Officials: Cape Girardeau anti-violence initiative showing progress

Three months into a new anti-violence initiative implemented in south Cape Girardeau and on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University, supervisors say they already see some progress.

Called the Green Dot Program, the approach borrows from a program founded by the University of Kentucky and works to encourage a proactive approach to stop violence.

Each time someone takes a positive step toward ending violence, such as sharing information with police about a crime in their neighborhood, it creates a hypothetical green dot. The idea is to replace red dots, which represent acts of violence in the community.

At Southeast, numerous presentations on the Green Dot Program have been made to campus student organizations, and program organizers used a poster campaign to facilitate discussion about what the green dots meant, said Dr. Linda Keena, director of the grant program at Southeast that helps fund the program.

During the presentations, many students have brought up red dots, or personal accounts of violence they previously were afraid to tell anyone about, Keena said.

Hearing about violent incidents students have experienced is hard for faculty members, Keena said, but allows program staff to make sure those people get the resources they need to heal.

Southeast also had a discussion forum for students to talk about pop star Rihanna's alleged beating at the hands of boyfriend Chris Brown, and about 65 people attended.

Keena said she's started receiving text messages and e-mails from students who want to share with her the way they took a step toward their own green dot.

For example, she said a student recently told her that while at a party he and others stopped a friend from going upstairs with a female student because they noticed she was extremely intoxicated.

"It's a cultural change, and as we all know it doesn't happen overnight, but it does happen," Keena said.

Though the Green Dot Program is geared toward ending violence against women, city officials, who unveiled the plan in February, decided to adapt it to aid in combating crime in south Cape Girardeau.

Cape Girardeau police chief Carl Kinnison said the department's focus is on using the approach to work toward a culture change.

"Our job is to promote that when we do presentations and during training," Kinnison said.

Kinnison said the "stop snitching" culture is particularly frustrating, especially when there's a shooting incident in a neighborhood and no one, including the victim, will cooperate with police.

"That's the culture I want to try to change," Kinnison said.

One of the first steps was a meeting that took place this past spring between police and pastors of some of the churches in south Cape Girardeau.

The goal of the meeting was to facilitate discussion with leaders in the community and introduce the idea of encouraging residents to begin working with law enforcement, Kinnison said.

A month after that meeting, one of the pastors came to the police department to alert Kinnison of a situation with two of his parishioners that he feared was about to escalate to domestic violence.

Kinnison said police were able to defuse the situation before anything happened.

"At least he felt comfortable to come in, come right up to my office, and say, 'look, we want to put a green dot on this map instead of a red dot," Kinnison said.

bdicosmo@semissourian.com

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