Police officials are launching a summer youth mentorship program that aims to offer some 2,000 young New Yorkers a safe place to spend their time while also preempting criminal activity in their communities.
In an interview with amNewYork Metro, Commissioner of Community Affairs Mark Stewart and Assistant Commissioner Alden Foster said the NYPD is now accepting applications through the ages of 10-15 for the department’s Summer Youth Police Academy, which is set to kick off on July 1. The free program aims to give youngsters a safe space to learn and forge bonds over the summer months, which have historically been the most active for crime every year.
“We have 14 locations around the city, one minimum in all five boroughs, and some boroughs you have two or three depending on the need. We put it in areas of low-income where we see violence,” Foster explained. “Most of my victims are young people, most of my shooters are young people.”
Too often, teenagers in their formative years fall into gang violence and gang crime. The NYPD says the summer camp aims to keep the youth of New York on the straight and narrow, offering activities such as fun workouts while also offering mentorships on drugs and bullying education, in addition to harnessing virtual reality technology to help show what cops go through with the Police Foundation’s Options Program.
The daily camp comes at a time when youth violence has been making headlines around the Big Apple. Last week, 16-year-old Mahki Brown was fatally shot in SoHo while trying to break up a fight between schoolmates, and 17-year-old Sara Rivera was allegedly stabbed to death by her 15-year-old friend in Sunnyside, Queens.
While the NYPD often deals with the statistics and family trauma surrounding the deaths of young people, police say there is no real way to quantify the lives that have been saved through its youth programs.
“You’d be amazed when we get these kids, and they say ‘I wouldn’t know what I’d be doing. I could have made a left, I could have made a right.’ But there’s no stat for that, for the kids that we are saving,” Commissioner Stewart said.
The Summer Youth Police Academy is a five-day program running from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Foster and Stewart are encouraging parents to attend orientations and sign their children up for a safe, activity-filled summer.
“The impact of changing a young person’s life is what it is all about,” Foster noted. “But the officers get so much out of this too.”
The pair say they hope that the camp will also help keep youth and cops friendly when they say each other on the streets in months and years to come.
The application process is currently open and runs through June 9. Transportation options will be made available to applicants in areas where public transit is inaccessible.
Parents can apply by visiting youthpoliceacademy.nypdonline.org or by calling 646-610-5323.
