U.S. Marshals Operation J.U.S.T.I.C.E.
By Trent Touchstone, Supervisory Deputy Marshal, U.S. Marshals Service
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Law enforcement personnel are going door-to-door to deliver justice in Dallas—and the strategy is changing attitudes neighborhood by neighborhood.
Operation J.U.S.T.I.C.E., which stands for Joint Urban Strike Team Increasing Community Efforts, is a part of the U.S. Attorney-directed Public Housing Safety Initiative (PHSI) in the Northern Texas District. Based on the successful Weed and Seed model and Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), PHSI is a crime-prevention effort of the U.S. Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The initiative assists law enforcement and neighborhood residents in the investigation, prosecution, and prevention of violent crimes and drug offenses in public and federally assisted housing.
The Northern District of Texas includes two major metropolitan areas—Dallas and Fort Worth. The U.S. Attorney's Office (USAO) has close working relationships with law enforcement and community members in both cities as a result of Weed and Seed and PSN partnerships. U.S. Attorney Richard Roper felt strongly that both communities could benefit from PHSI and invited a group of key stakeholders to identify target areas and strategies to address crime in public housing in the district.
These stakeholders included HUD, the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the Dallas Police Department (DPD), the Fort Worth Police Department, the Dallas Housing Authority, the Fort Worth Housing Authority, the SouthFair Community Development Corporation, the Near Southeast Community Development Corporation, the Greater Dallas Crime Commission, and the Safe City Commission of Fort Worth. USMS is the lead law enforcement agency coordinating many of the activities under USAO direction. When identifying the two target areas, stakeholders considered the severity of crime problems, community perceptions, and community partnerships.
In October 2006, under PHSI guidance, USMS coordinated with federal, state, and local agencies to reach out to individuals in the Rhoades Terrace and Turner Courts public housing areas of Dallas. They distributed Community Relations Visit (CRV) Kits, which contained information related to drug prevention, household safety, community programs, home buyer programs, and other community services. Printed in bold letters on the front of each bag were the words "Operation J.U.S.T.I.C.E."
The CRV Kit phase of Operation J.U.S.T.I.C.E. was initiated to combine face-to-face meetings and gifts to establish a positive relationship with the community. In this way, the project attempts to bridge the gap between the two components of PHSI: law enforcement and community building.
The Law Enforcement Component
When the Northern District of Texas was selected as a site for PHSI in 2005, U.S. Attorney Roper requested law enforcement proposals from the steering committee he had assembled. USMS, which was represented in the committee, recommended a full-time fugitive task force that it had established 1 year earlier—the Dallas Fort Worth Fugitive Apprehension Strike Team (DFW FAST).
DFW FAST is 1 of 91 Marshals Service Fugitive Task Forces (85 Local and 6 Regional Fugitive Task Forces) throughout the United States. It combines diverse resources from 13 agencies and provides a mechanism for concentrating these resources on a single goal—apprehending violent fugitives. DFW FAST has been an important element of DOJ objectives, such as PSN, so it was a natural fit when the area was selected for PHSI.
The Community-Building Component
In 2005, officers and deputy marshals from DFW FAST began a series of meetings with management personnel from public housing neighborhoods in designated target areas. These meetings helped DFW FAST determine the potential needs, interests, and goals of many public housing residents.
The idea of the CRV Kit emerged from these sessions when Supervisory Deputy Marshal Trent Touchstone remembered the "goodie bags" received from the numerous conferences and training seminars that he had attended. He asked, "Why not put together a small bag of materials that would be useful, informative, and appreciated by residents of public housing?"
From there, the idea grew into a method for law enforcement and DFW FAST to share valuable community resource information with residents, including local vendor discounts, health care information, drug rehabilitation information, and pregnancy-related information. When the call went out to the PHSI steering committee members for materials, ideas and suggestions began to pour in.
Assembling the CRV Kits
For more than 6 months, DFW FAST amassed hundreds of items for the kits. DEA supplied pamphlets related to drug awareness and prevention. Local hospitals provided emergency contact information, and faith-based community groups provided materials. Fox Network's America's Most Wanted provided decks of playing cards featuring Most Wanted Fugitives. Additional items—such as pencils, pens, magnets, coloring books with fire safety information, information on choking hazards for children, and immunization schedules—were also included.
In July, DFW FAST finalized the kit design, and a few weeks later had more than 900 CRV Kits ready for distribution.
Distributing the CRV Kits
Early on an October morning in 2006, DFW FAST Deputy Marshals and strike team officers from DPD, the Dallas County Sheriffs Department, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the HUD Office of Inspector General (OIG), DEA, Veterans Affairs OIG, and Social Security OIG, with the assistance of patrol officers from Drug Enforcement Special Agents, began knocking on doors in the public housing target areas.
The targeted neighborhoods, Rhoades Terrace and Turner Courts, are located between the Weed and Seed sites of South Dallas and Pleasant Grove. Most officers that morning were not surprised when many residents did not answer their doors. Some residents were actually seen leaving the area rapidly. But, one by one, doors began to open. It was not long before the entire complex understood that law enforcement was not there to put people in jail, or break down doors, but to give something to the residents. With each CRV Kit they handed out, responses became more and more positive.
As DFW FAST left one complex, a tenant waved her CRV Kit in the air and shouted, "We love you guys. Thank you!"
Over the next 2 weeks, DFW FAST continued to distribute the CRV Kits in additional target areas around Dallas and Fort Worth. As PHSI and Operation J.U.S.T.I.C.E. near completion in late 2007, DFW FAST will return to the same complexes and distribute additional CRV Kits to the new tenants. Although the kits may not have reduced crime in the area, they did help create an environment that enables law enforcement authorities to establish more positive relationships moving forward.
For more information, contact:
Trent Touchstone
Supervisory Deputy Marshal
U.S. Marshals Service
