Nashville joins police departments in 47 other states who now provide the GREAT program to students in schools ranging from the 4th through the 8th grade. Over the past five years over two million children have been exposed to GREAT training. GREAT originated as a partnership between the Police Department, City of Phoenix, Arizona and the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco tax and Firearms. An ongoing Department of Justice funded study, being conducted through the University of Nebraska, shows early indications that GREAT is having the desired effect of enabling the nation's youth to better resist the gang lifestyle and associated gangs crime involvement. The study, which will be ongoing for at least four more years, will study over three thousand students and their families nationwide, spanning the entire nation, crossing all socio-economic lines, in cities and towns both great and small. A study of this magnitude and this far reaching is unprecedented in these type of law enforcement youth outreach programs.
GREAT program teaches middle school students crime prevention, life skills.