Marshall Jones, a DANA (Downtown Austin Neighborhood Association) board member and past president, organized a kickoff meeting with APD (Austin Police Department), DANA respresentatives and community stakeholders on March 10th, 2009.  You can read Marshall’s summary of that kickoff meeting here.

In brief, the goals of DowntownAustinCrimePrevention.org are to:

• Create a community centric policing effort
• Host a Crime Watch Prevention Forum
• Study the possibility of working with APD on a Community Advisor two way communication system
• Establish an anti pan-handling campaign
• Create a neighborhood watch program
• Help APD in their effort to place cameras downtown
• Create a Downtown Crime Prevention public relations campaign

with these five key areas of focus:

• Personal assaults
• Property crimes
• Illegal drug use and sales
• Illegal pan-handling
• Social norming (overall condition of the neighborhood should convey and anti-crime message rather than the opposite)