KNOXVILLE PUBLIC SAFETY COLLABORATIVE (KPSC)

Lee Ragsdale
KPD Headquarters
800 Howard Baker Jr. Ave.
Knoxville, TN 37915
865-215-7521
lragsdale@cityofknoxville.org

The Knoxville Public Safety Collaborative is a partnership between the Knoxville Police De-partment, the Tennessee Board of Probation and Paroles, the Helen Ross McNabb Center, Child and Family Tennessee and other human service agencies in the Knoxville area. This initiative seeks to improve public safety by providing enhanced supervision and proactive treatment to high-risk/high-needs offenders and their families. KPSC aims to help offenders make successful transitions back to the community thereby enhancing public safety for everyone.

The Public Safety Collaborative serves an average of 130 high-risk/high-needs parolees and pro-bationers. New parole cases are staffed once a month while probation cases are opened and re-viewed every week. The KPSC also participates in the Knox County Drug Court treatment and su-pervision process every week. The Public Safety Collaborative also participates in a partnership with the Tennessee Department of Corrections in a new initiative to serve serious and violent of-fenders. The Tennessee Bridges Program provides intensive treatment, case management and mentoring services along with enhanced supervision to this high-risk population from prison to their home community. Planning is also underway to develop a Youth Safety Collaborative for Knoxville’s at-risk children and their families. The Helen Ross McNabb Center will provide case management and treatment services to at-risk children and their families who are referred to the program from the Knox County School system’s School Threat Assessment Team.

The KPSC has developed a new website that will provide public safety information to the commu-nity, other jurisdictions interested in establishing their own collaborative initiatives, and to indi-viduals and groups interested in joining the KPSC. The website can be found at www.knoxsafety.org.