.

OUR GOAL

We identify and address the place-based causes of youth victimization and crime at five focus locations, known as "hotspots" in the Rainier Beach neighborhood. We engage the Rainier Beach community, Seattle Police, and many other community-based organizations, businesses, and schools to implement non-arrest interventions.

OUR APPROACH

The place-based, non-arrest approach is founded on research at George Mason University's (GMU) Center for Evidence-Based Crime Prevention Policy, which determined that crime impacting youth is highly concentrated at place. The research further indicates that formal criminal justice approaches can have negative outcomes for youth, their futures, their families and their community.