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<br />Project Narrative <br /> <br />Police Athletic League Officer <br /> <br />4a <br /> <br />This request for grant funding is being made on behalf of the City of Paris and its <br /> <br />Police Department to fund a full time police officer as a coordinator for the Paris <br /> <br />Police Athletic League. This position allows the Police Athletic League to address <br /> <br />the problem of insufficient alternatives to children/juveniles in becoming involved <br /> <br />in a criminal or gang lifestyle. The Police Athletic League is a juvenile crime <br /> <br />prevention program aimed at reducing juvenile crime, illegal drug use and criminal <br /> <br />gang activity. The league does this by offering recreational and athletic programs <br /> <br />to children and youth between the ages of eight (8) and eighteen (18). The league <br /> <br />also houses and assists with an alternate education program in coordination with <br /> <br />Paris Independent School District in order to give tho'se children who have already <br /> <br />been in trouble in their regularly attended school a last chance at education. This <br /> <br />year we will have assisted at least fifty (50) juveniles at the junior and senior high <br /> <br />level in staying in school and off the streets. In almost every case these particul~r <br /> <br />children would have otherwise been suspended from school permanently or would <br /> <br />have sought a life of crime or very low paying job as these are the highest at-risk <br /> <br />children in the county. The P.A.L. officer assists the educators in the program by <br /> <br />assisting in the instruction of their physical education, health education (including <br /> <br />drug use prevention), and counseling one on one with the problem students and <br /> <br />instructing them in the healthy alternatives av.ailable to them at P.A.L. and through <br /> <br />other resources. <br />