The city's work to stop crime before it starts is what truly separates it from other "dangerous cities."
Coun.Garth Frizzell said he was unable to draw parallels between Prince George and cities such as Detroit, Mich., in terms of prevention.
"All of their crime reduction strategies are what to do after the fact," he said at Monday night's council meeting.
Frizzell was commending the work of city communications manager Chris Bone and those who worked with her to put together a successful letter of intent for federal funding for a youth- and family-based crime prevention through social development initiative.
Council voted to support moving forward with a full proposal to bring the Strengthening Families program to the city.
The program was identified as a result of the five-phase Communities That Care (CTC) program which began piloting in Prince George in 2009.
A successful proposal could potentially yield $7.5 million in funding over a five-year period from National Crime Prevention Centre's (NCPC) Crime Prevention Action Fund, Bone explained.
The Prince George proposal is one of six to move forward to the development stage after a national call for submissions, which will be done in conjunction with staff from the NCPC - a branch of Public Safety Canada.
The CTC advisory committee, consisting of representatives from city, the RCMP, School District 57, the Ministry of Children and Family Development and the Prince George Native Friendship Centre, settled on the Strengthening Families program after data from surveying risk levels in youth in Grades 6, 8, 10 and 12 was narrowed down with help from CTC co-founder Dr. Richard Catalano.
The fact that Strengthening Families is evidence-based programming is especially key, Bone said.
"It's seen as a program [NCPC] would like to see modeled," she added.
With council supporting the continued work on the funding proposal, details such as to whom the program will be administered (for youth ages six to 13) and how the money will be spent will be ironed out, Bone said. There will also be work to understand how this program could work in conjunction with other service and organizations already operating in Prince George.
When complete, the proposal will be referred to Mayor Shari Green's newly created Task Force on Crime for inclusion in the development of the city's crime reduction strategy.
