St. Mary Parish Sheriff Gary Driskell and the rest of the department are making a huge commitment by steering the community's youth away from criminal activities.

ST. MARY PARISH, LA (KLFY) --- St. Mary Parish Sheriff Gary Driskell and the rest of the department are making a huge commitment by steering the community's youth away from criminal activities.

"We knew we had to take more steps and we are. Every day we look for something to improve ourselves, improve our relationship with the public, and trying to help these kids out as much as possible," Driskell said.

The agency recently applied for and was awarded the Rural Violent Crime Reduction Initiative Grant. The grant aims to reduce violent crimes by implementing strategic programs and interventions to guide the community youth. The sheriff's office is making their way into the parish schools to reach the children in a more proactive instead of a reactive way.

"Once you figure out the 'why' behind the behavior, then you can start to handle and help to correct that their behavior. Sometimes it still may mean incarceration, but a lot of times it's by connecting with the kids, which is what we really try to do," Grant Coordinator and St. Mary Parish Lieutenant Oscar West said.

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

"We're implementing some of the conflict resolution de-escalation strategies that we are able to teach to kids, not only just teach them, but through some other programs, working with them, building that relationship that way they know that 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 deal with on a daily basis," Driskell said.

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