Ice cream transport wagon.

Boston Police today started a program to deliver free cups of ice cream to kids around the city as a way to "create new channels for communication between the police and youth in each of Boston's neighborhoods."

BPD officers will drive a specially outfitted Hood ice cream truck to specific locations (to be announced on bpdnews.com) to hand out the cups (and presumably those little flat wooden spoons) and then engage youth in discussion.

Local ad exec Mike Sheehan, who helped come up with the idea, said it's the natural addition to the city's Crime Stoppers Text-a-Tip program:

This is an opportunity for street-level engagement, which augments the use of mobile technology. The combination is a powerful one.