Politicians, judges, students and an enormous pasteboard check figured prominently at a closed ceremony at the Fels Institute of Government yesterday morning.
The Jerry Lee Center of Criminology was awarded $250,000 in federal funding for its aftercare project, an initiative designed to help children who have served prison terms.
Pennsylvania's Senator Rick Santorum presented the check, while City Councilman Frank Rizzo, Family Court Judge Myrna Field and namesake of the center Jerry Lee looked on.
"Philadelphia should be very grateful for Senator Santorum's support," said Fels Institute Director Lawrence Sherman, adding that the grant "will allow all of the agencies concerned to manage their resources more effectively, making speedier responses to the problems that inevitably encounter juvenile offenders."
Sherman also cited the leadership of Field, Commissioner Alba Martinez of the city's Department of Human Services and other Philadelphia officials who "will ensure that this federal support is put to good use in the causes of crime prevention and rehabilitation."
Beginning work at the start of this academic year, members of the project team have visited the United Kingdom, where "they have successfully established a national structure to oversee and improve services for children in prison and leaving prison," according to project manager Can Atacik, involving nine cities comparable to Philadelphia.
Interestingly, it seems that there's no place like home.
"Philadelphia is really a unique case," Atacik said. "Here you see all the government entities working honestly and devotedly. These are adversarial agencies elsewhere."
Edmund Poole, a first-year student in the master's of government administration program at Fels, also praised the Philadelphia city government's unity. "In Philadelphia, it really is a multi-agency working model," he said.
Poole, who visited Pittsburgh to see how Pennsylvania's other major city handles juvenile justice and recidivism, added that Philadelphia seems a textbook lesson in "building good relationships within government agencies" compared to its counterparts.
The city agencies' cooperation has also made the project accessible to students with interests outside of criminology, according to MGA candidate and project associate Blas Nunez-Neto.
"Being an MGA student and not so much a criminologist, it's been fascinating to see how all these different city agencies... can sit around a table and bring all these different experiences together for a project like aftercare," Nunez-Neto said.
