March 24, 2000

 

 

COMMUNITY PROSECUTION UNIT ESTABLISHED

 

 

 

      TRENTON – Taking a proactive, grassroots approach to law enforcement, the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office has established a Community Prosecution Unit that is “here to hear,” Prosecutor Daniel G. Giaquinto announced today.

      While not a solution to the problem of neighborhood crime, the Unit’s goal is to encourage dialog among community members, law enforcement agencies and the prosecutor’s office. It is hoped that such a dialog will improve the effectiveness of crime-prevention efforts thereby gradually improving the overall quality of life for residents, Giaquinto said.

      “I am genuinely excited by the possibilities this new Unit creates. Through it, our office will have a direct link to the community,” Giaquinto said. “Its operation is designed to enhance the efforts of community policing units and we also look forward to working closely and cooperatively with those units.”

      Funded by a $116,000 grant from the state Division of Criminal Justice, the premise of the Unit is based on the “broken window” theory – that a neighborhood starts to go downhill when so-called “little things” begin to happen and aren’t effectively addressed, Giaquinto said.

      “To stem the tide of problems confronting many neighborhoods today, there must be a coordinated and consistent approach to neighborhood-specific crime and quality of life issues that involves law enforcement, formal and informal community leaders and government regulatory agencies,” Giaquinto said.

      Despite the best efforts of government, urban areas continue to be plagued by significant problems. Some of Trenton’s neighborhoods have become “open air drug markets” with residents from the suburbs and neighboring Pennsylvania coming here for the sole purpose of buying drugs, Giaquinto said. In addition, because of the weak housing market in some city neighborhoods, many former residents have become absentee landlords and many buildings have been left vacant and subject to decay.

      Quality of life offenses often precipitate as well as go hand-in-hand with the drug trade, adding further blight to neighborhoods and misery to law-abiding residents. Prostitution, dice games, public drinking on street corners, loud music, housing code violations, even public urination can be daily and constant reminders to those residents that neighborhood deterioration is present and prevalent. Generally, the majority of these “quality of life” offenses are heard in Municipal Court, Giaquinto said.

      In the past, the prosecutor’s office and the municipal prosecutors lacked the resources to provide effective coordination between law enforcement, health and housing agencies, civic associations and the community at large.

      “Put simply, a real lack of resources has prevented any effective means being established to address legitimate neighborhood issues except in a perfunctory and piecemeal fashion,” Giaquinto said.

      Enter the Community Prosecution Unit, which will be acting as a liaison between community groups, civic associations, police and municipal service departments and agencies.

      When crimes occur in neighborhoods, residents should always call police to report it. The Community Prosecution Unit can help by tracking arrests of defendants who have become neighborhood problems through Municipal or Superior courts to ensure that judges are made aware of the negative impact these defendants have had on the community.

      In addition, the Unit, along with the appropriate police and municipal representatives, will be able to sit down with civic and community groups to devise strategies for bringing back neighborhoods “block by block,” Giaquinto said.

      “Basically, we want members of the community to tell us what their neighborhood problems are – not the other way around. We are willing to tackle everything from the mundane to the criminal,” Giaquinto said.

      The Unit is also developing a Municipal Fugitive Task Force that will seek to arrest municipal offenders who have failed to appear in court to answer charges, Giaquinto said.

      Administrative Assistant Prosecutor Angelo Onofri, who has extensive expertise in municipal prosecutions, oversees the Unit, while Prosecutor’s Agent Wesley W. Richardson, who was a 28-year veteran of the Trenton Police Department, is the Unit’s active liaison officer.