Project MPACT started in 2001 as a demonstration model funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and awarded to the Miami-Dade Schools Police. The funding for the demonstration project was awarded to four major cities in the United States: Miami, Cleveland, Houston, and Pittsburg.
    
 GOALS
By fostering positive life choices, Project MPACT seeks to demonstrate that youth which are given an opportunity to become productive citizens are less likely to engage in criminality. It is an effort to cultivate young minds and to offer them opportunities to learn and apply marketable employability skills.  An “On the Job Training” (OJT) program is a main intervention strategy, along with personnel development and life skills. The OJT component expands the classroom learning experience by promoting youth participation in the labor market. The personnel development and life skills component emphasizes work ethics and career goals. The experiences gained in the program are expected to facilitate the youth’s successful transition into the workforce and to positively nurture their self-esteem and self-worth. The outcomes so far achieved demonstrate that, when given the opportunity, the targeted youth have immense possibilities to become socially-contributing and economically-independent members of society. That is the goal of every participating member of the project. MPACT is currently located in the northern end of Dade County and the long term goal is to spread throughout the county as the “best practices” model for gang intervention.

 Long-term goals:

1. Expand throughout the state of Florida.
2. Continue project beyond 2008.

Short-term goals include:

1. Continue to provide intervention strategies to youth that are gang-affiliated.
2. Expand MPACT services to 12 of the 39 zoned schools in the academic years of 2006/2008.
3. Service at least 100 additional youth by October 2008. 

Project MPACT was created and designed to replicate a previous model used in Chicago to reduce gang-related crime and violence among youths in urban communities. The initial name of the project was “Gang Free Schools and Communities.” However, it became evident that the name was a deterrent which was changed to Project MPACT (Miami Partnership for Action in Communities Task Force).

The model followed five main strategies: (a) suppression, (b) social intervention, (c) organizational change, (d) opportunities provision, and (e) community mobilization. As a selected demonstration site, Project MPACT completed an assessment in which gang members and non-gang-involved youth were asked to give reasons for joining gangs. The most common answers were: lack of activities and lack of employment.

Project MPACT began to recruit youth in the fall of 2003. The project mainly targets youth between the ages of 12-22 that are gang affiliated either by self- admission, law enforcement intelligence, school staff and/or resident reporting. The youth may also be identified as the younger siblings of known gang members or may be a potential gang member based on behavior, associates or activity in the community where he/she lives or frequents