Prevention is the keyword for Long Beach’s groundbreaking initiative, Summer Night Lights: prevention of gangs, prevention of incarcerated youth and prevention of the idea that the city’s parks are scary at night. Now in its third year, organizers say the approach is working as they introduce even more programming to stop violent crimes before they happen.
Based on a long-running similar one in Los Angeles, SNL is a collaboration between more than 20 organizations that turns three Long Beach parks into weekday-night safe zones with extended hours, free meals and a hearty roster of activities from parent-empowerment classes and reading clubs to talent contests and family movie nights. The second program of its kind in the state, the Long Beach’s initiative follows a proven model for reducing gang and youth violence in the vulnerable summer months when kids are out of school.
“The program creates involved parents and engages neighbors and families to come out in the evening,” says Jessica Quintana, Executive Director of Long Beach Community Hispanic Association (Centro CHA), SNL’s contracted organizer. “It’s a model that has proven itself effective here in Long Beach.”
By collaborating with a multitude of local organizations to set up nighttime activities for both parents and their children at strategic parks around the city, the initiative is able to combat several root causes of violence by engaging youth with their families, creating new opportunities for participation and dismantling barriers between neighbors.
It’s a tactic of prevention that is also being adopted by some healthcare providers, with the logic being that it costs less to prevent the problem than it does to pay for it after the fact.
“It is a public health issue, so we’re taking a public health approach. The investment [for the program] is pennies compared to the aftermath of a violent crime,” says Quintana. “Between paramedics, traffic impacts, crises intervention for affected families and incarceration of the youth, one response [for a violent crime] can cost over $1 million. The program pays for itself because we are putting money into prevention not aftermath.”
Though impossible to know exactly how many crimes SNL has prevented, Quintana says that more than 15,000 youths have participated in the initiative’s programming and crime in the areas surrounding the parks have been greatly reduced.
This year, in addition to fundraising $300,000 for the initiative’s specialized programming (part of which will create 52 part-time youth summer jobs), SNL is also introducing the CDE Summer Food Program, which thanks to Revolution Foods will provide 750 healthy meals to children and teenagers throughout the coming month.
“We’ve been able to see a change in people coming out and not being afraid to engage with their park at night,” she says.
SNL runs from Monday, July 9 to Friday, August 31, Monday through Friday from 6PM to 9PM at Martin Luther King Jr. Park (1920 Lemon Avenue), Drake Park (951 Maine Avenue) and Admiral Kidd Park (1835 West Willard Avenue). For more information, visit the Summer Night Lights Facebook page.