About YCWF

Youth Crime Watch (YCW) of Florida is a crime, drug, and violence prevention program that is open to all youth with an emphasis on poorer/tougher communities.  It is one of the largest and oldest prevention programs in the State of Florida.

There are 273 operating school or neighborhood sites in Florida consisting of one adult site advisor and 6-8 youth in the Core Group that run the program reaching over 100,000 youth in the State.  To start a site, this group develops a plan, registers with YCW, and receives 1 one-day training session.  A regional coordinator oversees site operations. Sites utilize at least one of the following – crime reporting, youth patrols, drug/violence/crime prevention education, bus safety, mentoring, conflict resolution, mediation, peer/cross-age teaching, and action projects. 

YCW has a juvenile justice component in that some sites have been established by juvenile probation officers and there are many ‘turn-around’ cases in which youth at high risk have become crime prevention leaders.  However, one of the keys to success is to mix the at-risk youth without labels or stigma with traditionally achieving ones.   80 percent of sites are in middle and high schools with the remainder in churches, parks and recreation departments, and civic organizations. 

The annual third-party evaluations that have been done show that Youth Crime Watch’s young leaders feel safer at school because they help to produce the safety, are more willing to report crime, are more bonded to the school and positive peers and adults, become more involved in other school activities, and even feel like they have gotten better grades.  A dramatic example of the impact of Youth Crime Watch occurred in Tampa in 2005 when a 7th-grade Youth Crime Watcher reported a student in another school who was building a bomb to kill a large number of students and teachers.  A major national study commissioned by the US Department of Justice is underway in Broward, Hillsborough, and Pinellas Counties measuring Youth Crime Watch schools against non-YCW and YCW students compared to non-YCW students.  A study that evaluates effectiveness will be available by 2008.

History of YCW in Florida

Youth Crime Watch had its birth in the state of Florida in 1979 as an outgrowth of Citizen's Crime Watch of Miami-Dade County. Both programs were a direct result of an outraged neighborhood coming together against injustice following the rape of a 12 year old girl on Halloween night.

The successful pilot Youth Crime Watch program was located in North Miami Beach Senior High School, where it had a lot of success. In the first year of the program's implementation, students helped to reduce their school's drug problem by more than half by pinpointing drug pushers. In addition, chain snatchings, a prevalent problem at the time, were decreased by three quarters. Equally important was the change in the students' attitudes. They were learning they could make a positive difference. Students were reporting crime, saw positive results and enjoyed significantly improved morale and school spirit.

Youth Crime Watch went national in 1986 with the establishment of Youth Crime Watch of America, Inc. (YCWA), a nonprofit organization to support and continue the success of Youth Crime Watch by helping to spread it across the nation and around the world. And in 1999, Youth Crime Watch of Florida was formally established to serve the needs of the Florida community and to spread Youth Crime Watches across the state.

Youth Crime Watch has earned national recognition by Presidents Clinton, Bush and Reagan and was named as a U.S. Department of Education Exemplary Program of Excellence. In Florida, the program is endorsed by the Office of the Florida Governor, the Florida State Legislature, the Florida Department of Education and numerous local agencies and corporations.

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Youth Crime Watch of Florida has its own mission, budget and organization, separate from Youth Crime Watch of America.

Youth Crime Watch of Florida (YCWF), provides sites with complete services for implementation, maintenance and growth.

In 2003, Youth Crime Watch reached 56 Florida counties. Click below for full-sized maps of Florida counties with Youth Crime Watch sites in 2006 and 2003.