The VPD Rural Violent Crime Reduction and Victim Response Initiative aims to implement and evaluate a crime reduction program and to better support victims through the criminal justice process.

PROPOSAL ABSTRACT: 

The VPD requests $150,000 to fund MOUNTAIN SAFE – a fresh initiative designed to cut violent crime and victimization using an assemblage of existing collaborations and partnership tactics under the Mountain Safe Response Plan (MSRP).  The MSRP will sit above all existing justice-health programs and will be managed on a secure, cloud-based data-driven collaborative platform.

MOUNTAIN SAFE’s multi-partnership response will:

Break the cycle of violent criminal behavior.
Safeguard victims’ rights and empower victims to be less likely targets of further crime.
Bring a multi-modal range of justice-health interventions and trauma-informed services under one overarching evidence-based, data-driven plan.
Form innovative disruption plans for each situation (crime elements, victim trauma effects, societal impacts, at-risk mitigation factors).
Provide advanced training for criminal justice professionals to raise awareness of trauma and its effects.

Project activities are to:

Finalize the Mountain Safe Response Plan.
Form a collaborative action team.
Develop a methodology for the creation of disruption plans.
Replicate an existing virtual info-sharing platform.
Create a digital data capture application.
Conduct trauma-informed response training for officers, prosecutors and judges.
Create program awareness material.
Evaluate policies, practices and performances.

Deliverables include:

Integrated Mountain Safe Response Plan/Infrastructure.
Hosted, cloud-based collaborative project management and information-sharing portal.
Digital application (captures Colorado Senate Bill 20-217 mandated data on contacts and builds out a data picture to know exactly what is going on with each Mountain Safe-involved person throughout a response/intervention).
Formal process by which victims will have quicker access to their case files and to be heard at important stages of their cases.
Data system to inform a methodology by which crime disruption plans are created.
Trauma-informed training symposiums.
Diminished rates of victimization and increased rate of reporting by victims.
Complete program evaluation publication.

            Vail is a rural mountain community with a population of 5,300 permanent residents. Over 30% of Vail’s diverse daily workforce is comprised of an extensive Spanish-speaking community residing in Eagle County who help service 1.6 million annual visitors to the area and who unfortunately represent the poorest, most vulnerable group in the county.

            Direct program beneficiaries of Mountain Safe’s mission will be crime victims, children exposed to violence and individuals with mental health illness/substance abuse disorders who are targets of crime or at risk for violent behavior. Indirect beneficiaries include trauma-informed law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges.