St. Mary Parish Sheriff's Office Receives Grant to Combat Juvenile Delinquency

ST. MARY PARISH, LA (KLFY) — St. Mary Parish Sheriff Gary Driskell and the rest of the department are doing a lot of work in keeping youth in the community away from criminal activity.

“We knew we had to take more action and we are doing it. Every day we look for something to improve ourselves, improve our relationships with the public and try to help these kids as much as possible,” Driskell said.

The agency recently applied for and received a Rural Violent Crime Reduction Initiative grant. The grant aims to reduce violent crime by implementing strategic programs and interventions to guide youth in the community. The sheriff's office is moving into parish schools to reach children more proactively rather than reactively.

“Once you understand the “why” of this behavior, you can then begin to manage and help correct this behavior. Sometimes it can still mean incarceration, but a lot of the time it's through connecting with the kids, which is what we're really trying to do,” said Oscar West, grants coordinator and lieutenant of St. .Mary.

Driskell and West said the steps they are taking are just the beginning of what they plan to do for the community's future.

“We're implementing some of the conflict resolution and de-escalation strategies that we're able to teach kids, not only through teaching them, but also through other programs, working with them, building that relationship so they know they can talk. to,” West said.

“You want them to stay on the straight and narrow path and become good citizens and not have to deal with some of the things that you see on a daily basis, things that we face on a daily basis,” Driskell said.

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