Weed and Seed Program Data Collection/Analysis

The Weed and Seed program reflects a comprehensive approach to community revitalization through the use of coordinated crime reduction activities combined with a mix of social, economic, and housing improvement programs in targeted geographic areas. The basic premise is that crime and the fear of victimization can be major barriers to the renewal of neighborhoods suffering from poverty and unemployment, substandard housing, and various other social and health dysfunctions. Therefore, a solution is to remove a neighborhood area's violent and drug-related criminal elements while simultaneously providing the necessary supports for a positive infrastructure to develop so that a healthy and self-sustaining community can arise.

Generally, local Weed and Seed programs can be identified by the following Characteristics:

• the designation of specific geographic target areas;
• the cooperation and coordination across a broad array of government agencies involving criminal justice, social service, housing and community development, and health care responsibilities; and
• a mobilization of resources from both the public and private sectors.

Although some aspects and activities are common to all of the Weed and Seed sites, there is a great degree of diversity among the local strategies adopted and organizational structure developed to implement this.

The national Weed and Seed initiative is administered by the Community Capacity Development Office (CCDO) which is under the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Currently, there are over 200 local sites around the country. For more information about CCDO, policies and requirements for local participation in Weed and Seed, and funding opportunities, go to the CCDO Web Site.

This project builds upon previous evaluation efforts by developing general indicators of national program activities for Weed and Seed. The purpose of this project is to:

• collect and analyze annual performance data reports for all local Weed and Seed sites to document the implementation of their strategies, and
• conduct special focus evaluations of selected aspects of certain Weed and Seed sites.

Please visit the Weed and Seed Data Center for the most recent local site performance reports (GPRAs), interactive maps and demographic data for the local sites target area, and various evaluation studies.