The federal government has pledged $4.9 million to the city of Toronto in an effort to reduce gang activity and offer outreach programs to at-risk youth.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day made the funding announcement at a news conference on the city's waterfront Wednesday afternoon.

The money is part of the federal government's national crime prevention strategy.

The city and the University of Toronto's criminology department will use the money over three-and-a-half years to develop and administer outreach and prevention programs.

Day said the federal government is not attempting to dictate what crime-prevention programs the city should implement.

"We clearly say here are the goals that we agree on that can be achieved, but we leave it to the local level, the agencies, the groups, the people that know the streets, that know the neighbourhoods, to implement these particular projects," he said.

The programs will have a variety of goals, including identifying youths at risk of being drawn into gang activity and offering those youths education and skills-training programs to broaden their job prospects.

Mayor David Miller said that earlier this spring, officials had identified a gap in city-run intervention programs to help young people avoid, or get out of, a life of guns, gangs and violence.

"It's far better for the federal and city government to enter into a partnership to give those young people a chance than to do the alternative," Miller said. "If they don't have a chance, we'll be in partnership trying to find ways to put them in jail."

The announcement came on the heels of a judge's decision to dismiss a publication ban request for the trial of a youth charged in connection with the slaying of 15-year-old Jane Creba.

The trial of the youth, known only as J.S.R., is scheduled to begin Monday.

Creba was killed on Boxing Day 2005 while shopping with her family in the Yonge and Dundas Streets area.

Creba was allegedly caught in the crossfire as members of rival gangs got into a gunfight.

Lawyers had argued that publicity about the details of JSR's trial would taint the upcoming trials of other suspects.