With school’s summer break here, law enforcement officers plan to combat youth crime with expanded programs designed to keep teens off the streets.

Instead, they’ll be in the gyms for the annual Street Ball program that began last week with youths split between Vicksburg and Warren Central junior high schools.

Street Ball’s goal is to be an educational and athletic summer program for boys and girls through July 3.

Since the Vicksburg Police Department resurrected the program in 2009, the juvenile crime rate during summer vacation has dropped about 70 percent, Chief Walter Armstrong said.