CALIFORNIA STATUTES AND CODES
SECTIONS 13840-13846
PENAL CODE
SECTION 13840-13846
13840. The Legislature hereby finds the resistance to crime and
juvenile delinquency requires the cooperation of both community and
law enforcement officials; and that successful crime resistance
programs involving the participation of citizen volunteers and
community leaders shall be identified and given recognition. In
enacting this chapter, the Legislature intends to recognize
successful crime resistance and prevention programs, disseminate
successful techniques and information and to encourage local agencies
to involve citizen volunteers in efforts to combat crime and related
problems.
13841. As used in this chapter:
(a) "Community" means city or county governments or portions or
combinations thereof.
(b) "Elderly or senior citizen" means individuals 55 years of age
or older.
(c) "Teenagers and young adults" means individuals between the
ages of 15 and 24 years of age.
(d) "Community policing" means the coalescing of community
organizations, residents, law enforcement, public social services,
education, churches, and local governmental entities to unitedly
combat illegal drug activity within a designated neighborhood, and
create employment opportunity for neighborhood residents. In no case
shall "community policing" include expenditures for the purchase of
law enforcement equipment which would have been purchased from
existing resources in the normal course of business.
13843. (a) Allocation and award of funds made available under this
chapter shall be made upon application to the agency. All
applications shall be reviewed and evaluated by the agency.
(b) The secretary may allocate and award funds to communities
developing and providing ongoing citizen involvement and crime
resistance programs in compliance with the established policies and
criteria of the agency. Applications receiving funding under this
section shall be selected from among those deemed appropriate for
funding according to the criteria, policy, and procedures established
by the agency.
(c) With the exception of funds awarded for programs authorized
under paragraph (2) of subdivision (b) of Section 13844, no single
award of funds under this chapter shall exceed a maximum of two
hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000) for a 12-month grant
period.
(d) Funds disbursed under this chapter shall not supplant local
funds that would, in the absence of the California Community Crime
Resistance Program, be made available to support crime resistance
programs.
(e) Funds disbursed under this chapter shall be supplemented with
local funds constituting, at a minimum, 10 percent of the total crime
resistance program budget during the initial year and 20 percent in
subsequent periods of funding.
(f) Annually, up to a maximum of 10 percent of the total funds
appropriated to the Community Crime Resistance Program may be used by
the agency to support statewide technical assistance, training, and
public awareness activities relating to crime prevention.
(g) Funds awarded under this program as local assistance grants
shall not be subject to review as specified in Section 14780 of the
Government Code.
(h) Guidelines shall set forth the terms and conditions upon which
the agency is prepared to offer grants of funds pursuant to
statutory authority. The guidelines do not constitute rules,
regulations, orders, or standards of general application.
13844. (a) Use of funds granted under the California Community
Crime Resistance Program are restricted to the following activities:
(1) Further the goal of a statewide crime prevention network by
supporting the initiation or expansion of local crime prevention
efforts.
(2) Provide information and encourage the use of new and
innovative refinements to the traditional crime prevention model in
localities that currently maintain a well-established crime
prevention program.
(3) Support the development of a coordinated service network,
including information exchange and case referral between such
programs as local victim-witness assistance programs, sexual assault
programs, gang violence reduction programs, drug suppression
programs, elderly care custodians, state and local elderly service
programs, or any other established and recognizable local programs
devoted to the lessening of crime and the promotion of the community'
s well-being.
(b) With respect to the initiation or expansion of local crime
prevention efforts, projects supported under the California Community
Crime Resistance Program shall do either of the following:
(1) Carry out as many of the following activities as deemed, in
the judgment of the agency, to be consistent with available
resources:
(A) Crime prevention programs using tailored outreach techniques
in order to provide effective and consistent services for the elderly
in the following areas:
(i) Crime prevention information to elderly citizens regarding
personal safety, fraud, theft, grand theft, burglary, and elderly
abuse.
(ii) Services designed to respond to the specific and diverse
crime prevention needs of elderly residential communities.
(iii) Specific services coordinated to assist in the installation
of security devices or provision of escort services and victim
assistance.
(B) Programs to provide training, information, and prevention
literature to peace officers, elderly care custodians, health
practitioners, and social service providers regarding physical abuse
and neglect within residential health care facilities for the
elderly.
(C) Programs to promote neighborhood involvement such as, but not
limited to, block clubs and other community or resident-sponsored
anticrime programs.
(D) Personal safety programs.
(E) Domestic violence prevention programs.
(F) Crime prevention programs specifically geared to youth in
schools and school district personnel.
(G) Programs which make available to residents and businesses
information on locking devices, building security, and related crime
resistance approaches.
(H) In cooperation with the Commission on Peace Officer Standards
and Training, support for the training of peace officers in crime
prevention and its effects on the relationship between citizens and
law enforcement.
(I) Efforts to address the crime prevention needs of communities
with high proportions of teenagers and young adults, low-income
families, and non-English-speaking residents, including juvenile
delinquency diversion, social service referrals, and making available
crime resistance literature in appropriate languages other than
English.
(2) Implement a community policing program in targeted
neighborhoods that are drug infested. The goal of this program shall
be to empower the people against illegal drug activity. A program
funded pursuant to this chapter shall be able to target one or more
neighborhoods within the grant period. In order to be eligible for
funding, the program shall have the commitment of the community,
local law enforcement, school districts, and community service
groups; and shall be supported by either the city council or the
board of supervisors, whichever is applicable.
(c) With respect to the support of new and innovative techniques,
communities taking part in the California Crime Resistance Program
shall carry out those activities, as determined by the agency, that
conform to local needs and are consistent with available expertise
and resources. These techniques may include, but are not limited to,
community policing programs or activities involving the following:
(1) Programs to reinforce the security of "latchkey" children,
including neighborhood monitoring, special contact telephone numbers,
emergency procedure training for the children, daily telephone
checks for the children's well-being, and assistance in developing
safe alternatives to unsupervised conditions for children.
(2) Programs dedicated to educating parents in procedures designed
to do all of the following:
(A) Minimize or prevent the abduction of children.
(B) Assist children in understanding the risk of child abduction.
(C) Maximize the recovery of abducted children.
(3) Programs devoted to developing automated systems for
monitoring and tracking crimes within organized neighborhoods.
(4) Programs devoted to developing timely "feedback mechanisms"
whose goals would be to alert residents to new crime problems and to
reinforce household participation in neighborhood security
organizations.
(5) Programs devoted to creating and packaging special crime
prevention approaches tailored to the special needs and
characteristics of California's cultural and ethnic minorities.
(6) Research into the effectiveness of local crime prevention
efforts including the relationships between crime prevention
activities, participants' economic and demographic characteristics,
project costs, local or regional crime rate, and law enforcement
planning and staff deployment.
(7) Programs devoted to crime and delinquency prevention through
the establishment of partnership initiatives utilizing elderly and
juvenile volunteers.
(d) All approved programs shall utilize volunteers to assist in
implementing and conducting community crime resistance programs.
Programs providing elderly crime prevention programs shall recruit
senior citizens to assist in providing services.
(e) Programs funded pursuant to this chapter shall demonstrate a
commitment to support citizen involvement with local funds after the
program has been developed and implemented with state moneys.
13845. Selection of communities to receive funding shall include
consideration of, but need not be limited to, the following:
(1) Compliance with subdivisions (a), (b), and (c) of Section
13844.
(2) The rate of reported crime, by type, including, but not
limited to, the seven major offenses, in the community making the
application.
(3) The number of elderly citizens residing in the community
compared to the degree of service to be offered by the program for
the elderly population.
(4) The number and ratio of elderly crime victims compared to the
total senior citizen population in that community.
(5) The number of teenagers and young adults residing in the
community.
(6) The number and ratio of crimes committed by teenagers and
young adults.
(7) The proportion of families with an income below the federally
established poverty level in the community.
(8) The proportion of non-English-speaking citizens in the
community.
(9) The display of efforts of cooperation between the community
and their local law enforcement agency in dealing with the crime
problem.
(10) Demonstrated effort on the part of the applicant to show how
funds that may be awarded under this program may be coordinated or
consolidated with other local, state or federal funds available for
the activities set forth in Section 13844.
(11) Applicant must be a city or county government, or portion or
combinations thereof.
13845.5. Notwithstanding Section 13845, the selection of
communities to receive funding pursuant to paragraph (2) of
subdivision (b) of Section 13844 shall include consideration of, but
is not limited to, the following:
(a) The rate of reported drug crime within the community making
the application.
(b) The degree to which the program proposes to empower the people
within the targeted neighborhoods to combat drug crime.
(c) The display of efforts of cooperation between the community
and its local law enforcement agency in dealing with the drug crime
problem.
(d) The commitment of the targeted neighborhoods to fight the drug
problem.
(e) The commitment of local governmental entities to join with law
enforcement and the citizens to fight the drug problem. At a
minimum, this commitment shall be demonstrated by the school
districts, parks and recreation departments, public social services,
and code enforcement agencies.
(f) The approval of the program by either the city council or the
county board of supervisors.
(g) Demonstrated effort on the part of the applicant to show how
funds that may be awarded under this program may be coordinated or
consolidated with other local, state, or federal funds available for
the activities set forth in Section 13844.
(h) Applicant shall be a city or county law enforcement agency, or
portion, or combination thereof.
13846. (a) Evaluation and monitoring of all grants made under this
section shall be the responsibility of the agency. The agency shall
issue standard reporting forms for reporting the level of activities
and number of crimes reported in participating communities.
(b) Information on successful programs shall be made available and
relayed to other California communities through the technical
assistance procedures of the agency.