Officer Amy Daum is a gang coordinator for the Montgomery County police in Rockville. In 2008 she received a governor’s crime prevention award, the county police employee of the year honor and the Chamber of Commerce’s community service award for her work in the county’s schools, where she runs gang education and prevention programs.
What type of work do you with kids?
The main program last year was a summer camp at an elementary school in the county. We did a five-day camp for at-risk youth in grades three to five. We talked about things like making good decisions and saying no to drugs. We want to make them comfortable with the police.
Do these sorts of programs really help prevent gang activity?
I think they do. We definitely have a gang problem here in our area, and the best thing for us to do is show kids they have other options. Most of the gang members we deal with are younger and still in school. They have the potential to be extremely violent, but we can help stem that by getting involved early. We had one kid whose brother was involved in criminal activities. At first he didn’t want to participate in what we were doing, but by the end of the week he was completely turned around. He told us he wanted to be [at the camp] and realized he wanted to be different. Our hope is they take what they learn home to their parents, too. Most of them are from different countries and culturally it’s different there. Kids tell their parents they can talk to the police.
How did you get interested in police work?
I never would have told you I would be cop. I wanted to go to law school, but three years into college I decided I wanted a job where I would do something different every day. I started in early in 2003 in Montgomery County and realized it was a great job. I get to impact so many people in so many ways, and there aren’t a lot of jobs where you can do that.
