1st Judicial District Attorney’s Workplace employees, spurred by mounting youth criminal offense figures, have designed a pilot software aimed at teaching Santa Fe Community Colleges higher schoolers about New Mexico’s felony justice technique.
“I’m guaranteed you all know there is been kind of an uptick in some gang action and violence, especially around Capital Substantial School, but we are seeing it at Santa Fe [High] as perfectly,” Initial Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies stated at a Thursday night faculty board meeting. “This was our notion to consider and combat that.”
The 8-week application will emphasis on concerns this sort of as gun crimes, domestic violence and intoxicated driving. It most likely will start off at the conclusion of this faculty calendar year in Capital and Santa Fe substantial educational facilities, according to the District Attorney’s Office environment.
Carmack-Altwies’ office hopes the curriculum, dubbed The Lifestyle Project, will help pave the way for more time-term programming throughout the Initial Judicial District that would ultimately land in Española, Los Alamos and Pojoaque faculties.
The curriculum will commence with an introduction to the District Attorney’s Office environment and each week will concentrate on a further subject, with a rotating established of visitor speakers from the Albuquerque-primarily based Violence Intervention Plan and a variety of law enforcement organizations.
“I like to appear at it as a wheel,” explained District Attorney Special Agent William Perdue Jr. on Thursday. “The strategy driving this software is we can circle them about with outreach, and then [we], as nicely as our regulation enforcement partners, are currently being proactive with intervention and enforcement.”
Perdue and District Attorney’s Business office spokeswoman Franchesca Perdue, his sibling, have been producing the program for a few months, Carmack-Altwies said.
The District Attorney’s Business has asked regulation enforcement officers engaging in the system not to have on uniforms in universities.
“We don’t want it to be a area exactly where [students] experience like they simply cannot open up up or they just can’t share their ordeals due to the fact they are fearful regulation enforcement is there and they may well get in problems,” Franchesca Perdue mentioned.
Crystal Ybarra, the district’s main fairness, range and engagement officer, claimed the partnership started right after a group of stakeholders satisfied at Cash Substantial College forward of winter season crack to tackle “a selection of issues” involving campus teenagers.
In November, The New Mexican noted 14 Santa Fe-space teenagers had been arrested on suspicion of gun-related offenses in 2021. The thirty day period prior, a capturing involving one particular teen and two youthful grownups led to a lockdown at Money Large School.
Directors at Money Large will possible have freshmen take part in the pilot method, while Santa Fe High directors are thinking of the programming for sophomores or seniors.
Franchesca Perdue said the District Attorney’s Place of work has received responses requesting programming for young college students as nicely.
“We felt this was the age group that seriously needed involvement and engagement and a presence on campus, so that way we could be there for them …” she said of focusing on high schoolers.
Board member Sarah Boses and board Vice President Rudy Garcia, who the two signify Money Superior University, expressed assist for the plan Thursday evening.
“It will make me content-sad for the reason that it is perfectly-necessary in that location of city,” Garcia reported.
