MENU TITLE: Community Mobilization Model.
Series: OJJDP
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DRAFT 4/91

COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION MODEL

Irving Spergel and Candice Kane
         
National Youth Gang Suppression and Intervention
Program
School of Social Service Administration
University of Chicago

Distributed by:
Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse
Box 6000
Rockville, MD 20850
1-800-638-8736

-------------------------

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
 Problem Recognition and Local Context
 Problem Assessment
 Program Resource Assessment
 Organizational Interests and Community
 Mobilization
 Goals, Objectives, and Organizational Structure

IMPLEMENTATION
 Emerging Youth Gang-Problem Context
  Police
  Schools
  Youth Service Agency
  Grassroots Organizations
  Criminal Justice System
  Media

Chronic Youth Gang-Problem Cities

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COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION MODEL


INTRODUCTION

The primary means for dealing with the youth gang
problem in both emerging and chronic problem cities
should be community mobilization. Essential to this
process is the participation not only of local
criminal justice and community-based or human
service agencies, but grassroots groups, including
local residents, parents, and even former gang
influentials. Youth gangs involved in serious
assaults and criminality constitute a threat to
safety and security beyond the affected community
to society at large. Therefore, it is up to
established governmental and nonprofit agencies
along with grassroots groups to take key
responsibility for developing a community
mobilization process. 

Integration of concerns, resources, and planning
across local, State, and national governmental
jurisdictions is important to the community
mobilization process. In other words, a wide range
of representatives from different levels of
government and nonprofit agencies and local
community groups must be involved in recognizing
and defining the problem, organizing and planning
to address it, implementing and sustaining these
plans, and evaluating the quality and effectiveness
of programs that result. In this process, leaders
of established agencies, particularly local
government representatives, have a special
responsibility to reach out to grassroots groups to
provide access to organizing resources, exchange
information about the problem, and develop
cooperative approaches to dealing with it.

Community mobilization signifies a process of
consciousness-raising, addressing the concerns and
long-term interests of those most affected by the
problem, rational identification of the specific
dimensions of the problem, and development of the
will and commitment of participants to act. The
mobilization process does not usually occur
spontaneously. It is a process aimed at developing
community and agency capacities that focus on
understanding and dealing with the problem through
use of a variety of mechanisms and activities. It
must be guided by effective professional agency and
citizen organizers who take on complementary
leadership roles. The process depends on
cooperation and on managing conflict between and
among significant community groups and actors,
which, in turn, leads to improved awareness and
response to the problem.

Consideration of the distinctive factors of a
particular gang problem in a specific community
context is required for the effective mobilization
of local interest and resources. Patterns of
community mobilization will vary with the nature,
scope and seriousness of the problem and
distinctive cultural, racial or ethnic, economic,
and social factors in emerging or chronic gang-
problem cities. The history of community response,
and especially the nature of present leadership and
interorganizational patterns also need to be
assessed. Special emphasis must be on mobilization
of resources within and across grassroots,
interagency, and government levels.

This model will identify key issues for conducting
a community mobilization process, with emphasis on
the interrelationship of agency and grassroots
efforts and the distinctive role of the coordinator
or organizer. The integration of community concern
and agency missions with reference to the problem
is a principal objective of the process. The
following discussion should be viewed in the
context of the General Community Design For Dealing
with the Youth Gang Problem. 

Problem Recognition and Local Context

Community mobilization usually begins with concern
that a youth gang problem is emerging or that an
existing problem is getting worse. Some authority -
- for example, the police or a local group -- calls
attention to a gang situation, or the media itself
may independently report the nature of the problem.
In an emerging problem context, street corner
groups seem larger, better organized and more
threatening. Gang names, colors, and graffiti
marking territory are in evidence. Fights suddenly
occur between youth groups or gangs at parties,
rock concerts, parks, or in front of public schools
at dismissal time. Knives and guns may be used. A
drive-by shooting may even take place. In chronic
gang-problem cities, the level of gang violence and
visibility rises, or spreads to a part of the
community that was formerly untouched. There is an
increase in gang-related robbery, extortion,
intimidation, drug use or selling. Drive-by
shootings may result in the killing of innocent
bystanders as well as gang members. Of special
concern is the growing frequency of retaliatory
shootings between youth gangs.

A community's response to the problem begins when
there is a heightened threat to life, property, and
the sense of social order in the community.
Persistent and dramatic media reporting may
facilitate this awareness. In the course of
increased gang violence and growing citizen
concern, a respected community leader or set of
leaders usually arises to articulate that a social
problem not only exists but that some special
action needs to be taken. A police chief, a youth
agency leader, a church activist, a school
official, a grassroots leader, or someone in the
mayor's office gives voice to the problem and calls
for key actors or city influentials to get together
to combat it.

An agency executive or grassroots leader, with the
sanction or support of a public authority, usually
the mayor, should convene a meeting. It is possible
that some existing organization or council,
governmental, nonprofit, or a combination can be
stimulated, energized, or expanded to convene such
a meeting. The convener brings special moral power,
administrative or political influence that
signifies some form of collective community and
agency response must occur. Meanwhile, certain
organizations individually may have already begun
to act. The police usually increase patrols. More
parents show up to chaperon youth at school dances.
A school principal, or a youth service agency
director attempts to expand services but needs more
staff to deal with the problem. A local political
candidate or office holder may express his views to
enhance his visibility and credibility in the
community.

A mayor's committee, task force, interagency group,
or forum is formed and convenes to express concern
and to consider how to address the problem. This
group takes testimony from a variety of agency
representatives, community leaders, and local
citizens about the scope and seriousness of the
problem. If afterwards, the dimensions of the
problem and what to do about it are still not
clearly known or understood, then a special study
committee needs to be formed. A group of agency or
community experts, or a university research group
may be requested to study the problem and recommend
what should be done to prevent youth gang
development and/or to reduce the apparent problem
of gang violence and possibly related drug
trafficking. The special study group or
commissioned university research group is then
expected to report back with findings and
recommendations, including some clear description
or definition of the characteristics of the problem
and policies and program for dealing with it.

Problem Assessment

In subsequent committee meetings, the gang problem
must be defined as fully and consensually as
possible. The assessment report and discussions on
the nature and extent of the problem must address
the following questions: What are the delinquent or
criminal activities committed that make the
activity gang-related, e.g., turf, signs, symbols,
colors, assault, and intimidation? How many gangs
are involved? Where are the problems located? What
are the age, race/ethnicity, gender, and criminal
history characteristics of the gang participants?
How are the gangs structured in terms of
leadership, core members, fringe members, and
"wannabes?" What are the school and job statuses of
members?

Answers to these questions should be available from
various sources, albeit with different degrees of
completeness and accuracy. More systematic sources
of information are usually found in larger cities
with chronic gang problems. Quantitative data on
activities of the gang as a whole and of gang
members in particular, may be available from the
police, schools, and probation. Anecdotal
information also needs to be acquired from local
citizens, parents, youth agency representatives,
former gang members, and even gang members
themselves. Prior governmental, school, and
university reports on the youth gang or related
problems may be available. A survey of local
community residents or students as well as agencies
concerned and familiar with the problem can be
conducted.

There needs to be some clarity and agreement among
key community actors about the nature and scope of
the problem prior to making decisions regarding a
response. The problem may be defined largely as an
emerging one if youth gang groups are still
relatively unorganized. They may contain mainly
younger youth who may not yet be engaged in
frequent serious crime, especially violent
assaults. Turf boundaries and membership may be
unclear with symbols and criminal patterns
relatively undeveloped. The problem may be confined
to a few schools and neighborhoods. On the other
hand, particularly in chronic problem cities, gangs
may be viewed as larger and better organized than
ever before. Coalitions or alliances of gangs,
older youth and young adults, drug trafficking and
adult criminal connections will be present.
Variations of emerging and chronic gang problems
may be found in the same community.

Gang problems also tend to vary by cultural,
racial/ethnic, and generational factors. These have
to be carefully identified. Suppression and
intervention approaches will vary depending on
these and other factors, if effective strategies
are to be developed and implemented.

Explanations of the problem should then be
attempted. In some emerging contexts, the claim is
usually made that the problem has been introduced
or "imported" from outside, i.e., another city --
usually a larger nearby city with a very serious,
long-term gang problem. Youth from newcomer
families from the "big" cities may be blamed for
introducing local youth to gang patterns, including
gang-related violence and other serious crime.
Claims may be made that "outside" gangs are
franchising drug operations or that the gang from
the "big" city has extended or decentralized its
operations to the smaller city or community. Deeper
examination of the problem may reveal, however,
that a new low-income population has arrived in the
community or that the old established low-income
minority population has grown in size, poverty, and
social isolation. Youth from these populations are
discovered to have high rates of school failure and
drop-out. The job market is now more restricted;
unskilled and semi-skilled jobs are no longer
readily available. Claims may also be made that
funding limitations resulting from conservative
national or local social policy may have reduced
social development programs for youth.

The problems in chronic gang contexts seem to be of
a different origin and character. Gangs and gang-
related crime may have been problems for decades.
Gang violence seems to ebb and flow and is
attributed to a variety of factors: downturns in
the economy; concentration of the poor in certain
low-income housing projects; periodic release of
gang leaders from prison; movement of established
agencies and middle class leaders out of the ghetto
or barrio; the closing down of certain youth
programs; and also the development of new drugs or
new opportunities to sell drugs, such as "crack"
cocaine. The precise relationship between the
development of or a rise in the gang problem and
these factors is not clear. However, the dimensions
of the youth gang problem and its probable causes
in relation to a particular context should be
examined.

Program Resource Assessment

An assessment of resources and programs needed to
deal with the problem must be determined through
analyses of existing programs specifically serving
gang youth or potential gang members. Remedial
education, vocational training, job programs,
outreach youth socialization services, family
treatment and school counseling programs, and other
special efforts actually dealing with gang youth
and their families should be identified. Ideally,
an assessment of the scope and quality of these and
other programs, actually and potentially dealing
with the gang problem should be included.

The community mobilization process develops in
earnest as the programs and perspectives of the
different agencies and community groups are
examined and as their representatives interact.
This is critical, for it is through debate on
program approaches that the roles and personalities
of the various actors in the community gang
response are displayed. More importantly, role
relations of different organizations and problems
with role relations become apparent. Also, role
partners (i.e., people with similar philosophies
and potentially supporting approaches will be
identified. 

Some agencies and organizations can and do exert a
good deal of power, moral or legal or economic, as
regards the problem. Agency and community
coalitions evolve. It is incumbent on the more
powerful agencies, whether the mayor's office, the
police department, the schools or youth agencies,
to ensure that adequate representation of local
citizens and grassroots organizations is present
and that the opinions of those closest to the
problem on a day-to-day basis are heard. Competing
observations, analyses, and claims among and
between the various types of organizations do exist
and should be brought forward.

The discussions should be focused on the youth gang
problem in its various complex aspects and
perspectives. A plurality of realistic solutions to
the problem must be carefully examined. The
interrelationship of the potential solutions need
to be stressed. The idea of a comprehensive
approach to the problem should be encouraged;
otherwise gang crises become simply a basis for
individual agency fundraising and for solidifying
competitive relationships between them.

The lack of a systematic and cooperative attack by
agencies on the problem leads to failure. The
pattern has to change, preferably as agencies and
community groups themselves work toward a common
understanding. Certain leaders or coalitions of
actors will be proactive and move the mobilization
process ahead -- usually for a variety of reasons,
e.g., community development, problem resolution,
and agency or organizational interest. Ideas about
a specific structure to further consider and
implement the various proposed solutions also begin
to emerge.

In the assessment phase, reasonably accurate and
reliable information on the nature and scope of the
problem, possible causal explanations, and the
specification of program resources available to
deal with it have to be established. Good data
serves to dispel misinformation and provide a
framework for a promising response. Basic causes of
the problem, and events that precede or precipitate
it, should be identified along with specific
response strategies. Youth gang phenomena should
come to be viewed not only in individual and group
behavioral terms but in social structural and
organizational terms. These include: the absence of
stable, cohesive family structures; inadequate
school programs; a lack of training and jobs for
older youth; and insufficient outreach or focus on
the gang problem by agency programs.

The identification of the problem in strategic
terms sets the stage for a more systematic
discussion of program or action priorities to be
selected in the development of a community
response. Strategies have to be based largely on
modification and elaboration of current approaches
such as: 1) suppression, including police,
probation, and prosecution arrangements established
to deal with the problem; 2) social intervention or
youth programs, including outreach or crisis
services, social opportunities provision,
especially school, job training, and placement
programs directed at problem youth; and 3)
community-wide or interagency structures or
mechanisms which may serve over the longer term to
spearhead a mobilization effort to deal with youth
gangs.

An important achievement of the assessment stage
occurs when key agencies, particularly law
enforcement, clarify and accept common definitions
as to what constitutes a gang, a gang member, and a
gang incident. These key agencies must determine
whether a youth gang is: 1) a group of youth
engaged simply in any kind of ephemeral delinquent
activity; 2) a durable group of youth with a name,
colors, symbols, and leadership structure
especially committed to intergroup conflict and
status achievement; 3) a delinquent group connected
to adult criminal organization, e.g., engaged in
drug trafficking or other systematic criminal gain
activities; or 4) some combination of these sets of
characteristics. Most importantly, law enforcement
agencies, with the assistance of other agencies,
should decide whether to have a broad or narrow
interpretation of a gang-related incident, e.g.,
whether to focus on every offense committed by an
identified gang member or only on specific offenses
that grow out of gang interest, motivation, or
function. An appropriate definition of the problem
that does not exaggerate its scope and
unnecessarily stigmatize youth is required. On the
other hand, a definition that denies the scope and
seriousness of the problem should also be avoided.
The key is to define the youth gang problem in
valid and manageable terms.

Many youth gang issues are of a technical nature
and require special attention by key professionals
of selected agencies, particularly law enforcement,
prosecution, probation, schools, and youth
agencies. This is particularly true when it comes
to prospective solutions. Then there is the problem
of data collection and dissemination. Information
about the gang problem, particularly of an
aggregate nature, should be shared among agencies
and community groups, although different kinds of
information and ideas may be more relevant to one
type of agency than to another. And, while
technical and confidential information should be
shared, it should be done in such a way as to
protect both the youth and the community. Certain
types of information should not be released without
the informed consent of target youths and their
families. 

Organizational Interests and Community Mobilization

Developing an effective community mobilization
process may be problematic for a number of reasons.
Key actors may prefer not to join in the community-
wide effort and may continue to develop programs on
their own terms. Meetings of the community-wide
task force may be largely ceremonial in which no
real interagency program and related community
group cooperation develops. A serious problem
occurs when community or public agency leadership
is not sustained to address the issue. A single
public agency or a coalition of agencies or
community groups may have insufficient resources or
influence to move the mobilization process forward.

Failures or delays in community mobilization mainly
occur because agencies and local community
organizations seek to protect or enhance particular
agency or group interests, which may or may not be
directly related to the gang problem. Issues of
organizational turf and interpersonal or
interagency rivalries and conflicts may prevent
discussion of common goals and objectives and
inhibit collaborative endeavors. For example, the
police department may develop its own gang unit
without community advisory group or grassroots
input; the schools may develop a special 5th- and
6th-grade gang awareness program without reference
to older gang youth in the school or the kind of
special monitoring or preventive activities that
local citizens, the police or probation can
provide; a youth agency may solicit funds for an
outreach program to mediate conflicts between gangs
without regard to intervention by key influential
organizations or community groups. Police advice
and appropriate law enforcement support activity
are not sought.

Failures of a community mobilization process may
also occur because of insensitivity to distinctive
community racial, ethnic, or class interests. The
leadership of the mobilization process may be white
and not recognize black or Hispanic interests in
the community. Meaningful relationships with
grassroots leaders who are close to and understand
the gang problem may not have developed; the gang
problem can become a basis for further polarizing
of the community. The community may be torn apart
by racial turmoil with the gang issue being viewed
as a problem of institutional racism. Local
community groups may also represent middle- or
lower-class interests and have sharply differing
opinions about the values of community protection
or of the services and opportunities appropriate
for gang youth. Alternatively, citizen groups
inside and outside the community may be apathetic
and not regard violence as a serious problem,
particularly if it does not directly affect them.
Struggles among organizations and groups in a high
gang crime area may take on a confused, amorphous
no-win inter-racial and class conflict character.

In summary, the community mobilization process can
move forward only when an influential leader or
group of leaders, committed to resolving the
problem, develops a close set of relationships,
relevant goals, and action plans based on mutual
trust and common agreement on the definition of the
problem and what needs to be done about it. The
plan must not only be supported by key political
and economic forces in the local and broader
community, but must meet, at least partially, the
survival and developmental needs of existing agency
programs and community groups. Two key mobilization
objectives need to be met. All important actors
with relevant programs, who can make a significant
contribution to resolving the problem, must get a
"piece of the action." Inclusion is conditional,
however. Participants must agree to collaborate in
interrelated, if not interdependent, fashion and
make certain organizational and program changes
consistent with the goals and objectives
established by the general council, task force, or
community-wide committee.

Furthermore, if youth gang problems arise in
communities characterized by a lack of resources
and social disorganization -- for instance,
impoverished residents, newcomer or disorganized
families; and fragmented, culturally insensitive,
and resource poor service delivery systems -- the
provision of added social resources is essential
but may still be insufficient to deal with the
problem.  Additional resources and services must be
integrated or closely related to each other;
otherwise programs become highly competitive, may
develop inconsistent approaches, or may simply
expand to serve a variety of youth without
targeting gang youth. Gang youth often "fall
between the cracks" of "beefed up" social services,
social opportunity programs, and police sweeps. It
is not only individual youth and criminal group
behaviors that create the youth gang problem, but
also inappropriate responses by agencies and
community groups at various stages of the problem's
development. The failure of the larger community to
meet the needs of local institutions through
appropriate policy development and resource
provision, i.e., a lack of vertical integration,
may have partially created the basis for the youth
gang problem or at least aggravated it.

Goals, Objectives, and Organizational Structure

A set of general strategies and interagency and
community group agreements must be developed as
soon as possible. It must be accompanied by
evidence of political, administrative, and
community support. Public and/or private funding
should be arranged. Local citizens should be
approached and commitments made for donations of
time, effort, and even money. An appropriate long-
term implementing structure has to be conceived and
initiated. It may be an independent organization or
attached to a particular agency, public or
nonprofit, criminal justice or community-based. A
network of churches, grassroots groups, and local
community organizations must be integrally involved
and support the new venture.

Specific goals and objectives for the reduction or
prevention of gang-related crime still have to be
selected and prioritized. These goals should be
related realistically to the particular scope and
nature of the problem and to existing political
interests and community concerns. Objectives
targeting specific types of groups, ages of youth,
and locations of gangs and at-risk youth must be
established. Service patterns by agencies and
mechanisms for interagency program relationships
have to be specified. Short- and long-range
objectives to deal with significant aspects of the
problem must be explicitly detailed for the
community as a whole and for particular agencies
and community groups.

Integrated policies and procedures for carrying out
goals and objectives, in particular a set of
reciprocal roles by police, prosecution, probation
and corrections, youth agencies, employment
services, schools, grassroots organizations, and
other participants have to be specified. This
means, for example, that the police should be
explicit on how they will achieve suppression
objectives, and how they will cooperate with the
prosecutor's office, probation, schools, youth
agencies, and the business community as they work
toward their objectives. The police must also
indicate how they will support certain social
intervention and social provision objectives, for
example job development, in conjunction with other
agencies. Procedures for collaboration of schools
and youth agencies with the police should be
specified.

Youth agencies and schools, in turn, must indicate
what programs they will develop to achieve short-
and long-term objectives, e.g., improving grade
performance of gang youth and providing after
school services for them. Their support of actions
to suppress gang activities should also be
specified; for example, closely supervising gang
offenders, sharing information about selected gang
youth, and patrolling community "hot spots" in
collaboration with police, probation, and community
groups. Throughout, there should be understanding
and cooperation as they work toward a common
objective.

As suggested above, different kinds of information
about the youth gang problem in general or a youth
in particular should be shared among different sets
of organizations under conditions that provide
constitutional safeguards to gang youth, while
protecting both them and the community. Thus, it is
inappropriate for criminal justice personnel to
share information on gang youth with school
administration or for school administrators to
discuss it with school teachers or for anyone to
encode fresh information in school in such a way
that gang youth are stigmatized and impeded from
receiving positive, rehabilitative academic
assistance. Similarly, it is appropriate for school
authorities to transmit information on gang youth
to other agencies for any purpose, without the
informed consent of the parents and youth in
question. On the other hand, it would be extremely
important for all agencies and communities to share
information at the gang, or aggregate, situational
and community levels which will serve to prevent
and control gang activity.

The structure of decisionmaking and program
development is likely to be less complex in
emerging than in chronic gang-problem cities, where
fewer key players are present and relationships are
less formal. Principal mobilization issues in
emerging problem contexts should ordinarily focus
on better use of existing resources, such as
modification of school programs and placement of
at-risk youth in available part-time and full-time
jobs. A preventive approach must emphasize improved
social intervention through outreach; program
coordination; targeting of youth at risk; and
special support programs for newcomer or socially
isolated families, particularly those with older
youth who are committed gang members.

A cooperative, if not collaborative structure is
needed to facilitate the development of an
integrated approach to the gang problem in emerging
gang-problem jurisdictions. As suggested above,
clear commitment to a common approach should be
obtained in writing from all agency and community
organizations. This coordinating structure can be a
publicly or privately sponsored organization with
support from all key players in the community. A
school or youth agency or some special
administrative structure combining representation
of both organizations with collaboration from
police, community organizations, and others is
required. The structure, particularly in smaller
communities, needs to emphasize use of the existing
network of official and formal agencies or
community organizations. However, special attention
must be paid to inclusion of representatives of the
minority groups, such as African-Americans, various
Latino, or Asian groups often new to the community,
who are closest to the problem on a day-to-day
basis. Furthermore, it is critically important that
such representatives not be token minority group
members. They must be sensitive to and
knowledgeable of local racial/ethnic groups and
their needs and problems with acceptability in both
the document and minority communities.

More substantial structural changes and significant
additional social resources may be required to
affect control and reduction of the problems in
these cities. Significant school reforms and a
major infusion of additional job training and job
placement resources may be necessary. Remedial
educational, alternative school, and special job
programs should target gang youth. Ideally, the
special gang program should be an integral part of
large-scale economic development initiatives to
deal with more general problems of poverty and
deprivation.

The process of mobilization within a chronic
problem context also must be carried out in
interrelated and interactive ways -- at the
grassroots community group, individual local
agency, and intergovernmental department levels.
Cooperation and collaboration within and across
organizations, community groups, and government
agencies are essential. This cooperation must be
more formally and widely organized than in an
emerging problem city. There must also be special
flexibility in policy development and program
implementation as organizations and gang problems
vary in more complex ways. Chief responsibility for
community mobilization should rest with a combined
interagency and local grassroots group within the
framework or sponsorship of a local government
office, e.g., the Mayor's office or a special
council or commission with resource support from
State and Federal government. The most appropriate
implementing and coordinating mechanism is probably
a public commission, sanctioned by the State, with
participation required by law enforcement and the
interests of affected grassroots group
representatives. These may include African-
American, Latino, Asian, caucasian, or others from
the gang-impacted target areas as well as criminal
justice and community-based agencies including
schools and business associations from the
community at large.

------------------------------

IMPLEMENTATION

The following sections outline program structures
and activities that should be developed in emerging
and chronic youth gang-problem contexts. While
different approaches are described for these two
types of problem cities, it is important to
recognize that the differences are primarily of
emphasis. Problems and programs vary not only
between problem contexts, but within them as well.
Therefore, the approach should be flexible and
tailored to the needs of particular cities,
organizations, and changing youth gang situations.

Of special importance is the development of
programs by key organizations that share common
objectives regarding the gang problem. Relatively
simple or easy to execute programs, such as
informational or patrol programs, should be
initiated with emphasis on common or reciprocal
tasks across agencies and community groups.
Opportunities for successful participation by local
citizens in controlling the problem should be made
available, particularly as they receive aid and
guidance from local or city-wide government and
established governmental and community volunteer
agencies.

Emerging Youth Gang-problem Context

An interagency task force affiliated with a local
school district and a particular youth agency
should be established to deal with an emerging
youth gang problem. Members of the task force
should also include police, probation, community
organizations, and citizen representatives of the
various racial/ethnic groups with the target
communities. A series of goals and objectives must
be formulated which interrelate and balance
suppression, social intervention, and opportunities
provision strategies, especially as implemented
though youth agency and school-based programs.
Target schools in a particular area or neighborhood
should include a high school, middle schools, and
elementary schools, with special emphasis on the
middle schools where early intervention and
activation may be especially relevant. The
following organizations should devise appropriate
programs that implement gang-oriented missions and
procedures with key attention to interagency
relationships and citizen involvement. 

Police

1. Gang-trained patrol officers, special gang
officers, or in a larger city, a special gang unit
needs to be established. A special crime analysis
system should be established to target repeat gang
juvenile offenders. Focus should be on those
offenders who commit offenses that grow out of gang
motivation or gang function, rather than offenses
that are non-gang-related.

2. The officers or the unit must also target key
gang leaders largely responsible for organizing or
influencing youth gang their members in criminal
activity, especially gang-related violence. Special
arrangements should be made by police, probation,
prosecutors, and judges to target these older youth
through effective monitoring, prosecution and, if
necessary, enhanced sentences. Rehabilitation
opportunities should also be available. 

3. Special surveillance patrols should be provided
to schools and other places where gang youth are
known to congregate and gang-related violence is
likely to occur.

4. The police should help parent and resident
groups to develop citizen patrols and provide other
assistance in controlling gang activity. Witness
protection arrangements should be carefully worked
out in conjunction with the prosecutor's office.

5. Gang unit or youth officers, in cooperation with
community relations officers, should undertake
major prevention and gang awareness campaigns
directed at parents, residents, store keepers,
business and professional groups as well as social
service agencies in gang-impacted areas. Emphasis
should be on information about the nature of the
problem, successful programs, and actions each
local group can take to prevent and limit the scope
and seriousness of the problem.

6. To the extent departmental policy and resources
permit, youth gang officers, along with community
relations officers, should be assigned to social
intervention and job development functions, e.g.,
referrals of gang youth and their families to
social service programs and cooperation with local
youth service and church programs in the
implementation of camping and recreational
activities. Periodically, they should canvass
businesses and industries for full-time and part-
time jobs, specifically ear-marked for gang youth
or potential gang youth.

Schools

1. A special gang prevention and intervention unit,
in close association with a cluster of community-
based agencies, should be formed in the District
School Superintendent's office with staff teams
assigned to each of the target schools. They should
be stationed near or closely associated with the
principal's, assistant principal's, or
disciplinarian's office. A combination of early
social intervention and opportunities provision
programs should be emphasized for gang youth and
those youth clearly at risk.

2. Youth who have been identified as repeat gang
offenders should be targeted for special academic
and/or remedial assistance as well as close
supervision. To the extent possible, however, these
targeted youth must be integrated into regular
basic academic programs.

3. Ideally, a school-community agency-based team
should target parents of gang youth and those
highly at-risk (based on specified criteria)[1] for
social intervention and referral. The school
should, with the support of a parent's group, take
upon itself special responsibility for initiating
and supervising a community-based services effort.
Primary emphasis would be on parent gang awareness
and parent education, particularly as to youth
social and academic development needs. Parents
should be afforded not only gang awareness
education, but also necessary social services.
Among the services available to targeted parents
and their family members would be referral for
employment training and academic enrichment.

4. School councils should be formed to address
concerns such as raising academic standards,
enhancing school safety and security, and improving
student discipline in ways that pay special
attention to the youth gang problem. Council
membership should comprise a broad range of
parents, teachers, and community residents. With
the assistance of the police, parent and resident
patrols should be formed to monitor student and
gang activities, especially when students are on
their way to and from school. 

5. A special outreach program for gang youth and
those at very high risk should be established in
middle schools. Gang youth must be targeted for
intensive remedial assistance and supervision,
including home visits and services to families.
Probably no more than five to ten percent of the
student body in the highest gang-problem schools
will require such intensive efforts.

6. A variety of job readiness and apprenticeship
programs must be organized at the local high
school, particularly in chronic problem contexts,
in cooperation with business and industry.
Academically and socially handicapped older gang
youth should receive special attention and be
provided with social support services.

7. The school system should also develop or
collaborate with an alternative school program,
particularly for gang youth who have dropped out.
These youth would receive special remedial,
vocational, and counseling assistance for one or
two semesters, before returning to a regular high
school to complete their studies. If returning to
high school is not feasible, they would be assisted
to obtain a GED through appropriate community
agency programs.

8. Special curricula should be minimally developed
for grades 4 through 9 addressing the problem, with
special attention to issues of gang prevention,
early intervention, and control, e.g., gang
recruitment, conflict mediation, and self-esteem.

9. Procedures need to be established for sharing
particular types of information especially between
school and police, but also with other criminal
justice agencies, on youth involved in gang-related
activity in the school. In the process, care should
be taken to protect the rights of individual
students.

Youth Service Agency

1. Staff should coordinate as closely as possible
with police and schools in providing services to
gang and gang-prone youth, particularly as part of
school-based human service teams in selected
schools.

2. Youth agencies need to reach out to as many gang
members and gang-prone youth as possible, including
on the streets. Such youth should be provided with
a variety of meaningful socialization,
recreational, vocational preparation, job
readiness, and leadership development services.
Special contacts and relationships need to be
developed with key community influentials to
facilitate this outreach process.

3. Youth agencies must be advocates on behalf of
gang youth and their families who often tend to
"fall through the cracks" of existing social
service and criminal justice programs.

4. Youth agencies should admit gang youth to all
agency programs while providing protection, as
necessary, to non-gang youth. A key aspect of
mainstreaming should be the introduction of gang or
gang-prone youth, individually, to different parts
of the program according to their different
interests, personal, and social problems. A major
intent of this mainstreaming process is to loosen
youth gang bonds.

5. A mentoring system should be established in
which community adults, school, or agency staff
provide additional service and assistance to
individual gang youth in which they become role
models.

Grassroots Organizations

1. Parents and residents in the neighborhood must
be helped to organize and develop a variety of
activities and projects related to the youth gang
problem. Special resources from a government or
foundation source should be allocated to
established community organizations, schools,
churches, and community-based agencies to assist
smaller, less well developed grassroots groups to
become involved in community-wide efforts aimed at
reducing the gang problem.

2. A wide range of educational and informational
material and devices are required to alert local
citizens to the nature of the gang problem and how
to deal with it.

3. Members of these grassroots groups should be
assisted to provide mutual support to each other
for protection and development of campaigns against
youth gangs.

4. Members of grassroots organizations can assist
and bring various informal pressures to bear on
certain parents to better educate their children to
the dangers of gang membership through various
informal counseling and home visitation programs.

5. Grassroots organizers should work to establish
relationships of trust and confidence with local
citizens so they can cooperate with police,
probation, prosecution, and other justice agencies
in the provision of information about local gang
problems and individuals involved in gang activity.
A variety of neighborhood meetings and activities
can be arranged to facilitate the building of this
trust and confidence.

6. Grassroots organizations should serve a special
monitoring and advocacy function to ensure that
public agencies, e.g., police, schools, and
community-based agencies, are addressing the youth
gang problem. Church-related groups, in particular,
must be encouraged to be proactive and hold
criminal justice and community-based agencies
accountable for effectively dealing with the gang
problem.

7. Grassroots, particularly parent, organizations
must make a special effort to both monitor and
support the school in curtailing youth gang
activity. These organizations should form parent
patrols, examine school activities, and assist
teachers and counselors to deal both forcefully and
sensitively with parents whose children are gang
members.

8. Grassroots organizations can take special
responsibility for educating local businesses and
home owners to be responsive to the interests and
needs of local youth, especially for jobs and
apprentice training roles.

9. Finally, former gang members with records of
legitimate employment should be incorporated into
grassroots group efforts. They can provide
important contacts and insight into factors that
produce gang incidents and offer advice on ways to
reduce problems. They may serve as role models and
can be useful in direct communication with youth
gangs on how to resolve gang conflicts.
Nevertheless, careful attention must be given to
the development of appropriate criteria for
selection and use of former gang members to ensure
that they have a legitimate social commitment and a
capacity to assist gang youth.

10.Local citizens should be trained to participate
in a variety of decisionmaking processes, from
anti-gang efforts to organizational procedures.

Criminal Justice System

Probation, parole, correctional officials,
prosecutors, and judges must play an important
back-up role in cities with emerging youth gang
problems, providing relevant information and
assistance in the mobilization of local citizens
and community-based organizations. The effective
suppression of gang activities must be based on
collaborative relationships with a variety of
community agencies and groups whereby criminal
justice agencies participate in prevention and
school intervention activities. Attention to gang
youth should not be confined to older youth gang
offenders but should include high risk youth who
may require a special combination of supervision,
rehabilitation, remedial education, and employment
opportunities.

Media

1. In reporting gang-related incidents, media
representatives must be clear about the criteria
established by official agencies to identify such
incidents. Reporters must understand the complex
issues of reliability and validity related to
categorization of a violent or drug-trafficking
incident as gang-related.

2. Special care must be exercised in reporting gang
incidents that give notoriety to a particular gang
or gang member or present information that may
facilitate gang retaliatory acts. Reference to gang
names should be avoided wherever possible.

3. Reporters should carefully analyze those factors
that contribute to youth gang activity, and discern
those programs in the community or in comparable
communities that appear to be successful in
reducing the problem.

4. The media may be of special assistance in
publicizing positive activities of gang youth or
former gang youth who now follow productive
legitimate careers and contribute to community
improvement.

Chronic Youth Gang-problem Cities

A chronic youth gang problem will require efforts
similar to those recommended in emerging gang-
problem cities or contexts. Arrangements among
agencies and community groups must be more complex,
however, and more closely linked to criminal
justice agencies. In fact, criminal justice agency
units, the mayor's office, or a county public
office must provide key leadership, if not
sponsorship, of anti-gang efforts. Special efforts
are also required by representatives of schools,
training facilities, and business and industry to
prepare and provide jobs for older youth gang
members. Comprehensive youth agency and crisis
intervention programs may need to be developed with
attention to mobilization of both community efforts
and support and supervision of gang youth in
cooperation with criminal justice agencies.
Traditional agency animosities and extreme
competition for funds are impediments that may need
to be overcome.

1. More attention than in emerging problem contexts
should be directed at the development of
specialized units, programs, and procedures. Also,
more explicit development of coordinating
mechanisms among criminal justice agencies to
collect data, track, prosecute, and supervise
chronic offenders may be required.

2. A substantial investment of available community
and outside resources will be needed to support
programs, especially at school, training, and
special work sites, to deal with gang youth.
Agencies at State and Federal levels must make
special attempts to coordinate their efforts and
avoid duplication of program initiatives. Funds
should be allocated for hardcore groups or youth at
greatest risk, including older adolescents. Early
intervention programs should have the second
highest priority, followed by preventive programs
for youths at lower risk, at least based on the
scope of the present research and development
program. In any case, care needs to be taken in
anti-gang efforts not to target youth show low or
no risk of gang involvement.

3. Special arrangements and procedures are
necessary to provide academic remediation, values
change, and work training for youth in correctional
institutions, since most will shortly return to the
community. Correctional, institutional, and
community-based programs must also be strongly
linked. Integrated efforts by probation, parole,
police, youth agencies, schools, grassroots
organizations, and businesses are required to
assist and avoid criminal activity with convicted
gang youth when they return to gang environments.
The availability of meaningful training, and jobs
and school support arrangements to make the best
use of those opportunities, is most important.

4. A variety of special youth socialization
programs are required, e.g., late night basketball
tournaments, and weekend and vacation activities.
These programs should be operated to the extent
possible through local grassroots organization,
youth agency, or crisis intervention programs. They
should provide significant socialization services
for gang youth, also using local resident mentors.

5. Broad-scale community improvement initiatives
with respect to economic development, housing, and
school reform must be encouraged by community
business and political leaders who in such
development programs should also target the youth
gang problem.

6. The scope of the special interagency task force
council or commission established to deal with gang
problems in the chronic problem city should be
inclusive of representatives of community
residents, the criminal justice system, social
agencies, schools, universities, and business and
industry. Former gang member participation should
be considered. The commission must be committed to
dealing with the youth gang problem on a long-term
basis, also advocating for social legislation
directed at gang youth. While its major function
should be coordination, planning, and program
development, it should also take responsibility, at
least initially, for training staff across agencies
and community groups and sponsoring gang-problem
assessment, research, and program evaluation. The
staff of the coordination unit or council should
comprise professionals and persons experienced with
and sensitive to the cultural background of groups
in the targeted communities. Funding for such an
organization must be obtained not only from public
but foundation, and other private sources. In due
course, some of these functions may be spun off to
local nonprofit agencies.

7. While a community mobilization process
emphasizes a targeted approach and the most
efficient use of local resources, it is clear that
in both emerging, but especially in chronic, gang-
problem cities, more State and Federal resources
will be required. It may not be possible to re-
direct local resources or effectively mobilize
local community efforts to deal with the youth gang
problem where social problems and poverty are
extreme.

------------------------------

FOOTNOTES

1. These criteria will include three or more of the
following risk factors: contact with the police for
gang activity; a family member is a known gang
member; a youth gives evidence of gang culture,
such as flashing gang signs, wearing gang colors;
arrest for a non-gang offense; and/or the youth is
doing poorly in school.