CLEVELAND, Tenn. — Nancy Stanfield and Ricky Tallent sit in front of a computer at the Bradley County Juvenile Justice Center and study clusters of dots, each marking a troubled young life.
They developed the tracking system for juvenile offenders with money from Cleveland’s Targeted Crime Reduction Program from Tennessee.
They still are discovering new uses for the system, a year after Stanfield advocated the idea. Some applications don’t involve law enforcement. Community nonprofit agencies, such as the Boys and Girls Club, for example, can use the program to see where their services most are needed.
“It is something visual you can look at and see where the kids are,” Tallent said.
The juveniles’ names are removed before outsiders can look at the spreadsheets.