MENU TITLE: Community Mobilization: Technical Assistance Manual . Series: OJJDP Published: 1992 91 pages 149,178 bytes DRAFT 1/92 COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION Technical Assistance Manual Irving A. Spergel 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 National Youth Gang Suppression and Intervention Project Staff Irving A. Spergel, D.S.W., Principal Investigator Ronald Chance, M.A., Project Director Candice M. Kane, Ph.D., J.D., Senior Research Associate Thomas A. Regulus, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate Robert Laseter, M.S.W., Senior Research Associate Sara Fagan, Project Secretary Cynthia Johnson, Project Secretary Felecia Weinstein, Project Secretary Irving A. Spergel, Editor, Ronald Chance, Co-Editor Technical Assistance Manuals School of Social Service Administration University of Chicago 969 E. 60th Street Chicago, IL 60637 (312) 702-5879 ____________________________________ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Community Mobilization Technical Assistance Manual could not have been formulated or completed without the help of a great many people from a variety of organizations throughout the country. They made comments on earlier drafts, participated in reviews of the manuals at different conferences, and provided useful documents. These persons and their organizations represent an extensive body of experience in dealing with youth gang problems useful in fashioning community approaches. Special appreciation is expressed for the extensive help provided by: Elizabeth Buhman, Ph.D., Research Specialist, Research and Policy Division, Office of the Attorney General, Austin, Texas; Jim Copple, Executive Director, Project Feedom, Wichita, Kansas; Mona Gonzalez, Austin Gang Task Force, Austin, Texas; Ray Gott, Captain, Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, Los Angeles, California; Michael Genelin, Deputy Head, Hard Core Division, Los Angeles County District Attorney, Los Angeles, California; Malcolm W. Klein, Professor and Director, Center for Research on Crime and Social Control, Social Science Research Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California; Walter B. Miller, Professor Emeritus, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachussetts; Brother Leon Modesto, Soledad Enrichment Action Program, Los Angeles, California; Thanks is also expressed to the following for their assistance with ideas for the Community Mobilization Manual: Xavier Cortada, Chair, City of Miami Task Force, Miami, Florida; Miguel Duran, Director of Special Youth Services, Los Angeles County Probation Department, Downey, California; David Fattah, House of UMOJA, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Sister Falalea Fattah, House of UMOJA, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Katherine Montgomery, Director of Public Affairs, Humana Hospital-Aurora, Aurora, Colorado; Sandra Stehno O'Donnell, Professor, Public Administration Program, Roosevelt University, Chicago, Illinois; Responsibility for the contents of the Community Mobilization Manual, however, must rest with the author. ____________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Program Mission and Background Purpose of the Manuals Problem Statement Discussion of Terms and Issues Approach to the Problem Overview of the Community Mobilization Manual Summary CHAPTER 2: PROBLEM RECOGNITION Leadership Articulating the Problem Tapping the Influence Structure Organizing Concern Use of the Media Networking Holding Community Meetings/Hearings Credibility and Agenda Issues Summary CHAPTER 3: PROBLEM ASSESSMENT Purpose Elements Participants and Capacity-Building Process Getting Agencies, Communities, and Local Citizens to Participate Specific Assessment Arrangements Countering Organizational and Community Group Manipulation Summary CHAPTER 4: CREATING AN ANTIGANG INTERAGENCY COMMUNITY STRUCTURE AND PROCESS Obtaining Political Support Developing A Specific Community/Agency Coalitional Structure Establishing Appropriate Agency/Community Group Interactions and Programs Creating Meaningful and Shared Goals, Objectives, Strategies, and Procedures Summary CHAPTER 5: COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION PROGRAMMING The Police Schools Community-Based Youth Agency Grassroots Organizations Chronic Youth Gang Problem Contexts Summary CHAPTER 6: STAFFING, STAFF SELECTION, AND TRAINING Staff Selection Staff Education and Training Summary CHAPTER 7: FUNDING Funding Sources Summary CHAPTER 8: MONITORING, RESEARCH, AND EVALUATION Summary BIBLIOGRAPHY APPENDIX A: LIST OF PROGRAM REPORTS APPENDIX B: GLOSSARY AND DISCUSSION OF TERMS ____________________________________ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Justice Department, entered into a cooperative agreement with the School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, to conduct the National Youth Gang Suppression and Intervention Program. Technical Assistance manuals were created that focus on the implementation of policies designed for emerging and chronic gang problem contexts. Focus is on gang-motivated violent and serious criminal youth gang activity. Five key strategies are identified that contribute to the reduction of the problem: community mobilization action, opportunities provision, social intervention, suppression, and organizational change and development. Key efforts to control and reduce the problem must focus on gang leadership as well as high-risk gang-prone youth. Local persons and organizational representatives must identify the problem and get others to take action with regard to it. Local as well as citywide and regional influentials should be contacted and persuaded to support the efforts. Resources must be identified, community hearings held. Community leaders, government officials, and organizers should be proactive and credible in their efforts to analyze the problem and determine the best ways to deal with it. An assessment process should be conducted to establish a common definition of the scope and seriousness of the gang problem. Criminal justice, government policymakers, and planners should take key responsibility for providing data and ideas about the best way to deal with it. It is important that open and fair community hearings take place, and especially that large and powerful organizations do not manipulate either the analysis of the problem or recommendations for what to do about it for their own narrow self-interested purposes. The community mobilization process moves ahead when key community agency, political, and grassroots leaders agree that a special structure is needed. Consideration must be given to issues of race/ethnicity, the nature of the problem, and the community's traditional and/or current way of dealing with it. Specific goals and objectives must be established that affect not only individual agencies but do so within a framework of general community development and protection that focuses on the interests and needs of gang-prone and gang member youth. Special emphasis must be on the design and implementation of cross-agency policy and activities. Special concern must be accorded to distinctive approaches required in chronic and emerging gang problem communities or contexts. More explicit development of coordinating and monitoring mechanisms and attention to linking correctional and community-based programs is required in chronic gang problem contexts. In general, special care must be taken to develop local leadership with respect to dealing with the problem. Staff should be carefully selected and include competent local as well as nonlocal professional and paraprofessional personnel. Complex antigang programs must draw local and larger community interest and resources together. High funding priority should be given to consortium or multiagency and multipurpose program efforts. Additional resources are essential to the success of interagency, grassroots organizing, and targeted program activities. Reallocation of existing program resources to new priorities as well as the search for new sources of funding are also important. Funding sources include businesses, local agencies, city agencies, State and Federal antigang initiatives, and foundations. Finally, careful program monitoring, evaluation, and research are essential to ensure that the program is carried out as expected and/or planned. The program must be evaluated for effectiveness. Both process and outcome evaluations as well as more sophisticated quasi-experimental designs should be implemented to improve our understanding of the complex gang problem and to rigorously test approaches to its resolution. We must carefully determine which programs work and which do not. ____________________________________ CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION o Program Mission and Background o Purpose of the Manuals o Problem Statement o Discussion of Terms and Issues o Approach to the Problem o Overview of the Community Mobilization Manual o Summary Program Mission and Background There has been an increase in the youth gang problem and the need for information and guidance. Criminal youth gang activity represents a serious threat to the safety and security of local citizens and impedes positive youth development. In recent years, higher levels of youth gang violence and gang member-related drug trafficking have been reported in an increasing number of neighborhoods, high schools, public housing projects, correctional institutions, and other social contexts throughout the country. In response, the Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Justice Department, entered into a cooperative agreement with the School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, in October 1987 to conduct the National Youth Gang Suppression and Intervention Program. This program is a four-stage Research and Development process: Assessment, Prototype/Model Development, Technical Assistance, and Testing. This technical assistance manual is part of a four- stage research and development process. Three of the four stages have been completed. Stage 1 included a comprehensive review of the research and program literature on youth gangs, a survey of programs in 45 cities, selected site visits, conferences, and special studies. During Stage 2, gang suppression and intervention models were produced for police, prosecutors, judges, probation, corrections, parole, schools, employment, community-based youth agencies, and grassroots organizations. Additionally, separate manuals for comprehensive planning and for community mobilization were developed. Twelve manuals have been produced. Stage 3 involved the creation of 12 technical assistance manuals that provide guidelines to implement the policies and procedures presented in the models. The ten agency manuals specify both organizational and community perspectives for dealing with the youth gang problem. The other two manuals outline specific procedures and processes of planning a comprehensive community approach to youth gang suppression and intervention. (See appendix A for a list of documents.) The program models and technical assistance manuals were based on the findings of the initial project assessment stage as well as extensive consultations with policymakers, administrators, and practitioners at local and national levels. Two regional conferences were held with policymakers and administrators from 16 cities who contributed to the development of the final version of the manuals. Purpose of the Manuals The purpose is to present a set of guidelines to reduce youth gang crime. The purpose of the technical assistance manuals is to present detailed steps for the control and reduction of youth gang crime, especially gang- motivated violence. The manuals seek to provide governmental authorities, criminal justice organizations, social agencies, and community groups with strategies that encourage gang-prone and gang-involved youth to terminate criminal activity and participate in legitimate social, academic, and employment pursuits. Broad preventive policies that deal with larger social issues such as poverty and racism, housing, education, jobs, and health care are addressed only on a limited basis in the manuals. Key issues of family breakdown, violence in the media, and the proliferation of sophisticated weapons need to be directly addressed as they contribute to the youth gang problem. They are dealt with here mainly as conditions within which special organizational policies and procedures and community mobilization must be developed. Administrators and policymakers are the primary audience. Local administrators and policymakers are the primary audience, but the manuals should also be useful to other officials and personnel concerned with the problem,including agency supervisors, front-line workers, and community volunteers. The manuals are not intended to serve in the place of more general models and manuals dealing with delinquent or troublesome youth in the criminal justice and human service fields; they are intended as a supplement to them. Even so, the manuals should be of value in dealing with youth crime more generally. This is because the youth gang problem can be viewed as part of a larger set of crime and delinquency and youth socialization problems Problem Statement The gang problem has changed and grown more serious in most regions of the country. During the 1980's and early 1990's, more criminally oriented and better organized gangs or cliques have become prevalent in many urban communities. More young people from diverse backgrounds and settings are joining gangs to meet social and economic needs not satisfied through existing institutions, e.g., family, school, and employment. The youth gang has become an alternative, mainly antisocial, institution for an increasing number of youth. Poverty and social disorganization are key conditions contributing to the problem. Why youth gangs have developed and become more criminal and complex organizations is not clear. The type and severity of youth gang problems may be largely a response to two conditions, poverty or limited access to social opportunities and social disorganization, i.e., the lack of integration and stability of social institutions including family, school, and employment in a local community. Certain factors exacerbate these two social conditions to produce varying gang subcultures and systems. They include: o large and rapid population movement of low-income minorities into a community; o intergenerational gang traditions; o defects of social policy and coordination of service delivery at local and national levels; o institutional racism; o insecurities of certain working and middle class populations "threatened" by newcomers; and o the growth of criminal opportunities. Examples are the following: Under different community conditions, different types of gang problems appear to develop. Violent youth gang subcultures often develop when gang- affiliated African-American and Hispanic youth move from central cities to smaller cities and suburban areas without adequate social, family, economic, and educational supports. Violent gang subcultures may also develop when new waves of poor immigrants from Mexico, Central America, the Pacific Islands, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Korea, the Philippines, and other Asian countries arrive in urban communities. The newcomer groups are often met with hatred and resentment, sometimes manifested in physical attacks. Gangs may form and become rapidly entrenched, first as defensive, and then as offensive groups. Furthermore, in ghetto, inner-city African- American, and Hispanic communities, a limited criminal opportunity system often develops. Gangs in these communities may change from status- oriented, conflict groups to highly predatory, criminal-gain groups. Over time, sophisticated instrumental rather than traditional or status- oriented youth gangs may develop, with special interest in drug trafficking and other economic criminal activity. There are variations in the gang problem by race/ethnicity, class, and newcomer status. In some communities across the country, particularly in the western States but increasingly elsewhere, the influx of low-income and working class Pacific-Islander and Asian groups -- e.g., Tongan, Filipino, Hong Kong, Korean, Vietnamese, Laotian, or Cambodian -- has resulted in other varieties of youth gang problems. Second-generation youths, those who were born in this country or who arrived as preteens, may seek protection, prestige, and income through gang membership. Some of these gangs adopt African-American or Hispanic gang patterns; others become closely connected to traditional ethnic-based, adult criminal organizations. Criminal activities can include home invasions, business extortion, robbery, rape, intimidation, and a range of racket activities. These newcomer youth gangs, and the Asian communities upon which they prey, are difficult for local law enforcement, schools, and community organizations to penetrate or influence because of cultural, communication, and trust problems. Growing economic, social, and cultural pressure can contribute to the development of youth gangs. Some blue-collar or middle class communities are characterized by growing economic, social, and cultural pressures as well as by increasing family or personal disorganization. Some of these formerly stable, predominately white communities have become centers for youth groups with a "nothing to lose attitude." Youth gangs or their equivalent such as Satanic, Stoner, punk rocker, hate, Neo-Nazi, or racist Skinhead groups may participate in a wide range of loosely organized criminal acts, characterized by perverse and negative behavior, including vandalism, drug use, homosexual assaults, and even homicides. Additionally, in certain stable, lower middle class communities, whether African-American, Latino, Pacific Islander, Asian, white, or Native American, the gang problem may assume a more organized and usually less violent character. Youth may become relatively more involved in extortion, car theft, burglary, robbery, sophisticated drug trafficking, and various lucrative quasi-racket activities which are not necessarily conducted in the "home communities." Legitimate business and criminal interests may be relatively well integrated. Furthermore, specialization of criminal youth gang patterns by race and ethnicity seemingly exists. Economic, social, and cultural factors may, in fact, be the cause. Thus, some African-American youth gang or clique members may be heavily engaged in street-level crack-cocaine trafficking; Mexican- American youth gang members may be relatively more involved in violent turf-based activity, and Asian gang members may be more mobile and closely related to adult crime organizations involved in crimes such as extortion, robbery, and international drug trafficking. However, these youth gang subcultures also exist side by side, interact, integrate with, or succeed each other over time. In some communities youth gangs are interracial and interethnic. Violence projected by the media may exacerbate the problem. In spite of the many and changing varieties of gang subcultures that can be found, a common denominator among them is that most are comprised of youth who share somewhat similar values, a keen sense of personal failure, and low self-esteem. For many gang youth, violence has become an acceptable way of life, partially sanctioned by the larger society. Violence is seen on nightly newscasts, in the movies, on evening television and Saturday morning cartoons, and encouraged by certain "rap" stars. Violence is projected as a means of resolving authority, low self-esteem, and racial/ethnic problems. Discussion of Terms and Issues Key components of the problem are the youth gang, youth gang member, and the gang incident. It is important to accurately identify key components of the youth gang problem in order not to exaggerate, deny, or mythologize them. This is necessary to develop appropriate policies and procedures to deal with the different or varying street gang problems and subcultures encountered. These components are: 1) the criminal youth gang, 2) the youth gang member, and 3) the gang incident. Gang-motivated violence is the key but not exclusive concern of the manual. The central focus of the manuals is control and reduction of gang-motivated violence. We are not primarily interested in highly organized drug trafficking by groups concerned only with profit, although there are often important connections between these associations and the youth or street gang. However, we are concerned with drug trafficking or predatory youth cliques to the extent they participate in, depend on, and influence the development of violent gang activities. Youth gang members engage increasingly in both violent status-related and entrepreneurial or predatory criminal activities. If a youth group engages primarily in criminal entrepreneurial activity and participates periodically in serious violence, it falls within the scope of our concern. Our concern is also with differences between emerging and chronic gang problem communities and the need for prevention and especially early intervention services. 1. Criminal Youth Gang This is a group often comprising both juveniles and young adults who engage in a range of social and anti-social behaviors. Cliques or members engage repetitively or at times spontaneously in violent, predatory, and criminal-gain behaviors. The criminal youth gang may be located within a neighborhood or across neighborhoods and even cities. It may be loosely or well organized with established rules of conduct. The youth gang may have a name, turf, colors, signs, symbols, and distinctive dress. The youth gang often promotes mutual support among members and conflict with competing gangs or established authority. The traditional youth gang is turf-based and status-oriented, but other kinds of gangs have also developed. Many of these groups are traditional turf-based gangs. Traditionally, the primary function of the youth gang has been to establish or protect the group's reputation and status within a framework of shared or communal values. This continues to be true for many youth gangs today. Some youth gangs, however, do not display colors and are not primarily concerned with social status, but are more gain-oriented and more rationally organized. 2. The Youth Gang Member The focus of concern is the youth gang member, 12 to 24 years of age. While the criminal youth gang includes some youth who conform primarily to conventional norms; most, however, engage in a range of criminal behaviors. Most gang participants are in the age range of 12 to 24 years, although some preadolescents as well as persons into their 50's have been reportedly engaged in gang activities. The most serious and violent gang activity, however, tends to be committed by older adolescents and young adults. Some gang members may join for period as short as a day, a week, or a month; others are members for years. Some members move from low to high gang status, from less serious to more serious criminal gang behaviors, and vice versa, sometimes in different gangs. Fewer females than males are gang members. Far fewer females than males join youth gangs, although with the increase in the number of gangs throughout the country more female members are probably involved in serious youth gang activities than in an earlier era. Available evidence indicates, however, that females usually join gangs later and leave earlier, and are usually involved in less violent or serious criminal behavior than males. About nine times as many males as females are arrested for gang crimes according to several studies. Less than one percent of gang homicide offenders are female. Attention needs to be directed to high-risk female gang members. Female members typically are in groups affiliated with male gangs. Sometimes females are integrated directly as members into the gang proper, but are less frequently involved in independent all-female criminal youth gangs. In a few cities, there is some recent evidence that females have assumed leadership roles in certain gang or criminal group activities, such as drug trafficking. Special attention needs to be directed at high-risk female gang members who are likely to be physically and sexually victimized, or who induce or facilitate male gang member assaults against other gangs. Traditional gangs may have different type of members: identifiable leaders, core, regular, associate, soldier, peripheral, wannabe, floater, veteran, or old-head. The presence and definition of these categories of gang members, however, may be quite variable across the country. Of special interest, for purposes of control and prevention are two categories of gang youth: 1) the more serious, hardcore, often older gang youths, and 2) the younger, high-risk, often less committed gang youths. Different types of gang members should be carefully identified. Agencies need to carefully identify gangs and gang members. This process should depend on use of multiple criteria such as gang member self- identification, statements by reliable witnesses, verification by a second independent agency source, prior police records, and the youth's regular association with a known gang member. Participation by the youth in certain serious gang-motivated criminal incidents such as drive-by shootings must ordinarily precipitate a gang member identification process for gang suppression and intervention purposes. 3. The Gang Incident A gang incident is the unit for classifying and reporting an event as a gang crime, especially for law enforcement purposes. Reported gang incidents become the basis for determining whether a gang problem exists and for assessing its scope. Different definitions of the gang incident exists. The gang homicide is usually the key and most reliable measure of the seriousness of gang crime. However, identification of gang incidents, e.g., homicide, assault, or robbery, is neither a simple nor a standard procedure. Two different procedures, or variations of them, are currently employed to determine whether a gang incident has occurred and should be recorded for law enforcement, and, consequently, public policy purposes. o Gang-Motivated The gang-motivated definition focusses on the nature of the criminal act. In this procedure, a criminal act is defined as a gang incident if it grows out of gang motivation, interest, or specific circumstances that enhance the status or function of the gang. Examples include: intergang violence, gang retaliation, turf protection, intimidation, robbery, recruitment, or other criminal activity that affects the gang's reputation or interests as a whole. One or more members of the gang may be involved as a suspect, witness, offender, or victim in these circumstances. In classifying the incident, focus is on the nature of the specific situation in which the illegal act occurs, such as a drive- by shooting or the yelling of a gang slogan in the course of the crime. Crimes such as burglary, car theft, prostitution, and drug trafficking by a gang member are problematic because it is hard to determine whether the act is gang-motivated. Many criminal acts serve individual member needs unrelated to gang interests. On the other hand, seemingly individual or self-serving crimes by gang or aspiring gang youth may be gang-motivated. For example, a youth may be required or feel compelled to commit a particular property or person crime because of pressures by the gang. o Gang-Related The gang-related definition focusses on identifications of the criminal suspect as a gang member. This procedure is based on the characterization of a crime or delinquent act as a gang incident when the suspect, offender, or victim is a gang member, regardless of gang motivation or circumstances. Usually any serious criminal act, especially of a violent, predatory, or drug trafficking nature, in which a gang member is involved, can be classified as a gang incident. For example, the crime of a gang member who steals from a store -- even though that act has nothing directly to do with his gang membership -- would be classified as a gang-related incident. (See appendix B for a discussion of mixed situations and erroneous classification of group delinquency as gang crime.) o Which Definition to Use The narrow gang-motivated definition avoids excessive labelling. The argument in favor of using the gang-motivated definition is that it focuses sharply on the circumstances of the incident rather than the identification of the individual as a gang member. It may be more precise and valid than the gang- related definition. It withstands court challenges better. It also avoids excessive labelling or exaggeration of the gang problem. The counter-argument is that the gang-motivated definition minimizes the actual scope of the gang crime problem. It encourages organizational or community denial of the problem. A key assumption of the proponents of the gang- related definition is that a gang member is likely to engage in a wide range of serious crimes because gang membership predisposes him or her to do so. Evidence for this argument is not substantial, however. Police and prosecutors generally believe that it is desirable to identify gang members and their activities as completely as possible. Police are particularly concerned that the full range of criminal activities of the gang member be available for efficient tracking and investigation purposes. The gang-related definition may be more useful to criminal justice officials. We recommend a procedure that avoids excessive labelling of youth but ensures protection of the community. A gang- incident procedure should be devised that records and distinguishes between gang-motivated and nongang-motivated crime committed by the gang member. All serious criminal incidents by repeat gang offenders should be clearly "flagged" on criminal justice computer systems. An effective computerized information system permits use of either or both procedures to track gang-motivated incidents and gang member crime. 4. Gang Problem Contexts, Chronic and Emerging Emerging and chronic gang problem contexts may require different suppression and intervention approaches. With the growth and spread of the youth gang problem, a twofold categorization of the problem context has come into use: Chronic and Emerging. Our manuals stress the differences in these contexts as a basis for the development of distinctive strategies, policies, and procedures for gang suppression and intervention. Simply put, a more preventive or early intervention approach may be required in the emerging gang problem context, while a more elaborate and formalized suppression, intervention, and prevention approach may be necessary in the chronic context. o Chronic Gang Problem Context The gang problem has had a longer history and is usually better organized and more severe in the chronic context. This organizational or community context is characterized by persistent or periodic crises of major gang member violence and sometimes related drug trafficking extending over a five- to ten-year or more period, or even decades. Youth gangs are usually better organized in such communities which are often located in larger or older cities. These contexts are likely to be found in impoverished, ghetto, or transitional areas or ports of entry of inner cities, although they are increasingly found in smaller cities and suburban communities. o Emerging Gang Problem Context The gang problem is recent, less well organized, but sometimes very serious in the emerging context. This organizational or community context is characterized by less well organized and persistent, but at times serious, forms of gang violence and gang member drug trafficking. Usually, the gang problem has been present and/or recognized for five years or less. To some extent, the development and spread of the problem may be traced to the influence of new settlers or gang crime entrepreneurs -- for example, drug traffickers -- from chronic problem cities or contexts. Youth gangs in emerging problem areas tend to be fewer in number and most often evolve out of local delinquent, sometimes social groups under deteriorating economic or social situations for minority, newcomer, or socially isolated populations. The distinction between the concepts of chronic and emerging gang problem communities, however, is not sharp. Indicators related to the onset of the problem, its duration, degree of gang organization, severity of gang violence and related gang member drug trafficking, as well as the appropriate response to the problem(s) are not neatly categorized by the terms "chronic" and "emerging." Emerging gang problem communities may develop into chronic; and chronic gang problem communities may go through periods of sharply diminished gang activity before the problem re- emerges. Different parts of a community or jurisdiction may be characterized by different stages or degrees of severity of the problem at a given time. 5. Variability of Gang, Drug Trafficking, and Crime Problems For policy and program purposes, it is important to understand that youth gangs involved in gang violence are not necessarily involved in drug trafficking. Some communities that have high levels of youth gang violence may have relatively low levels of drug trafficking; other communities with high levels of drug trafficking may have low levels of youth gang activity. Drug trafficking may succeed, or serve either to diminish or increase, patterns of youth gang violence. High levels of general crime and gang crime are not necessarily closely associated. Finally, high levels of general criminality in a community do not necessarily indicate high levels of gang activity. Some cities with the highest levels of youth homicide and drug trafficking may have relatively limited youth gang activity. 6. Prevention Secondary prevention is included in the manuals' perspective. The focus of this and the other technical assistance manuals in our Research and Development program is on issues of intervention and suppression in contexts where the gang problem is clearly present. Here, prevention refers mainly to secondary forms of prevention, or early intervention, which reduces the likelihood that the highly gang-prone or the younger gang member will commit or continue to commit gang crimes. This is to be accomplished through effective controls, direct treatment or services, and provision of legitimate opportunities. In our concept, prevention requires change and development both by the individual youth as well as his or her social environment. Most youth from low-income and social problem- ridden communities are not involved in delinquent gang activities. Finally, we note that a simple prevention model that emphasizes exclusive concern with younger youth may be unsuccessful. Such a model does not take into consideration system effects, including the influence of older youth on "wannabe" or younger youth. All key components of the problem need to be systematically addressed. Approach to the Problem Different strategies of suppression and intervention have been identified. The manuals specify five major lines of action or strategies: community mobilization, opportunities provision, suppression, social intervention, and organizational change and development. These strategies must be combined in different ways depending on the problem context, the specific mission of the organization, and the kind of youth targeted for special attention. 1. Community Mobilization Community mobilization is critically important. Community mobilization is necessary in socially disorganized communities. Social disorganization, which contributes to the development of criminal youth gangs, may be characterized by the inability of legitimate institutions such as home, school, and employment, to adequately socialize youth. It may also be characterized by the fragmentation of criminal justice or community service delivery systems, within and across communities. Both local and Federal interests must be mobilized for the development of collaborative community and interagency activities directed at the control and reduction of the youth gang problem. In times of restricted local community resources, agency consortium efforts are essential. These should include the full and productive use of local, State, and Federal resources; application of moral and political pressures; and participation by the local citizenry. (See also General Community Design and Community Mobilization manuals.) 2. Opportunities Provision The opportunities provision strategy focusses on the importance of education, training, and jobs for high-risk gang-prone and gang member youth. The provision of additional social opportunities -- i.e., the development of a variety of targeted educational, training, and employment programs -- is the second most important component over the long term for the reduction and prevention of the youth gang problem, particularly in chronic contexts. The schools need to provide remedial and enriched educational programs for gang-prone and hardcore gang youths. Education, training, and jobs are especially critical for older youth still in gangs who are not in school but who are at "positive risk" at a certain point in their social maturation for leaving the gangs, or for decreased participation in criminal gang activity. A key objective of these programs should be developing socially competent youth, whether in or out of school. (See School and Employment manuals.) 3. Social Intervention Social intervention is based on an "outreach" and linkage approach of gang youth to the conventional society. Youth-serving agencies and grassroots community groups must "reach out" and act as a link between gang youth and the conventional world. Staff or adult volunteers of these organizations must develop meaningful relationships with these youth. Community-based youth agencies should facilitate access to pertinent opportunity systems and exercise social controls that contribute to socialization of gang youth. Special efforts are also required to coordinate services for these youth. (See Community-based Youth Agency manual.) 4. Suppression The strategy of suppression is defined in broad social control terms and requires more than the involvement of criminal justice agencies. Social control procedures, particularly those of criminal justice, but also of community-based agencies, are essential for community protection and the prevention and reduction of the problem. Youth gang suppression involves not only law enforcement but a variety of other agencies and community groups in the targeting, monitoring, supervision, and if necessary, restraint of gang offenders. It also requires the anticipation, prevention, and limitation of the effects of gang crime in particular situations to protect both youth participants and the community. Criminal justice strategies must also include community mobilization, social intervention, and opportunities provision. Arrest, prosecution, imprisonment, and close supervision of gang youth are insufficient, however, unless joined with other community- oriented strategies to achieve long-term impact on the problem. This means that community-based agencies and local groups must accept and collaborate with criminal justice agencies in patrol, surveillance, and certain information- sharing under conditions that protect both youth and the community. Police, prosecution, and other criminal justice agencies must develop a variety of social intervention, opportunities provision, prevention, and community involvement programs to supplement their primary goal of suppressing gang crime. (See especially Police, Prosecution, and Probation manuals.) Furthermore, policymakers, administrators, and practitioners in the criminal justice system have a special responsibility to withstand pressures from the public and from other units of the justice system to carry out an exclusive strategy of suppression to deal with the youth gang problem. 5. Organizational Change and Development Organizational development and change focusses on better use of internal agency resources to deal with the youth gang problem. Finally, the above strategies need to be appropriately organized based on the nature and scope of the problem in the community and the mission of the particular organization. Organizational development and change require better use and reallocation of available resources within agencies and neighborhoods. Common definitions, improved communication, resident involvement, and coordination within as well as across agencies and communities are also required. Both community mobilization and organizational development strategies, whether in emerging or chronic gang problem contexts, should be closely interrelated to create efficient and cohesive system arrangements for dealing with the gang problem. Targeting of certain communities, gangs, and gang members is necessary to make the best use of limited resources for dealing with the problem. Targeting To conserve resources and most effectively deal with the youth gang problem, it is important to target certain communities, organizational contexts, gangs, and gang members or gang-prone youth. Special emphasis on community mobilization is required in both emerging and chronic gang communities. Opportunity provision must also be emphasized for chronic problem communities and contexts. Neighborhoods and organizations, particularly schools, experiencing serious gang problems, should be priority targets for suppression and intervention efforts. High gang crime neighborhoods, certain types of gangs, and gang members should receive priority attention.Certain youth gangs or gang-like groups clearly committed to violent and serious criminal activity should receive priority attention. This is to avoid unnecessary labelling and widening the net of gang delinquency and crime through inappropriate criminal justice and community-based agency attention. It is also to concentrate resources on the heart of the present problem. Key targets of community agency and grassroots attention should be leadership and core gang as well as high-risk gang-prone youths. Finally, individual youth should be targeted in the following order of priority purposes: o First, leadership and core gang youths -- to disrupt gang networks, protect the community, and facilitate the reintegration of these youths through community-based or institutional programming into legitimate pursuits; o Second, high-risk gang-prone youth who are often younger or aspiring gang members who give clear indication of beginning participation in criminal gang activities -- to prevent further criminal gang involvement through early intervention, preferably community-based services, and o Third, regular and peripheral gang members -- to generally address their needs for control and intervention services. Finally, a caution! The policies procedures and steps recommended in the manuals should be viewed as promising but as yet not systematically researched through field testing. Overview of the Community Mobilization Manual Conducting the community mobilization process. This manual identifies key steps in the community mobilization process to confront the youth gang problem. It stresses the role and responsibility of the community leader or coordinator of the task force or the network of community agencies and groups, including local citizens. It closely complements two other technical assistance manuals in this series: General Community Design, which emphasizes the community planning or technical design aspects, and Grassroots Organizing, which focuses on the tasks of local neighborhood groups, mainly nonprofit or sectarian, for dealing with the problem. Consciousness-raising, rational identification of the dimensions of the problem, and commitment to resolve the gang problem are key elements of community mobilization. Community mobilization signifies a process of consciousness-raising, of focussing the concerns and interests of those most affected by the problem, rationally identifying its specific dimensions, and of developing the will and commitment of participants to resolve it. A key purpose is the creation of community and agency capability for understanding the problem, planning, implementation of specific policies and procedures, and monitoring results. The mobilization process usually does not occur spontaneously. It must be guided by effective organizers and citizen leaders. The process depends on cooperation among a variety of agencies, groups, and individuals, "cutting through" denial and apathy, as well as managing interorganizational suspicion and conflict, so that the process leads to changes in awareness, understanding, and improved response to the problem. The manual addresses key elements, stages, and steps to be taken. Consideration of the distinctive characteristics of the gang problem in a specific community, jurisdiction, or organizational context is required for the mobilization of agency and community interests and resources. Patterns of community mobilization will vary according to the nature of the problem, and distinctive economic, cultural, racial/ethnic, and other community factors conditioning the problem. The history of community response and the nature of present leadership, interorganizational patterns and resources have to be assessed. This manual identifies the key elements, stages, and steps to be taken in developing and implementing an appropriate community approach to the youth gang problem. The action areas covered in the manual are: I. Problem Recognition II. Problem Assessment III. Creating an Antigang Interagency Community Structure and Process IV. Community Mobilization Programming V. Staffing, Staff Selection, and Training VI. Funding VII. Monitoring, Research, and Evaluation (See also table 1, appendix C.) Summary The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Justice Department, entered into a cooperative agreement with the School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, to conduct the National Youth Gang Suppression and Intervention Program. The scope and seriousness of the problem were analyzed from both an organizational and community perspective. Models or prototypes were developed. Technical Assistance manuals were created that focussed on the implementation of policies and procedures in emerging and chronic gang problem communities and contexts. The manuals address the gang problem in terms of critical characteristics of the youth gang, its members, and the way the problem is defined. Focus is on controlling, reducing, and preventing gang- motivated violent and serious criminal youth gang activity. The mission of suppression and intervention is specified as requiring five key strategies: community mobilization, opportunities provision, social intervention, suppression, and organizational change and development. Key targets of a program should be gang leaders and core members as well as high-risk gang-prone youth. CHAPTER 2: PROBLEM RECOGNITION The specific topics to be covered in this chapter are: o Leadership o Articulating the Problem o Tapping the Influence Structure o Organizing Concern o Use of the Media o Networking o Holding Community Meetings/Hearings o Credibility and Agenda Issues o Summary Leadership Some community individual(s) or organizational representative(s) must feel concern about the presence of a gang problem in the community. At times, this may be a public official -- e.g., mayor, city manager, police chief -- a community, church, professional, or academic group leader(s). The authority and power of a concerned community, individual(s), or agency leader creates the impetus for the development of community mobilization process. Concern, anger, and indignation must exist in at least one person over the presence or increase of gang activity, e.g., gang signs, recruitment, vandalism, assault, the death or wounding of a gang youth or innocent victim. The gang problem must be seen as a major threat to community safety and security. Leadership must express deep feelings and impress upon others that a problem exists and that something needs to be done about it. The authority and power of the concerned individual(s), usually in conjunction with the support of a community organization or agency, should create the impetus for addressing the problem. Articulating the Problem Concerned individuals -- a group of local citizens, a coalition of agency representatives, or some combinations of them -- must give expression to the problem in such a way that it is recognized and others are influenced. o The gang incident or situation must symbolize a terrible social or human problem (actual or impending) that requires understanding and a strong, effective response. The problem must be identified in clear and forceful terms. o The threat and danger of gang activity to the community's well-being as well as to youth gang members themselves must be stressed in clear and no uncertain terms. o The need for an interagency or a community rather than a particular individual agency or community group response must be emphasized. o The need for a complex attack on antisocial gang problems must be stressed by the leader(s). o Only a rudimentary outline of an approach to the problem, however, is appropriate at this early stage of the mobilization process. Tapping the Influence Structure Contact must be made with major leaders in the community. The initial local leaders or particular agency persons are aware that their agencies or local groups alone cannot change the gang situation or the conditions that create it. They must propose that the problem can be reduced through the combined efforts of local citizens and key institutions in the immediate and larger community. Accordingly, they will need to contact and influence key policymakers and other agency administrators. The major institutional leaders to be influenced include the mayor, the school superintendent, the police chief, the chief probation officer, the director of United Way, a minority legislator, or a business leader. o They should emphasize the need to come to grips with the problem in some interagency or collective community-oriented manner. A strategy for influencing major leaders should be developed. o They need to assess the political or organizational costs and benefits of action or inaction for each of the major influentials and their organizations contacted. o They should communicate clearly that benefits would be maximized if these major leaders plan immediately and act appropriately, or else costs will increase if they delay. Organizing Concern An efficient approach to commencing the mobilization process is necessary. The initial moral or organizational leaders, once they have taken steps to articulate the problem and influence significant others to do likewise, must consider the means for efficiently organizing communitywide efforts: o The leader(s) will need to obtain or allocate some available resources for administrative or staff assistance in the implementation of these early mobilization steps. A small planning grant may be required from some local public, voluntary agency, church, or foundation source. o The leader(s) should arrange for an assistant or community organizer to perform a variety of support tasks such as personal contacts, letter writing, and telephoning. o At this stage, the concerned leader(s) must take upon him/herself and his/her organization public responsibility for continuing to identify and label the problem. o The leader(s) must spread the word far and wide that the problem exists and indicate in no uncertain terms and through specific examples some of its destructive aspects. Use of the Media The media, in all likelihood, will have begun to report and comment on the gang situation in the local area, jurisdiction, or particular organizational context. The community or agency leader and an assistant, preferably a community organizer, will have to take some responsibility for developing and responding to contacts with the media. A variety of representatives should be involved to avoid media competition, distortion, or neglect of the problem. The media should be urged to become involved in all aspects of the mobilization process as early as possible. o The leader(s) or organizer(s) will need to present data on the gang situation as accurately as possible to the media. The media can be used to accurately describe the gang problem and indicate constructive ways to deal with it. o The leader(s) should communicate that specific measures and programs can be developed, and that something constructive can be done by existing agencies and community organizations to control or prevent the problem. o The leader(s) should refer media representatives to other knowledgeable or influential leaders and informants in the community so that the media come to understand the nature and scope of gang activity. o The leader(s) may help arrange special interviews with gang youth, victims, or community residents so that the media obtains information as directly as possible from those most immediately responsible for and affected by the gang problem. Urge the media to take a complex analytical view of the problem. o Finally, the leader or organizer should urge media representatives to develop an analytical and long-term responsible approach and not to be superficial or report only gory details. The media are extremely important in educating the public to various aspects of the problem and ways to effectively deal with it. Networking The community and/or agency leader(s), with the aid of the community organizer, should then begin to involve and solicit the support of a variety of local agencies or community groups, former gang influentials, and even selected gang youth to alert the community to the gang problem. The chief concern should be that something be done to control the problem before it grows worse. Other agencies, community groups, and selected citizens including former gang youth should be involved in the problem identification stages o Contacts should be made with local agencies and community groups to inquire about their interest in a collective effort. o Local church leaders, school principals, parent groups, human service, business groups, and others should be contacted to obtain preliminary assessments of the problem. Holding Community Meetings/Hearings A series of community meetings or hearings must be planned and implemented either directly by the local community leader(s) or the organizer in collaboration with other key agencies, community groups, and churches. Ideally a public official, either the mayor or a representative of his office, an executive of a public agency, or a legislator, should arrange for a meetings in the affected area(s) of the city or county to obtain public perceptions about the nature, scope, and seriousness of the problem and opinions as to what should be done about it. (See also Chapter 3) Various influential groups or individuals should be involved in sponsoring the community assessment meeting(s). Should the public official, preferably representing the mayor's or governor's office or the legislature, accept responsibility for calling such hearings, it will signify that certain actions will probably be taken, including planning, developing, and funding of special programs at some future date. o The community meetings must be adequately planned, staffed, and reported. The community meeting(s) should be adequately planned. o Special effort should be made to obtain the views not only of established agencies and community organizations but those of less well-organized groups and individuals closest to the problem. The political elite, agency leaders, and grassroots influentials should be collectively involved in the organizing process. o An appropriate balance of perspectives that represents suppression, social intervention, or social opportunities provision for gang member or gang-prone youth should be planned. o The oral or written presentations by presenting groups should be relevant to the gang problem; avoid propaganda, global approaches, and self- serving organizational interests. The community or agency leader must establish credibility and competence in the mobilization effort. Credibility and Agenda Issues The political, agency, or moral leaders and organizers of the initial response, sooner or later, may become suspect in the eyes of other agencies or community representatives for possible self-serving or opportunistic motives. The leader or organizer must establish and then sustain credibility as a committed and competent person or agency representative who is genuinely concerned about contributing to a community process of resolving the gang problem. o He/she must be open and direct in pronouncements and actions. o He/she must patiently persuade and demonstrate that the actions taken make sense as a response to the gang problem. o The leader(s) must carry out a process of educating colleagues and other community leaders that the gang problem is solvable, that it can be controlled, but that a single or particular organizational approach will not be the answer. An educational and rational problem-solving approach to the problem are essential. o He/she must emphasize that the components of the problem should be closely examined and actions taken specifically to deal with it's manageable aspects. (See table 1, appendix C for an overall view of the long-term agency processes required.) Summary Community persons and organizational representatives concerned with the gang problem must get together for the purpose of identifying the problem and sensitizing others to it. Local as well as citywide and regional influentials or power brokers should be contacted and persuaded to support the effort. The media are very important in this initial process in educating the public on the nature and scope of the problem and the need to do something about it. A variety of community persons and organizations should be educated and participate in the mobilization process. A series of community meetings or hearings should be held. The meetings and the conduct of the leaders and players must be genuine and credible. ____________________________________ CHAPTER 3: PROBLEM ASSESSMENT The topics to be covered in the development of the assessment are: o Purpose o Elements o Participants and Capacity-Building Process o Getting Agencies, Communities, and Local Citizens to Participate o Specific Assessment Arrangements o Countering Organizational and Community Group Manipulation o Summary Purpose Shared responsibility in the development of the assessment is essential. The purpose of the assessment, from the perspective of community mobilization, is to establish a common definition of the youth gang problem in the particular area or jurisdiction and to begin the process of shared community/agency responsibility for understanding and developing resources to address it. Most important are the creation of initial relationships and a process of mutual respect in sharing views. In this manual, an interactive agency process rather than rational planning or product development such as surveys, reports, or demonstration proposals is emphasized. For a complete understanding of the assessment stage, the General Community Design Model and Manual should also be consulted. These documents deal more fully with program rationales, technical aspects of data gathering, analysis of the problem, and "hard" program evaluation. Technical planning questions must be answered as part of the mobilization and community design effort. Elements The assessment for organizing purposes, however, must be technical as well as process-oriented. The techniques and answers developed to obtain answers should comprise the basis for meaningful data systems and ongoing planning. The leader, organizer, or other staff person responsible for conducting the community mobilization should answer the following types of planning and program development questions related to mobilization issues: 1. What is the nature, extent, and seriousness of the youth gang problem, e.g., o What gang delinquent or criminal activities are committed? Describe the specifics of the problem. o What is the scope of the problem, i.e., how many gangs, gang members are involved; where and when does the problem manifest itself? o What are the key gang and gang member characteristics, e.g., age, race/ethnicity, gender, school, employment status, and delinquent or criminal history of individuals in the gang? o What is the nature of gang organization, e.g., clique structures, leadership, and recruitment patterns? o Is this an emerging (reemerging) or chronic gang problem context? o What makes the particular criminal activity gang- related/gang-motivated? (See table 2, appendix C.) 2. What are the causes of the problem, e.g., The immediate and basic causes of the problem should be identified. o What are the immediate or precipitating reasons for gang events or crises, e.g., rivalry between specific gangs, release of leaders from prison, increased use of sophisticated weaponry, or poorly supervised agency or school activity? o What are the longer term causes, e.g., growth of a low-income and/or newcomer population in the community; lack of jobs; social isolation; inadequate schools or training programs; the closing down of recreational or social service agencies; relative increase of the youth population with not enough to do; interracial/ethnic group, agency, and/or political conflicts; departure of middle class leadership from the community; and lack of coordination or frau- mentation of service delivery? 3. What resources and programs are presently available within and outside of the community to address the gang problem? o What agencies are presently providing special activities and programs relevant to the gang problem? Resources available to deal with the problem. o If they exist, are such programs reaching gang members or gang-prone youths, or other types of youth? o What are local community or grassroots groups doing with respect to the problem? o What existing taskforces, community councils, or coordinating groups, e.g., drug prevention/ treatment/Mental Health, United Way, can be used as a basis for dealing with the gang problem? o What public, voluntary, and foundation resources could possibly be made able to deal with the problem? The nature of the community design process should begin to be identified. The key elements of the assessment, from a community mobilization perspective, however, need to emphasize how these particular planning questions or components can be related to community decision-making and citizen participation. The leader(s) or community organizer must be able to determine: o who will be influential in reducing the problem; o in what way these influentials should participate in the gang crime reduction process; o how local citizen groups can be involved; o how the mobilization process is to be structured, i.e, how best to build agency and community organization capacity in a coordinated way for long-term effect. (See table 1, appendix C.) Participants and Capacity-Building Process Certain key persons and organizations should be involved in the assessment process. The organizer must identify those specific individuals and their organizations who can be or are already engaged in various activities concerning the youth gang problem. The following persons should be contacted, not only because they can provide data on the problem and because of what they can do through their specific agency or community group programs, but in terms of how they can become involved with other organizations in a collective community process to address the problem: o Police Chief or Commander of the police department's gang crime unit, youth division, or other police unit dealing with the gang problem; o Representatives of other criminal justice agencies, especially prosecution and probation, but also judges, parole, and correctional units; o School representatives concerned with special education, security, social and psychological services, and school discipline; o Representatives of agencies concerned with the training and job development, including business industry, and unions; A wide range of important persons and agencies involved with the problem should be contacted for their views. o Personnel from community-based youth, human service, and other mental health agency and medical institutions (e.g., trauma units); o Representatives of the media, particularly those with experience and established reputations for dealing fairly, reliably, and comprehensively with the problem; o City, political, and public agency personnel who have or should have special concern about the youth gang problem, e.g., certain minority group legislators; public housing, transportation, human services department, recreation and parks personnel, and policy and planning staff in the mayor's or city manager's office; o Representatives of local organizations, including churches, civic, and fraternal organizations and other interested groups; o Chambers of commerce, employment development, and job training organizations with present or potential interest in gang youth as employees; o Religious organizations, particularly those with congregations in low-income and immigrant populations confronting or about to confront gang problems; o Former gang and selected current gang influentials knowledgeable about the gang situation who can contribute positive ideas for dealing with the problem. Getting Agencies, Communities, and Local Citizens to Participate A variety of inducements may be required to obtain co-operation in the provision of data and in the development of a meaningful community organizing process. Of special, if not critical, importance is the influence and support of major community power figures who control political, economic, moral, authoritative, or media resources. Thus, the mayor, a leading industrialist, the director of United Way, a church leader, or the publisher or owner/manager of a major newspaper may provide positive or negative inducements for a variety of criminal justice, community agency, and grassroots leaders to participate in the assessment as well as develop special programs in later phases of the mobilization process. Certain pressures may induce community leaders to contribute to assessment of the problem. The organizer should be especially sensitive to factors that make a variety of decisionmakers and political leaders willing to accept responsibility for providing data, recognizing that a problem exists, agreeing that some special action needs to be taken, and participating in a collective effort. These factors include: o Pressure by the media, legislative officials, or alternately, pressure by community leaders on the mayor to deal with the problem; o The use of gang crises as an issue during a local election; and o Identifying personal, professional, or legally mandated ethical and policy concerns that induce specific leaders to address the youth gang problem. The following kinds of positive arguments can be made by the organizer to persuade influentials to participate in the assessment process: Positive inducements. o The lives of individual youth and others in the community will be saved if concerted efforts are made to understand the full dimensions of the problem and establish a deliberate and well organized plan and approach for dealing with it. o If the problem is adequately delineated and addressed, the general academic, social, and economic development of gang and gang-prone youth, particularly in minority communities, can be improved. o Costs to the local and larger community will be minimized if the gang problem is recognized and effectively attacked in its early manifestations. o The problem needs to be recognized and appropriate data collected to fully describe it, before effective policies and programs can be adopted. o Funding for promising programs can be expected as a result of the assessment process. Negative inducements. The following kinds of negative arguments can also be used by the organizer to induce local and citywide influentials to cooperate in the assessment and mobilization efforts to deal with the gang problem: o The mayor or key funding agencies will look with disfavor on organizations and community groups that do not fully cooperate with the data-gathering effort. o Relationships with other agencies and community groups will suffer if the recalcitrant organization does not cooperate. o Opportunities to develop a comprehensive program to deal with the problem will be missed, and a variety of organizations will suffer a loss of additional funding as a result. Certain sanctions may be forthcoming if agencies and community groups don't cooperate with the assessment. o Specific sanctions including petitions, marches, and even legal action will be taken against the mayor, a legislator, or particular organizations (for example, police or other public agencies), if they do not aid in or directly cooperate in the provision of data and the development of appropriate programs that serve to protect the community. In the data collection and early mobilization stages, the use of staff who are from the community, possess expertise, and have well- established relations with various key agencies and community groups may encourage cooperative data gathering, analysis, and planning. Specific Assessment Arrangements Participation in the process, i.e., description of the problem and prescriptions as to what to do about it, should include a broad range of organizations and individuals from the particular parts of the community most affected by the problem. However, criminal justice and other governmental organizations should take special responsibility for providing data and ideas for resolving the problem, particularly in chronic gang problem communities. Specific arrangements for the assessment have to be planned. More specifically, the organizer's agency or community organization should work in collaboration with the mayor, city council, or some other governmental office or vice versa. It may be appropriate for a local neighborhood organization, the department of human relations, social services, or even the county attorney's office to conduct: o neighborhood hearings; and/or o county or citywide conferences or hearings. The hearings or conference should be planned so that: A hearing or a conference should be arranged so that adequate and fair representation of views occurs. o all interested and concerned parties have an opportunity to present their views; o governmental agencies, especially the police, are responsible for providing "hard data" on the problem; o special effort is made to involve minority and local groups closest to the problem, even to the extent that special aid is provided in the development of their presentations; o the presentations are brief, well-organized, and relevant to the gang problem; o the media are invited to attend and record the results of the event; o funding agencies, including local foundations and public agencies that grant funds, are present; o the conference or hearing is held at a time and location that draws a wide array of presenters, including grassroots agency personnel, and local citizens. The hearings or conference should be conducted in a way that encourages: o a range and balance of views; A range of types of presentations should be scheduled for the hearings. o care that large providers or highly specialized, mission-oriented agencies, and especially established social agencies or local organizations do not seize the hearing or conference proceedings to communicate views that are not clearly related to the gang problem or are highly self- serving; o the key representatives of local groups, public agencies, the mayor's office, or the legislators who plan to appear should be provided with a set of guidelines that request the following information from each participant: -- a description or definition of the perceived gang problem; -- an explanation of its origin and perpetuation; and -- specific recommendations as to what policies and programs are appropriate for dealing with it. o local or outside experts should also be invited to provide available data on the nature of the problem and advise on what programs elsewhere might work in the current situation. The report of the hearing should be widely disseminated. The hearing or conference should result in a report that summarizes the proceedings. The report must be widely disseminated through all media sources possible. The report should specify recommendations as to: o key policies and program ideas that will guide the development of the particular local Gang Intervention, Suppression, and Prevention Programs; o suggestions or plans for the funding of programs; and o the full range of agencies, community groups, and other organizations who have participated in the planning or the hearings. Funding the hearing(s). Funding for the public hearings, conferences, preparation, followup, research (if necessary), and staffing costs should be the responsibility of either a public agency, a consortium of agencies, or a foundation. Countering Organizational and Community Group Manipulation In some gang problem situations, the organizer may encounter seeming cooperation by agencies and community groups during the assessment process and later stages; however, such cooperation may be motivated by particular organizational interests that do not necessarily contribute to interagency collaboration or genuine gang problem-solving. This can lead to various forms of manipulation, goal displacement (i.e., serving personal or organizational purposes other than control and reduction of the gang problem), and therefore misdirection of the assessment and organizing process. The organizer must be attentive to these dysfunctional strategies and know how to prevent and counter them. The organizer should be aware that some organizations will: Manipulation of the assessment and later mobilization stages. o misrepresent their concerns and programs to appear consistent with the purposes of the assessment process; o attempt to obtain resources under almost any guise to sustain ongoing programs; o claim they are already carrying out an antigang program but provide no supportive evidence; o claim unique capacity to effectively cope with the problem; o shift discussion of the problem to larger economic, social, educational, and political issues that do not specifically target the youth gang problem and are only partially relevant; and o attack the assessment effort as insufficiently sensitive to special ethnic and racial issues or charge that the assessment constitutes a way of further stigmatizing, isolating, and suppressing a particular minority group. Attacks on the assessment and the mobilization process should be anticipated. These and other potential efforts to manipulate or subvert the assessment process should be anticipated, prevented, and countered in the following ways. The organizer, leader, or chairperson of the assessment process should: o anticipate the varied interests, concerns, and strategies of these organizations prior to the assessment conference or hearing; o be prepared with prior appraisals of programs, strategies, and the special interests of the presenters at the meetings; Specific strategies to counter these attempted subversions of the mobilization process should be developed. o insist that stated perceptions of the gang situation be accompanied by relevant documentation and also that recommended policies and programs be presented to the extent possible beforehand and preferably in writing; o pursue an open community discussion and problem- solving approach characterized by sensitivity and good will; o involve key citizen representatives of gang- affected communities genuinely familiar with the particular gang problem; and o involve former, or even current, gang influentials in presentations about the nature and scope of the problem and constructive ideas for dealing with it. Summary The key purpose of this problem assessment is to establish a common definition of the youth gang problem and begin to develop a means for dealing with it. The assessment involves both a technical planning and an organizing process. Key persons and organizations who are already engaged in or who can be involved in the antigang program should be engaged in the assessment process. Criminal justice and other governmental agencies should take special responsibility for providing ideas and data about the scope of the problem and how to resolve it. Local as well as outside experts should provide referrals and/or testify at open community hearing. Care should be taken that large or well established agencies do not manipulate the assessment process for their self-interested purposes. A variety of attempts to subvert the assessment process should be anticipated and prevented. An open, fair community assessment both of the problem and resources available and the need to deal with it should be established. ____________________________________ CHAPTER 4: CREATING AN ANTIGANG INTERAGENCY COMMUNITY STRUCTURE AND PROCESS The specific topics in this section include: o Obtaining Political Support o Developing a Community/Agency Coalitional Structure o Establishing Appropriate Agency/Community Group Interactions and Programs o Creating Meaningful and Shared Goals, Objectives, Strategies, and Procedures. o Summary Agreement must be reached that a special structure is required to deal with the youth gang problem. The community mobilization process moves ahead when a highly influential political or governmental leader and a group of agency and community leaders agree that the results of the assessment require the establishment of a special structure to deal with the problem. Two key interrelated mobilization objectives, however, have to be met. All actors with relevant programs who can make a significant contribution to resolving the problem must get a "piece of the action", but only on condition that they cooperate or collaborate in interrelated, if not interdependent, ways consistent with the goals and strategies of the approach that have developed or are expected to develop. Obtaining Political Support Political and economic support must be obtained for the planning process and action program to follow. Furthermore, the organizer, agency community leader, or preliminary group that has initiated and/or developed the assessment stage must plan and develop an action program on the basis that political, moral, and economic resources are likely to be invested. Support must now be assured from the community's power structure or key decisionmakers, especially the mayor or city manager, city council, the United Way, and/or a private foundation as well as groups or organizations representing citizens directly affected by the problem. The organizer and community leaders must: o continue to see the problem of youth gangs as sufficiently serious to warrant ongoing attention and policy development; o marshall evidence that the problem is at least partially solvable; The organizer or community leader must understand the value or threat of the gang problem politically to the public official at a given time and place. o persuade officials that the approach that seems to be emerging will provide governmental leaders with additional political support or success at minimal or limited cost; o persuade officials that failure to deal with the problem appropriately will endanger community support and threaten the official's political assets; o demonstrate that specific policy and administrative leadership is available to develop an appropriate communitywide structure and approach; o establish a basis for continued grassroots involvement and support; and o also provide evidence that new money needed for the proposed structure and programs can be made available. The organizer will need, through a series of formal and informal meetings among agency and community influentials and officials, to: o develop a plan acceptable to political and governmental leadership; Politically meaningful knowledge and tactics should be employed to influence key public officials. o encourage groups and organizations to begin to plan and move ahead with initial programs and actions in some coordinated way; o followup on decisions and agreements made in order to ensure that they are implemented in a manner consistent with an approach that is suitable not only for dealing with the gang problem in rational but political-interest terms; o use the media to maintain political/governmental intentions to implement agreements; and o attack a government or public agency, if necessary, not in an "all-out" manner, but with opportunities for compromise and reconciliation. Developing A Specific Community/Agency Coalitional Structure Different antigang structures may be required in different kinds of problem communities. Consideration should be given to the structure and processes necessary to implement a gang problem- solving approach in a particular community or neighborhood. Of special interest are the distinctive arrangements required in emerging and chronic problem cities, with due regard to differences in racial/ethnic interests and characteristics of the gang problem and community response to it. For example, the character of the gang problem may be different across African- American, Latino, Asian, and White Ethnic communities as well as sometimes within these population groups, depending also on class and generational factors. (See Chapter 1) The organizer in the emerging problem jurisdiction should: o involve schools, youth agencies, and police as key actors in the development of an appropriate coalitional structure, supported by grassroots organizations, business and industry, and other criminal justice agencies; Focus on the schools, youth agencies, and police in emerging problem areas. o stress that key programs should be centered in the schools with emphasis on prevention and early intervention, since gangs, gang leaders, and gang patterns are not yet well established; o emphasize the importance of local parent and neighborhood involvement in school-based efforts to deal with the gang problem; o encourage neighborhood youth agencies to reach out to the schools in support of remedial academic programs directed at youth at high risk of gang membership or already involved in gang activities; Special organizing emphasis in the emerging problem area. o assist police, school, and youth agencies to develop cooperative action or program arrangements, also involving parents of youth; o encourage civic associations, agencies, and churches to reach out to newcomer and minority groups in the neighborhood where the problem is often most critical; o approach coalition-building among the key organizations through formal and informal means including contacts at social and church gatherings; and o facilitate the development of a common approach to the gang problem among agencies and local groups with emphasis on better utilization of existing resources on behalf of targeted youth and their families. In the chronic gang problem jurisdiction, the organizer should: o assist in the development of a structure linked to the mayor's office, a public youth commission, a human relations department, or a criminal justice coalition, possibly sponsored by a probation department; Focus on the special responsibility of public agencies in chronic problem areas. o be aware that crises and community events may develop that require reorganization of the structure, e.g., as an independent coalition; as part of a United Way coalition; or, as part of some other coalitional structure (public or nonprofit or preferably a combination); o involve a broad range of agency staff and community representatives at policy and program levels in efforts to deal with the youth gang problem, including: -- Police (also from transit and public housing) -- Schools -- Churches -- Community-based youth agencies -- Probation Involvement of a broader range of organizations is needed in the chronic area. -- Employment, i.e. business, industry, and labor -- Probation -- Judge -- Grassroots Organizations -- Corrections -- Parole -- Mayor/City Manager's office -- United Way and Private Foundations -- Park Department -- Housing Authority -- Criminal Justice Planning Authority -- Health Agencies A wide range of approaches is required in the chronic problem area. o facilitate the development of special mechanisms and activities by agencies to address the gang problem; o encourage the development of advocacy committees comprising a variety of different agency and community group representatives with respect to social and criminal justice policy issues bearing on the problem; o develop special advisory or operational committees that have special information-sharing concerns about the problem, e.g., a criminal justice group, a police-school-youth agency- grassroots organization committee; More formal mechanisms and resources are also necessary. o focus on a variety of formal mechanisms to integrate or coordinate efforts across agencies and community groups at both policy and operational levels, on regional, citywide, and neighborhood bases; o assist this special body (or bodies) to focus on prevention as well as intervention and suppression approaches; o focus not only on intervention with younger youth, but outreach to older gang youth; o assist in the planning of programs in close connection with corrections and parole; and Persuasion and pressure may be necessary to achieve collaborative effort. o advocate, along with grassroots organizations, for increased resources and the development of crisis as well as long-term programs including remedial education, training, and jobs for gang members and high-risk gang-prone youth. Establishing Appropriate Agency/Community Group Interactions and Programs The organizer must be especially alert to those conditions and factors which tend to subvert collaborative or coalitional efforts. He should persuade and pressure certain groups and organizations and develop appropriate techniques to facilitate a coordinated community approach. Consortium funding and monitoring arrangements must be established. The organizer needs to: o be aware of those key organizations and their representatives who prefer not to join the communitywide organization and its programs; o quickly diagnose such situations and develop appropriate means to overcome resistance, or at least mitigate the effect of the particular organization's absence in the communitywide effort; Many considerations and techniques are required to overcome organizational resistance to a community approach. o overcome obstacles, if necessary, through a "carrot and a stick approach", including various social action measures, e.g., marchs, petitions, use of media, legal processes, and conflict resolution tactics; o coopt agencies and community groups, to the extent possible, through the provision of resources contingent on cooperation or collaboration in selected community programs; o use influence or pressure from political figures or leading members of the community to persuade agencies or community groups to participate with traditional agency rivals or with organizations of different (or antagonistic) approaches. In most of these cases, approaches can be reconciled and reciprocal roles developed that are essential to the creation of a consistent gang suppression and intervention strategies; o be aware that a community or citywide coordinating structure can often become a token or ceremonial arrangement where no real interagency programming or significant community group cooperation takes place; o assist the interagency council to develop graduated collaborative programs requiring simple coordinative mechanisms at first; o understand that the gang problem must be addressed with sustained effort over a substantial period of time, usually several years; o seek additional resources for various programs, only on a coalitional basis; Understanding and sensitivity to groups with conflicting values and interests, and the development of long-term commitment to dealing with the gang problem are required. o be sensitive to community racial/ethnic/class interests and conflicts. Leadership of the mobilization process may be of a different class, racial, or ethnic background and not sufficiently recognize African-American, Latino, or Asian interests, concerns, and potential leadership in dealing with the problem; o be sure to involve minority group leaders closest to the problem in critical decisionmaking and program implementation; o maintain media involvement; and o establish outside advisory monitoring and evaluation groups to keep the participant organizations and groups honest and on track. Creating Meaningful and Shared Goals, Objectives, Strategies, and Procedures Specific goals and objectives for the reduction and prevention of gang crime should be based both on the elaboration of specific agency strategies of suppression, social intervention, and opportunities provision and also on a general strategy of community mobilization, consensus and cooperation within and across agency and community group programs. Goals, objectives, and priorities must be carefully addressed. Goals are more general and determine the overall direction(s) of the interagency or community coalition's antigang efforts. Objectives are more specific, accompanied preferably by timelines. Long-range objectives should stem from goals and short-range objectives should assist in the achievement of long-range objectives. Operational goals should be realistically related to the particular nature and scope of the problem, to expressed community concerns, and to existing political interests. Objectives should target the needs of specific types of groups, e.g., youths in different age categories who have different levels of gang commitment and often different kinds of social need. Priority short- and long-range objectives to deal with different aspects of the problem must be explicitly detailed not only for particular agencies and community groups but for the community as a whole. (See Example in table 3, appendix C; also see General Community Design Manual.) The organizer should: o Emphasize the development of reciprocal roles and activities by the various criminal justice, community-based agency, and grassroots organizations. Detailed procedures of staff collaboration across agencies and community groups are required. o Encourage the use of explicit agency and community group agreements, regular as well as crisis meetings, especially in chronic gang problem jurisdictions to discuss, for example: -- how the police will cooperate with the prosecutor's office, probation, schools, youth agencies, grassroots organizations, and the business community to achieve suppression objectives; -- how the police will assist certain youth agencies and schools in the achievement of social intervention or opportunity provision objectives for gang youth; -- how the youth agency will reach out to the streets or elsewhere in the community to provide gang youth with services; and the extent to which they will cooperate with police in monitoring and controlling gang behaviors; and -- how professional and paraprofessional staff in different agencies, sometimes with sharply different views about how to handle the gang problem, will collaborate. o Assist schools with the development of special academic support activities for gang youth. o Develop accountability mechanisms so that each program, including patterns of relationships within as well as across agency and community group programs, is periodically reviewed. Summary The community mobilization process moves ahead when key community organizations, and political and grassroots leaders agree that a special structure is required to deal with the problem. Not only political but economic resources must be invested in the mobilization process. The structure that develops must give due regard to considerations of race/ethnic interest, key characteristics of the problem, and the existing response to it in emerging and chronic gang contexts. A broad range of agency staff and community representatives must be involved. The organizer must be especially alert to those conditions and factors that tend to subvert coalitional or collaborative efforts. Specific goals and objectives must be established that attempt to reduce and prevent gang crime based on a general strategy of community mobilization, consensus, and cooperation. Short- and long-range objectives must be established not only for particular agencies and community groups but for the service delivery and community system as a whole. ____________________________________ CHAPTER 5: COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION PROGRAMMING o The Police o Schools o Community-Based Youth Agency o Grassroots Organizations o Chronic Youth Gang Problem Contexts o Summary Summarizing previous principles of community mobilization and highlighting cross-agency or community group activities. The following section summarizes and amplifies prior steps and principles and applies them to selected criminal justice and community-based agency and grassroots organizational programs in different gang problem (emerging and chronic) contexts (See table 4, appendix C). Emphasis is on interagency and cross-community group activities. For further information on these program elements, consult particular agency and organizational technical assistance manuals as well as the General Community Design manual; see also the Community Mobilization model. Police should perform activities in cooperation with other organizations and community groups. The Police o A special crime analysis system should be established to target repeat youth offenders, as well as involve other justice and community-based agencies in programs of suppression and intervention. o Older youth gang leadership should also be targeted based on information from and collaborative control approaches with other agencies. o Collaboration with schools should be developed to control gang problems particularly when students are going to and from home and school. o Assistance should be provided to parent and resident groups in developing citizen gang patrols, and providing training/equipment for such gang control activity. o Witness protection arrangements should be carefully worked out with the prosecutor's office for those individuals testifying in gang cases. o Major prevention and gang awareness campaigns should be directed at parents, residents, schools, churches, storekeepers, other business groups as well as social service agencies. o The police should play a key role in graffiti expunging campaigns, assisting community agencies and groups with paints and equipment and supervision of special community activities; and also with special nuisance abatement campaigns directed at gang activity in selected locations. o Police in high gang crime areas should engage in referral of younger and older gang youth and their families for a variety of social services. School personnel should collaborate with community organizations and groups. Schools o A special gang prevention and intervention unit, in close cooperation with a cluster of community- based agencies, should be formed in the school superintendent's office, with decentralized units in high gang crime schools or districts. Such units should ordinarily be under the supervision of the assistant principal or disciplinarian. o Attention should be directed toward the formation of parent and community groups, school councils, or PTA's, comprising a broad range of persons, including parents, teachers, and community residents concerned with raising academic standards and achievement, and enhancing school safety in ways that pay special attention to the needs and problems of both the youth gang member and the student victim. o Local parents should be integrated into the school's monitoring and support activities both in the school and on field trips. A parent room or facility should be developed in the school. Special parent gang education and youth development programs should be provided. Special school outreach programs should be established. o A special outreach program for gang youth should be established at selected middle schools. Gang youth should be targeted for intensive remedial assistance and supervision including home visits, special services to families, and collaborative efforts with various agencies already involved with these high-risk youth. o A variety of job readiness and apprenticeship programs, also providing academic remediation as well as referral for support services, should be developed, particularly at the high school level. The confidentiality of information on gang youth needs to be maintained in a manner that protects both the community and the youth. o Information-sharing on gang youth across various agencies and community groups should pay special attention to issues of parental notification, confidentiality, and due process. While targeting of students engaged in gang delinquency is important, unnecessary labelling of youth and indiscriminate release of data on them should be avoided. Community-Based Youth Agency o Youth agency staff should provide services to and supervise gang and high-risk gang-prone youth in close feasible coordination with police. Ideally, youth agency staff as well as the Police should be part of a school-based human service team concerned with youth gang problems in selected schools. Service activities for gang youth of community- based youth agencies should be developed in collaboration with other local organizations and community groups. o Special relationships need to be developed by youth agencies with key neighborhood influentials to facilitate a street outreach approach to gang youth. o Youth workers should advocate special, coordinated services for gang youths so that they do not "fall through the cracks" of social service and criminal justice systems. o Youth agencies should take special responsibility for the development of mentoring programs for gang youth and for recruiting, training, and supervising special outreach school staff, local community residents, and community organization volunteers. Grassroots Organizations o Parents, residents, block clubs, churches, and other community groups should be contacted to develop a variety of activities and projects that address the youth gang problem. o A wide range of educational and informational material should be collected and distributed to educate local citizens about the problem and how to deal with it. o Special efforts should be made to establish relationships of trust and confidence between local citizens and police, probation, prosecution, and other justice agency personnel. Grassroots organizations can serve in a unique advocacy role. o Grassroots organizations should be encouraged to serve a special monitoring and advocacy function to ensure that public agencies, especially police and schools, and also community-based youth agencies, are appropriately addressing the youth gang problem. Church-related groups, in particular, should be proactive and hold criminal justice and community-based agencies accountable to high bureaucratic and professional standards of practice. o Grassroots groups, especially their parent group affiliates, should encourage youth gang members to leave the gang and participate in various community development activities. Chronic Youth Gang Problem Contexts Collaboration among agencies in chronic gang problem communities generally should be more formalized than in smaller emerging gang problem areas. Community efforts to deal with the youth gang problem where it is chronic or serious are similar to those described above but need to be more formally developed and linked systematically to criminal justice agencies. o More explicit development of coordinating mechanisms should be required since larger specialized units are usually involved in dealing with the problem with regard to data collection, tracking gang youths, prosecution, and supervision of chronic and serious gang offenders. Focus on the needs of convicted gang youth released from prison or on parole and probation is important. o Special attention should be paid to linking correctional and community-based programs. Cooperative, if not integrated, efforts should be required across probation, parole, police, youth agencies, schools, grassroots organizations, and businesses to assist convicted gang youth on probation or parole, and when they return to the community, to make conventional, nongang criminal adaptation. o In emerging, but especially in chronic, gang problem contexts, more public and foundation resources should be sought to support and develop local capacities to deal with various aspects of the problem. It's extremely difficult to mobilize local citizens and agencies in highly deprived and disorganized communities to deal with gangs in addition to a great variety of other social problems. Summary Special emphasis must be on cross-agency and community group programming. For example the police must involve other justice agencies in the development of a crime analysis system to target repeat youth offenders. Witness protection should be established in close cooperation with prosecution. Collaboration with the schools is essential to protect youth on the way from school to home and vice versa. Police and social service agencies have to work together in the development of an effective system of referral of gang-prone juvenile offenders in need of various social services. In the development of these and other collaborative efforts, special concern must be accorded varying program approaches needed in emerging and chronic gang problem contexts. More explicit development of coordinating mechanisms will be required in chronic than in emerging gang problem contexts. Larger and more specialized organizational needs are present in chronic problem communities. Special attention should be paid to linking correctional and community-based programs, especially in chronic problem areas. ____________________________________ CHAPTER 6: STAFFING, STAFF SELECTION, AND TRAINING o Staff Selection o Staff Education and Training o Summary Very high skill demands are required of staff in agencies and community groups dealing with gang problems. Mobilizing the community to develop a gang suppression and intervention structure requires a thorough understanding of the nature of gang activity, its specific causes, and a high level of sensitivity to community capacity and skill in organizing. It calls for commitment, creativity, and great persistence in overcoming gang crises, interorganizational conflicts, and political obstacles. The interagency organization's leaders and the community organizer must be catalysts, problem- solvers, educators, and developers of local leadership with respect to the problem. They must be also adept at energizing apathetic or "burned- out" agency workers and local citizen groups to deal with the gang problem in a rational, noncompetitive, and community-oriented manner. Leadership and especially the organizer must have knowledge of the policies and procedures of a range of criminal justice and community-based agencies and grassroots groups. He or she must have an appropriate philosophy of approach that enables him or her to stimulate social change and community development specifically related to the gang problem. Gang youth as individuals should be encouraged to participate in community development efforts. o Organizers should be "up front" about their conventional values, i.e., gangs should not be considered legitimate organizations and should not be involved in community mobilization efforts per se; however, individual gang youth, under appropriate supervision and guidance, should be encouraged to participate in a variety of community development and antigang efforts. o Organizers should utilize organizing skills of persuasion, incentive, pressure, and social action, if necessary, to move the community mobilization process along. Staff Selection A range of organizing skills is necessary to move the mobilization process along. Senior or key staff selected should be well trained, preferably with experience in criminal justice, social service, and community or neighborhood organizing. A variety of staff assistants and community volunteers should be involved in community mobilization efforts: o Staff should comprise a mixture of competent local residents and outsiders with relevant interest, abilities, and training. o Local influentials or leaders and others should be employed and provided with an opportunity to further develop leadership or specialized skills on the job and qualify for advancement within the organization or in related organizations and programs with further training. o A special responsibility for the senior community organizer(s) should be the development of citizen leadership and organizing skill in junior workers with reference to the youth gang and other related social problems. Staff Education and Training Staff and community group training courses are important. An important responsibility of the community council or interagency organization should be staff and community education and training on an ongoing basis about gang issues, promising strategies, and techniques for effectively deal with the youth gang problems. o High-quality gang orientation training courses should be developed across criminal justice agencies as well as for a variety of constituent or affiliated agencies and community groups. Curricula should cover such topics as: Gang Issues: Curricula should deal with description and analyses of the local problem as well as ways to affect it. o characteristics of gang problems o gang structure and dynamics o basic causes of gangs o goals, strategies, and procedures for dealing with gang problems Agency Programs: o Differing agency missions and available service programs The nature of agency missions and resources to deal with the problem and how to efficiently use them in reference to the gang problem. o Key historical and community factors influencing the development of gang-oriented programs o Different agency and community interrelationship factors to be taken into consideration in developing cooperation and resolving interagency and community conflicts Community Mobilization The following techniques should be taught to community residents as well as agency staff: Techniques of community mobilization that address the gang problem should be taught. o preparing and conducting meetings o communicating with and persuading local citizens to become involved in antigang efforts o organizing protests, marches, petition campaigns, etc. o contacting and influencing local politicians and the media to support efforts to deal with the gang problem o involving gang influentials and former gang members in well-supervised efforts to contribute to community development, especially related to antigang efforts, e.g., security patrols, graffiti expunging o developing tactics for integrating agency and various community group efforts with those of former gang influentials to control the gang problem, e.g., through special crisis or mediation meetings. Summary The community interagency and its key staff organizer(s) must take special pains to develop local leadership with respect to the problem. Staff and community leadership must be appropriately selected and helped to develop their abilities. Staff should comprise a mixture of competent local residents and outsiders. Training programs are required across criminal justice, community agencies, and community groups. Curricula should cover such topics as gang issues, the nature of agency programs, and skills in mobilizing the community to deal with the problem. ____________________________________ CHAPTER 7: FUNDING o Funding Sources o Summary Priority funding should be given to multipurpose program arrangements. The organizer(s) or administrators of the community mobilization program should fund, or facilitate the funding of policies and programs, to support interagency and cooperative community antigang programs. High priority should be given to multiple- rather than single-purpose programs. o Explicit agreement on program funding priorities should be developed and subscribed to by all participating agencies and community organizations. o An extensive community agency and organizational campaign should be developed to obtain consensus on funding principles. Key public agency, foundation funders, and community residents should be involved in developing this consensus. Consensus on funding principles is necessary. o Funding priorities should be guided by the following principles: -- Primary strategies to be supported should be community mobilization and, in chronic problem communities, opportunities provision. -- Core gang and high-risk gang-prone youth should be targeted for appropriate agency or organizational services and activities. Community mobilization, opportunities provision, and targeting gang members as well as high-risk gang-prone youth are essential. -- The programs of key agencies or community groups targeting these youth must be interrelated through explicit agreements and accountability procedures. -- Needs assessment and resource development must be part of a three- to five-year plan for dealing with the problem. -- A community advisory organization and appropriate committees should be established to hold criminal justice, community-based agencies, and grassroots groups accountable for the funds received to implement programs. Funding Sources Resource development. A successful community mobilization effort is not possible without resources. Resources include the will power, energies, and skills of many people, including citizens, politicians, bureaucrats, professionals, former gang members, and even gang members ready to leave the gang. Nevertheless, additional resources usually must be acquired for staff and facilities, and to augment the efforts of existing agencies and community groups, or to develop new programs and organizational arrangements. These resources or funds can sometimes be developed based on a reordering of existing program priorities and existing agency or community group commitments. More than a single source of funds must be developed to assure the stability and continuity of program operations. A variety of local and nonlocal funding organizations must be contacted, proposals developed, and new program funds acquired. These sources include: 1. Local o Businesses, including banks o Civic organizations Local sources of funding. o Hospitals and health care, including drug prevention and treatment facilities and programs o City planning and human service agencies o Public housing, park and recreation departments o United Way o Religious federations and funding organizations 2. Foundations Local foundations are present in certain large cities. They also provide funds for a great variety of projects and programs in communities and agencies around the country. Each foundation has a set of interests, concerns, and procedures that govern its allocations. Grants can be large or small, for short or long periods of time. It is important to seek guidance about which foundations to contact. The Foundation Center has main offices in several cities and libraries in all 50 States. To locate the nearest library, call 1-800-424-9836. When a particular foundation of interest is identified, it should be contacted by phone or a letter of inquiry written in order to obtain information on how to submit a grant proposal. Personal contacts may be of value in some cases. 3. State Funding Various State agencies provide grant and contract funds to local organizations for certain services. Federal funds are often provided to the States in the form of block grants and are available through certain State agencies that could be used for anti- gang programs. These include: o State Criminal Justice Planning Agency o Departments of Youth or Children Services o Health Departments, especially alcohol, drug abuse, and Mental Health units o Labor departments o Education departments The Governor's office and State legislative representatives should also be contacted for assistance in obtaining contacts for special State- supported funding programs. 4. Federal Programs Federal funding. The following Federal agencies have recently initiated antigang initiatives directed at local communities. Sometimes various units in a particular Federal department fund different types of local programs. Knowledge of these Federal agency programs and application procedures can be obtained through notices in the Federal Register and the Commerce Business Daily. Subscriptions to these publications can be ordered from the Government Printing Office (202-783-3238). Some city agencies, corporations, and universities already subscribe and may be persuaded to provide access to their own copies. Some of the following Federal Agencies may be directly contacted for information about current types of programs and procedures for obtaining funds for antigang or gang prevention programs: o Housing and Urban Development (202-708-1197) o U.S. Justice Department, especially Bureau of Justice Programs, including the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (202-307-1150) and the Office of Justice Assistance (202-307-5914) o Department of Health and Human Services, especially the Office of Human Development and its Administration for Children, Youth, and Families (202-245-0347) o Division of Injury Control, Center for Disease Control (404-488-4646) Summary High priority must be given to funding interagency or collaborative agency projects. Furthermore, even within an organization, special attention should be given to funding multiple rather than single purpose programs directed at the gang problem. While a successful community mobilization effort is not possible without additional resources, it should be recognized that resources include the determination or will power, the skills, and energies of a great many community persons, including residents, bureaucrats, and professionals. Nevertheless, external resources must be obtained. Access to multiple funding sources is essential. Sources of funding include local agencies, city organizations, citizen groups, and businesses, State and Federal agencies, and foundations. ____________________________________ CHAPTER 8: MONITORING, RESEARCH, AND EVALUATION o Summary Accountability. Program monitoring is required, particularly by the interagency council or task force oversight committees, to ensure that services and activities are being carried out as planned in a collaborative manner. Neighborhoods, organizations, and youth targeted for services and control activities should receive them as planned. Monitoring makes it possible for agencies and organizations, community members, and funding sources to know and feel confident that the program is being adequately carried out. Program monitoring will depend largely on evidence available from activity, membership, or client records, and program expenditure accounts. The records are required to determine whether objectives are achieved. They should include: o records of what occurred in all phases of the program that bear on gang control,intervention, and prevention; o review of administrative and staff records bearing on the program; o use of periodic reports summarizing program activities, planned and completed; difficulties in implementing them; o regular committee reviews of what is occurring; o minutes of "brainstorming" group events to determine how to modify or change course; and o program monitoring reports that are periodically published and made available to various audiences, including the general public through the media. A rigorous cross-neighborhood or community quasi- experimental design should be required on an annual or biannual basis to determine which specific strategies, procedures, and program mechanisms are most effective in reducing the gang problem. Evaluation. Research and evaluation should primarily assess the nature and effects of the community mobilization process, especially as they are related to suppression and intervention of the youth gang problem (see also General Community Design Manual, section on Research and Evaluation). Evaluation and research must address the following: o Which agencies and community groups participate in mobilization and program efforts with regard to the gang problem? o Which members in the various organizations participate in community-related antigang activities? o In what antigang activities do agencies and organizations participate, and how? o Why do agency staff and community members participate in those efforts? o What specific issues or circumstances and organizing principles facilitate maximum participation among organizations? o What specific gang problems have been reduced or changed, how have they been altered, and by how much? o What is the specific relation between successful community mobilization and gang problem reduction? o How is interagency participation in antigang activities related to longer term community development with regard to gang problem reduction and other social problems? Whenever possible, outside researchers from various academic institutions as well as from independent research organizations should conduct community mobilization research and evaluation. Summary Program monitoring, research, and evaluation are critical to program progress and to determine which programs work and which do not. Program monitoring is important to establish whether the program is being carried out as planned. Careful monitoring gives confidence to staff, community representatives, and funding agents that the program is being adequately implemented. Interagency oversight committees and records of program activities and participation are particularly important. Various agency program evaluations and systematic comparative agency and even cross-community research are required to determine which types of community mobilization strategies prove effective in reducing the problem. It is important to know whether the program has been actually implemented as intended and, of course, whether the problem has declined. There is much we don't know about what works and does not work. Reasons for changes in the nature of the scope and seriousness of the problem are extremely important to determine for both policy and theoretical reasons. ______________________________ BIBLIOGRAPHY Brager, George, Harry Specht, and James L. Torczyner. 1987. Community Organizing (Second Edition). New York: Columbia University Press. Gonzalez, Maria and Robert Mendoza. 1991. Code Blue: Youth at Risk: Partnership for Reclaiming our Community. The Mayor's Community Task Force on Gangs, Crime, and Drugs. Austin, Texas. May. Huff, C. Ronald (editor). 1990. Gangs in America. Newbury, California: Sage Publications. Office of Criminal Justice Planning. 1990. Community Mobilization: How to Survive in the '90s. Conference Proceedings. Office of Criminal Justice Planning, State of California. Salazar, Natalie D. 1990. Rising Above Gangs and Drugs. Community Reclamation Project, Los Angeles County Probation Department. ______________________________ APPENDIX A List of Program Reports from the National Youth Gang Suppression and Intervention Program The following is a list of draft reports developed by the National Youth Gang Suppression and Intervention Program, University of Chicago, in cooperation with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), U.S. Department of Justice. Stage One Assessment of this research and development program identifies promising community and organizational responses to the youth gang problem. Stage Two Prototype/Model Development focuses on developing twelve promising prototype models to address the problem. These models specify policies and practices for the design and mobilization of efforts at the community and criminal justice levels. Stage Three Technical Assistance manuals provide guidelines for implementing the models. All reports are available in draft form from the National Youth Gang Information Center (NYGIC), 4301 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 730, Arlington, VA 22203. NYGIC is OJJDP's central dissemination point for all gang-related information. NYGIC provides the above reports in hardcopy and on high- density computer disks in WordPerfect 5.1. Call NYGIC toll- free at 800-446-GANG or 703-522-4007 locally for assistance. ASSESSMENT: STAGE 1 Full Reports Available: 1. Literature Review: Youth Gangs: Problem and Response, 1991, 357 pages. This comprehensive literature review covers what has been written on the youth gang issue from a research and program standpoint. 2. Survey of Youth Gang Problems and Programs in 45 Cities and 6 Sites, 1990, 297 pages. This survey reports aggregate gang or community level data on youth gang problems and programs in 45 cities and 6 institutional sites for the year 1987. 3. Community and Institutional Responses to the Youth Gang Problem, 1990, 184 pages. This report consists of case studies of how five communities and one correctional institution addressed youth gang problems in promising ways. 4. Report of the Law Enforcement Youth Gang Symposium, 1988, 152 pages. This report describes the gang intervention activities of fourteen police departments located across the United States, particularly with respect to their attempts to reduce the gang problem. 5. Law Enforcement Youth Gang Definitional Conference - Transcript, 1990, 138 pages. This is a proceeding of a conference at which gang experts from law enforcement and academia from Los Angeles city and county, Chicago and New York City were brought together in an effort to develop a uniform set of definitions (i.e., gang, gang member, gang incident) applicable to street gang phenomena across the country. 6. The Youth Gang Problem: Perceptions of Former Youth Gang Influentials. Transcripts of Two Symposia, 1990, 139 pages. These are the proceedings of two symposia at which former gang influentials--Black and Hispanic--describe why they joined the gang, what activities they were involved in while gang members, what factors caused them to depart from the gang, and what recommendations they had for community, policy and agency changes. 7. Client Evaluation of Youth Gang Services, 1990, 53 pages. This document reports on the perceptions of current and former youth gang members concerning the nature and efficacy of services provided by some of the programs located at our field visit sites. 8. Preventing Involvement in Youth Gang Crime, 1990, 173 pages. This report identifies indicators of Black and Hispanic youth at risk of becoming gang members in inner-city Chicago communities with high gang crime rates. 9. Stage 1: Assessment Executive Summary, 1990, 25 pages. This report summarizes the findings of the Assessment Stage of the National Youth Gang Suppression and Intervention Program. MODEL DEVELOPMENT: STAGE 2 Gang Intervention Models recommend policies and procedures for addressing youth gang members 12 to 24 years of age. Strategies of suppression and intervention are described.Issues of prevention, although essential, are not highlighted in these documents. The models emphasize mobilizing community interest and developing distinctive institutional missions within the local juvenile justice system. Gang Intervention Models Available: Document #, Title D0001 Executive Summary: Prototype Models, 33 pages. D0002 Community Based Youth Agency, 24 pages. D0003 Community Mobilization, 20 pages. D0004 Corrections, 19 pages. D0005 General Community Design, 56 pages. D0006 Grassroots Organization, 19 pages. D0007 Judges, 15 pages. D0008 Parole, 14 pages. D0009 Police, 21 pages. D0010 Probation, 16 pages. D0011 Prosecution, 12 pages. D0012 Schools, 19 pages. D0013 Youth Employment, 17 pages. TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE MANUALS: STAGE 3 Technical Assistance Manuals provide detailed step- by-step guidelines for implementing the models. Strategies are designed to encourage gang-prone and gang-involved youth to terminate criminal activity and participate in legitimate social, academic, and employment pursuits. It cannot be sure the policies and practices proposed to reduce the youth gang crime problem are effective until they are tested. Gang Manuals Available: Document #, Title D0014 Community Based Youth Agency, 92 pages. D0015 Community Mobilization, 102 pages. D0016 Corrections, 84 pages. D0017 General Community Design, 110 pages. D0018 Grassroots Organization, 92 pages. D0019 Judges, 102 pages. D0020 Parole, 98 pages. D0021 Police, 98 pages. D0022 Probation, 116 pages. D0023 Prosecution, 74 pages. D0024 Schools, 150 pages. D0025 Youth Employment, 120 pages. ______________________________ Appendix B: GLOSSARY AND DISCUSSION OF TERMS There is much variation in the definition of youth gang or its equivalent terms depending on particular agency, city, or region of the country, race/ethnicity, gang generation, and cultural factors. The terms delinquent group, gang, and criminal organization need to be distinguished for policy and program purposes to the fullest extent possible. 1. Gang. This term generally refers to a group or collective of persons with a common identity whose members interact on a fairly regular basis in cliques or sometimes as a whole group. The activities of the gang may be regarded as legitimate, illegitimate, or criminal in varying combinations. o Street Gang. This term preferred by law enforcement, emphasizes the organized character of a group of persons on the street, often engaged in significant illegitimate or criminal activity. The ages of members of these street gangs vary; some street gangs are more street-based than others. Some authorities report arrests of street gang members in their 30's, 40's, and 50's. o Youth Gang. This term may refer to a youth segment of a street gang, usually between the ages of 12 and 24. Some youth gang members are younger or older. The term youth gang is often used as equivalent to street gang, and is somewhat preferred by community-based agencies. o Traditional Youth Gang. This term refers to a youth gang comprising mainly adolescents, juveniles, and some young adults primarily concerned with issues of status, prestige, and turf protection. The youth gang may have a name, a hangout, codes of conduct, colors, special dress, signs, symbols, etc. Traditional youth gangs often have a leadership structure (implicit or explicit), differ in degree of a gang activities, and may persist over several generations. Traditional youth gangs vary by community as to characteristics of age, gender, race/ethnicity, scope, and nature of delinquent or criminal activities. The traditional youth gang contains many types of subgroups engaged in various delinquent, criminal, and social group activities. o Posse/Crew. The terms posse and crew are sometimes equivalent to street or youth gang. The posse or crew, more often than the traditional youth gang, is characterized by a commitment to criminal gain activity, particularly drug trafficking, rather than to status-based conflict. It may be loosely organized and/or connected to an adult criminal organization. It emphasizes employer-employee relationships and has fewer social status-related or symbolic interests or characteristics than the traditional youth gang. o Other Types of Youth "Gangs". Other types of groups or "quasi" gangs may include Stoners, Punk Rockers, Neo-Nazi Skinheads, Hate Groups, Satanic Groups, Motorcycle Gangs, Prison Gangs. They may be similar to traditional or street youth gangs in various ways, but have distinctive organizational, cultural, political, religious and institutional lifestyles, perspectives, and biases. They can be loosely organized or ephemeral and engage in group- oriented violent or criminal behavior to sustain or defend these beliefs. They may also be characterized by distinctive dress, leadership structure, and concerns with status and turf. o Other Youth Group Considerations. It is important to distinguish these gangs and gang-like groups from youth or street groups of an earlier era, which are still present today. These groups have been called street clubs, youth organizations, or social and athletic clubs are usually less violent or delinquent, generally contain fewer regular members, and are not as often regarded as delinquent youth gangs by local residents. They serve to socialize low-income, working-class, sometimes first-generation youths in transition from childhood to adulthood. Their activities may constitute acceptable behaviors that are considered normal rites of passage in the particular community. "Copycat" gangs may be increasingly present in some low-income and middle-class communities, often located in smaller cities, suburban, and rural areas. Youth in these groups may identify and attempt to imitate the mannerisms and behaviors of youth gangs in urban centers. Identification with gang culture, in significant measure through media influence, may be a source of novel experience and excitement for youth. The behavior of such groups constitute a challenge to authority in communities undergoing change and where family disruption is increasing. The activities of copycat gangs may sometimes have serious violent or criminal consequences. Most of these youth gangs, however, are ephemeral, engage in relatively minor delinquent acts and have little if any actual or ongoing contact with other criminal juvenile or adult groups. The threat these groups pose to the community and to the social development of their members should be carefully assessed so that a problem is not created or exaggerated where no, or very little, evidence of a sustainable or serious gang problem exists. 2. Delinquent Group. This refers to a group or collectivity, mainly of juveniles and/or adolescents, engaged usually in less serious law- violating behavior. This law-violating behavior is sometimes of a wider range, particularly with respect to property crimes, than those of youth gangs, posses, crews, and other "quasi" gangs. The delinquent group is usually less organized and more ephemeral than a youth gang. It is characterized by none of the special characteristics of gangs such as turf, distinctive dress, colors, signs or symbols. The delinquent group is the most prevalent of all deviant youth groups in most communities. 3. Criminal organization. This is usually a relatively well-organized, stable, and sophisticated clique, group, or organization of youths and/or adults committed primarily to systematic, income-producing activity of a criminal nature. Its members are essentially employees of a criminal business organization. The criminal organization may at times use intimidation and violence to achieve or protect its economic interests. The organization often provides employment for current or former gang members. Such organizations may provide illegal services or goods to the community and acquire rewards from local residents in mutually acceptable and reinforcing ways. The Loose Crew Triad and Mafia are subtypes of criminal organizations. 4. Gang clique, set, klika. The gang clique and set are terms sometimes used as equivalent to youth gang. On the other hand, a klika on the west coast may represent an entire cohort or age sector of youth (e.g., 13- and 14-year-old males) who join or are "jumped into" a street gang. The clique in its smaller-size connotation may signify a "tight" grouping of two or three youths who have similar characteristics or criminal interests. 5. Youth Gang Member. This term can indicate various types of members who engage in a range of legitimate, illegitimate, criminal, and/or violent behaviors. Leaders and core members of youth or street gangs are often (but not always) more serious and frequent offenders than are other kinds of gang members. Arrested gang members are more likely to become career criminals than arrested nongang delinquents. The following represent membership categories of the more traditional turf-based gang. In the course of a gang member's career, he or she may assume several roles: o Gang leader. This individual makes central or important decisions that affect the gang's behavior. The leader may be formally recognized as President, King, Queen, Prince, Ambassador, Old Gangster, or have no title. Leadership may also be a function shared by different members of the group, depending on particular situations, such as initiating a social or athletic affair; starting or sanctioning a gang fight; conducting a drug transaction; or negotiating criminal deals. o Core or Hardcore gang member. This is an attribution assigned, often by law enforcement, to gang members who engage consistently in gang violence and other serious gang-motivated crime, e.g., a shooter. It refers to the few gang members who are most influential in the development or implementation of the gang's violent patterns of criminal behavior. o Regular member. This gang member participates in the gang's criminal activities on a consistent and frequent basis. He or she is recognized as a member in good standing or status. o Associate. This term refers to a youth who occasionally associates with gang members on the street or elsewhere but who neither recognizes himself nor is usually, or fully, recognized by others as a gang member, except sometimes by law enforcement officials when a gang crime is committed and the particular youth is located nearby. o Soldier or peon. This is a reliable but low- status gang member. o Peripheral or Fringe member. This gang member participates periodically and selectively in gang events. He or she usually does not have high status and is not regarded as a reliable or committed gang member. The gang member may readily leave the gang and be excused from participation in many of the gang's activities. o Wannabe. This refers ordinarily to a younger (less frequently to an older) youth who wants to join the gang. He or she may be a friend or relative of a gang member or former gang member, or already be a member of a "tot" or a juvenile gang- related group. The wannabe may be sought after to join the gang and participate in its activities. o Recruit. A recruit may at times be an older youth recruited for certain skills or talents useful during crises, e.g., gang fighting. He or she may be requested to join for a limited period of time. o Youth at risk of gang membership or gang-prone youth. This is a youth who is not yet a gang member. He or she may not explicitly aspire to gang membership, nor be a target for gang recruitment. However, certain social characteristics and conditions within his or her immediate environment make the youth likely to become a gang member, such as: -- he or she lives in a gang neighborhood; -- a member of his or her family is a gang member; -- he or she experiments with drugs; -- he or she commits delinquent acts; -- he or she is failing at school; -- he or she has certain physical or social attributes which are attractive to the gang; -- he or she is knowledgeable about gang lore; -- he or she occasionally flashes gang signs or wears gang colors; -- he or she is suspected by school or police of being a gang member. These characteristics or conditions, singly, may be insufficient to predispose the youth to gang membership or actually identify him or her as a gang member. The National Youth Gang Suppression and Intervention Program is primarily concerned with the high-risk, gang-prone youth or incipient gang member who gives clear evidence of likely or actual criminal gang involvement. o Floater, go-between, operator, broker. Such a youth or adult is ordinarily not a member of a specific gang, but is well-known and has high status or respect among several gangs in the community. He or she has certain knowledge, talents, or resources useful to gangs, e.g., access to other gangs, capacity to mediate a gang fight, ability to provide legal advice, access to weapons or drugs. o Veterano, Old Head, O.G. (Old Gangster), Senior, Advisor, Counselor. This is usually an honorific status assigned to or taken by a young adult who was (or was reported to be) a gang member when he or she was younger. These adults are often no longer active gang members. They may be junkies, drug dealers, informers, racketeers, legitimate business operators, human service workers, a parent, or other respected members of the community. They sometimes attempt to influence the group or its membership to maintain gang tradition, increase or reduce gang violence, or leave the gang and pursue a legitimate (or illegitimate) adult career. A few may participate selectively on occasion in gang-motivated criminal activity. 6. Group delinquency and gang crime incidents. Not all group delinquency or crime should be classified automatically as a gang incident, e.g., purse snatching, disturbing the peace, mob action, or group assault by nongang members. Group delinquent acts are often incorrectly classified as gang motivated incidents, particularly in emerging gang problem contexts where the problem is just starting and officials do not clearly recognize or understand the distinctive character of the problem. Authorities may initially over-react and classify co-offending youth as members of a gang when their delinquent activity is neither gang- motivated nor gang-related. o Labelling gang-motivated and gang-related incidents. The police in practice often employ a combination of gang-motivated and gang-related procedures to define gang crime incidents. We believe that a system should be developed to gather and record information on gang crime which neither exaggerates nor denies, but accurately and meaningfully describes a gang event. A definition should be devised which emphasizes the gang- oriented nature of the incident, i.e., preferably using gang motivation criteria, and not simply the fact that the participant is a gang member. The argument that the gang member is influenced by his experience in the gang even when he commits a nongang crime must be balanced by two counter arguments. Often the gang member was a serious delinquent before he joined the gang. Subsequent gang-related activity should not thereby be regarded as simply those of a gang delinquent. More importantly, excessive reference to the individual as a gang member simply enhances his prestige and exaggerates the threat of the gang or gang member to the community. However, since the gang member, especially the leadership or core member is likely to be a serious offender, an information system should be developed that records both gang-motivated and gang-related crime of certain types of offenders. Special justice system attention should be paid to the gang member who is a repeat serious offender whether he commits gang-motivated or non-gang-motivated crime. Due regard must be given to the fact that not all gang members are delinquent or criminal, and not all delinquent or criminal gang members will be hard-core offenders. The complexity of the gang problem as well as due process and civil rights require that the individual gang youth should be correctly identified as a criminally-oriented gang member. He or she should not be subjected to excessive labelling and punishment, which will probably contribute neither to the protection of the community nor to the social development of the gang member in the long run. 7. Social Disorganization. As used in this manual, social disorganization refers to a lack of integration across the individual, family, organizations and community. It indicates, for example, an inability to mesh motivations, norms, values, and activities by the individual youth with those of his or her family; by family units with organizations such as the school; by units within a particular agency or organization; and across organizations in a community. At the societal and community levels, social disorganization is often associated with large and rapid population movements and social changes or disruptions, e.g., the influx of a new minority population, the outflow of middle-class families, and the failure of key institutions such as schools, law enforcement, and employers to understand and meet the needs of a new or changing population. Gangs, or even certain communities, may be regarded as coherently organized for their particular purposes. However, the predominant norms and values of these gangs and communities are usually in conflict with the legitimized norms of the larger society. Gangs meet the social and often economic needs of people in ways not approved by the dominant culture. Variables of social disorganization may not be related to variables of poverty, racism, cultural conflict, and social isolation. We believe the interaction of at least two variables, particularly social disorganization and poverty, creates high risks of gang involvement. Social disorganization may also refer to changes that bring about excessive stress or crises in patterns of transition from one state or social situation to another. These transitional patterns may be normal, expected, and desirable under circumstances of stable relationships at home and in the community. They include the transition from: childhood to adolescence; adolescence to young adulthood; one level of schooling to another; and a segregated to an integrated school system, which may require bussing. Early gang involvements are likely to occur during the transition of youth from elementary to junior high, and from junior high to high school in certain neighborhoods. Social disorganization may also be inherent in the changing of seasons. For example, gang activity seems often to rise in the fall as youth begin school, just before and after holiday breaks, and during the late spring before summer vacation.