Cape announces anti-violence program

The city unveiled Wednesday a new approach to problems of violence on the south side of Cape Girardeau as part of a partnership with Southeast Missouri State University, the Cape Girardeau Police Department, the Safe House for Women and the Southeast Missouri Network Against Sexual Violence.

A three-year federal grant of $296,000 from the Office of Violence Against Women, part of the U.S. Department of Justice, awarded to the university will help fund the new initiative.

The grant money, combined with an additional $199,820 the university received in federal funds in November 2006, will be used to educate students, staff and faculty through the school's Violence, Information, Counseling, Treatment, Outreach, Rights and You, or VICTORY, said Dr. Ken Dobbins, president of Southeast.

The grant was announced Wednesday at a news conference at Southeast's River Campus.

Among various training and educational methods, the university plans on using an approach called the "green dot" program. The idea is to replace negative actions with positive ones, in the hopes that enough positive acts on the part of a community can eradicate violence.

"A green dot is that one single moment, action, word, an attitude, that expresses intolerance of violence and actively contributes to the culture of safety," said Dr. Linda Keena, director of the VICTORY grant program at Southeast.

The city plans on expanding the "green dot" program, developed by the University of Kentucky, to include a way police can use the approach to take a hard look at other kinds of violence, said police chief Carl Kinnison.

"It's a simple thing," Kinnison said.

Many times, the aggressive work that police do in struggling neighborhoods to combat crime and eradicate drugs can take on a negative connotation, said Mayor Jay Knudtson.

"This is a very public way of putting a positive spin on it," Knudtson said of the initiative.

Knudtson said in his final year of his eight-year tenure, he plans to focus on attacking the deterioration in the appearance and in the quality of life he's noticed in some Cape Girardeau neighborhoods.

"We may ruffle some feathers along the way," Knudtson said.

Some "fascinating" research exists behind the "green dot" model, said Tammy Gwaltney, director of NASV.

Gwaltney, who was instrumental in creating the VICTORY program several years ago, said the "green dot" model has some promising preliminary statistics supporting its success at University of Kentucky.

For the program to work, the cultural shift in taking an intolerant attitude toward violence must come from not only residents but those handling investigations as well, Gwaltney said.

"The victim needs to know they will be treated with dignity and respect," she said.

bdicosmo@semissourian.com

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