Breaking Barriers to Success

UTEC seeks to strengthen and expand street outreach and reentry services to reduce and prevent community violence. UTEC will lead the creation of a multidisciplinary CVIPI team that includes partners across corrections, the courts, parole, probation, and law enforcement, as well as community members and an external research partner. The team will include formerly incarcerated individuals who no longer have any active cases. Activities include expansion of UTEC street outreach, increasing UTEC’s capacity for reentry services, increasing the visibility of the CVIPI team’s efforts through community events and collaborations, and sharing results and best practices through coalitions regionally and nationally. The project will reduce criminal activity, based upon rearraignment, to less than 25 percent of young adults within 12 months of enrolling. UTEC will also track employment and educational attainment, as well as communitywide crime data, to be determined by the CVIPI team.

Service Area and Intended Beneficiaries: The target population is young adults (ages 17–25), living in or returning to Lowell, Lawrence, or Haverhill Massachusetts, who represent the highest risk for engaging in or becoming victims of violence. UTEC will identify individuals based on Ohio Risk Assessment Screening Community Supervision Tool scores of 24+ for males and 22+ for females.