MENU TITLE: YOUTH EMPLOYMENT MODEL .        
Series: OJJDP
Published: DRAFT 2/91
20 pages
42,287 bytes

Irving Spergel, Kenneth Ehrensaft,
Alba Alexander, and Robert L. Laseter

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

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

GOALS AND STRATEGIES

EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM FUNCTIONS AND ISSUES
 Organizational Development
 Job Bank
 Work Acclimation
 Job Placement and Employment 
 Support Services
 System Development
 Evaluation

REFERENCES

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STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

It is impossible to address the problem of gangs
without reference to the declining labor force
participation and earnings of young men. The
increase in the gang problem, at least partially,
is the result of the unemployment and
underemployment of minority males; particularly
young black men. Inner-city gang and gang-prone
youth have the highest rates of school failure and
unemployment, and the least appropriate employment
skills and work attitudes. For example, among male
African-American dropouts (20-24), only 14.2
percent reported no earnings in 1973. However, 43
percent of this group reported no earnings in 1984
(Berlin 7 Sun 1988). Therefore, it is no surprise
that these youth join gangs, present enormous
problems to the criminal justice system, and
participate in illegal economic alternatives to
work.

The job market demands a higher level of skill than
gang youth possess. An above average share of new
job growth has been and will continue to be in the
professional, technical, management, and
administrative fields. For most of these jobs, good
basic skills and post-high school education and
training will be minimum requirements. "The primary
labor market is virtually shutting down for those
with limited skills and attainment" (Berlin & Sun,
1988). At the same time, practically no attention
has been paid to the connection between basic
education, vocational training, and employment
systems. The United States has the least well
articulated system of school-to-work transition in
the industrialized world.

The basic syndrome that generates the inability of
many inner-city and minority youth, including gang
members, to enter the labor market is low
achievement at school, falling behind in grade
level, poor school performance, and a sense that
they cannot catch up to their peers. There is,
furthermore, an intergenerational effect. The
parent's education, especially that of the mother,
appears to be a significant determinant of the
youth's performance at school.

While there have been some large-scale attempts --
with varying degrees of success -- to train and
employ low-income, minority and non-minority youth
who do not go to college, there have been no
policies or programs to deal with the employment
problems of inner-city gang and gang-prone youth.
These youth have not only proved resistive to
efforts at training and rehabilitation, they have
been consistently ignored or excluded from
available special education, training, and work
programs.

At the same time, it is possible that certain
strategies which have proved effective in lowering
drop out and arrest rates, reducing institutional
racism, and improving employability of the more
able or conforming low-income, minority youth may
be relevant to gang youth. It is conceivable that
these strategies and programs can be adapted to the
needs of the most vulnerable segment of urban
youth. 

There is considerable evidence that increased
suppression-oriented measures alone (i.e., police
sweeps, prison construction, harsher sentencing for
juveniles and young adults) have not reduced the
youth gang problem. However, there is some promise
that close supervision of gang youth in combination
with basic or remedial education, attitudinal
change, vocational training, and work experience
may be more effective in dealing with the youth
gang problem. It is possible to construe much
street crime, including an increasing proportion of
youth gang member activity, as a form of self-
employment that fills part of the vacuum created by
depression levels of unemployment and
underemployment, particularly among Black and
Hispanic youth in disadvantaged communities.
Compared to meaningless on-again, off-again poorly
paid jobs, the periodic excitement of gang life,
robbery, hustling, drug dealing, and drug use may
be an attractive if short-range alternative in
chronic and emerging gang problem communities.

Access to social opportunities and the development
of meaningful legitimate work careers may be
relatively more limited in chronic than emerging
gang problem cities. The formality, complexity, and
lack of integration between institutions such as
school and work may be greater in those cities
where the gang problem is more serious. In large
chronic gang problem cities, a relatively greater
infusion of social resources targeted to gang youth
and improved interagency linkages and community
participation will probably be required. Because
the gang tradition is more advanced and gangs are
relatively better organized, criminal justice
agencies will also have to play a key role in any
campaign or program to deal with the gang problem.

In emerging gang cities the gang problem is less
serious. Relatively fewer adults and older youth
will probably be involved. The influence of adult
criminal structures will be less pronounced. More
resources, relative to the level of need will
probably be available. It is likely that an
adequate legitimate social infra-structure will
exist that can be quickly mobilized. A critical
issue will probably be the integration of the new
immigrant or expanding low income population into
existing local institutions such as schools,
employment, and youth agencies. While the community
may be undergoing considerable change, it is
usually smaller and more cohesive than the chronic
problem city. Youth and their families are not so
institutionalized in their social and economic
isolation. A major campaign to better integrate
educational, employment, economic, and social
resources to include gang youth in existing
programs may be a key part of the answer to an
emerging gang problem. The development of a major
new employment program to integrate gang youth into
mainstream society may not be as urgently required.

GOALS AND STRATEGIES

Social, economic, job development, and training
programs for low-income and socially marginal
youth, including gang youth, need to be developed
and expanded. Such programs as Job Corps, Urban
Employment Programs, Civilian Conservation Corps,
Job Start, the proposed National Youth Corps,
court-based employment programs, and other
community-based work projects, as well as JTPA
training funds, targeted job tax credits, and
business benefit programs need to focus more on
gang youth. Such youth should be provided with
interconnected programs of job development, job
preparation, job placement, job support, social
services, and special supervision. Employment,
education, criminal justice, and community-based
youth agencies must become interrelated components
of an approach that attempts to integrate gang
youth into the mainstream of society, particularly
in chronic problem contexts.

The goal of an employment program for gang youth
must be the development of a series of entry-level
jobs that provide adult status, adequate income,
and good interpersonal relations skills. This
should lead to a reduction in gang crime. A basic
assumption of such a program is that a meaningful
and satisfying program of remedial education,
vocational training, and step-wise employment
coupled with support and supervision can provide an
alternative to the gang lifestyle. 

There are two critical points in the gang youth's
development that should be addressed in a model
gang employment program: 1) during the early teen
years just prior to the time when serious
commitment to gang life generally occurs; and 2)
during the late adolescent period, when he no
longer sees a benefit to hanging out with gang
peers and recognizes the risk of long-term
imprisonment, injury, and death. A key question for
social policy is what set of arrangements is
necessary for the transition of the gang member to
legitimate employment and away from criminal gang
status.

A new social institution is required because of the
failure in many communities in recent years to
provide adequate links between school and job, or
to establish a set of specific steps by which
marginal youth, especially gang youth, can enter
the legitimate job market. This institution should
address the general problem of unemployment for
low-income youth but also target gang youth through
a specific program that incorporates job
opportunities, social control, and support. The
targeted program would require not only job
development, remedial education, social services,
and supervision including the involvement of
criminal justice agencies, but also monitoring by
community-based groups to make sure that the youth
gang member is moving towards social development
and rehabilitation and the community remains
protected and safe. The target population for such
a program should be youth aged 14 through 24 years
old. Youth in this age range are prone to become or
are already gang members. Also, the gang problem in
its leadership, severe crime, and most disruptive
community, family, and personal character is
reflected in this group.

Younger youth should be served mainly through
regular or alternative community-based educational
programs, and exposed to a range of limited work
experiences integrated into a remedial education
curriculum, as appropriate. Those under 18 years
will have more limited employment opportunities due
to labor legislation that restricts working hours
and prohibits minors from working with heavy
machinery or under hazardous working conditions.
Generally, fewer jobs are available to this age
category in the present job market anyway. 

Furthermore, focus must be on the development of a
meaningful, legitimate, educational, and problem-
solving capacity for these youth in an increasingly
complex world of work. While fringe and non-
hardcore gang members would probably be more
acceptable to employers than gang members with
felony convictions, it is imperative that the full
range of gang youth, including leaders and hardcore
members be admitted to, if not targeted for,
various programs of job training and employment
opportunities in the public and private sectors.
The primary sources of referral to programs for
older or hardcore younger youth should be the
justice system, particularly police, probation and
parole. For most younger youth, the primary sources
of referral should be school programs, community-
based agencies, and juvenile divisions of police
departments.

EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM FUNCTIONS AND ISSUES

The level of training and employment opportunities
may differ for gang youth in chronic and emerging
problem cities. Relatively more unskilled and semi-
skilled jobs may be available in smaller
communities or cities where the gang problem is
emerging. It may be easier for youth to connect
with available jobs in these smaller communities.
The world of work and the street corner may be less
separated. Consequently, an elaborate employment
program geared to the needs of gang youth may not
be needed in the smaller emerging gang problem
cities, since the availability of jobs and access
to them through informal or formal means is likely
to be better.

On the other hand, the problem of the development
of jobs in chronic gang problem cities, as well as
training for and access to them, is likely to be of
such severity that a special employment institution
will be required. The strategies and objectives for
the development of this new employment institution
are identified as follows: organizational
development, job bank, work acclimation, job
placement and employment, support services, system
development, and evaluation.

Organizational Development

Special programs of job development for gang youth
do not exist, except in very fragmented or
potential forms. However, community-based agencies,
private industry councils, schools, parole,
probation, and even day treatment or sheltered
workshop programs for drug or alcohol abuse, can be
expanded to provide the elements of a gang job
development program, especially in chronic problem
cities. Various demonstration or experimental
programs should be established and tested to
determine which arrangements are most effective.
Significant federal funding to develop and evaluate
these programs will probably be required.

The principal purpose of the special program would
be developing the employability of gang and gang-
prone youth. A variety of specialized personnel
would be required to carry out program functions,
including job development specialists, teachers,
trainers, support service workers, outreach workers
or advocates, and community organizers or
coordinators. Each of these functions should be
closely related to the other.

The instructor's or trainer's primary task would be
to introduce youth to the world of work. His method
of instruction would not be to formally lecture or
demonstrate but to make work assignments, provide
feedback to youth on their performance, and essen-
tially act in a work supervisory capacity. A
variety of incentives would be built into the
program. These would include not only modest
training stipends (and adequate starting wages for
those at work) and the development of positive,
well-supervised relationships by staff with youth,
but the threat of consequences for violation of
court orders. The youth must come to understand
that after each step of training, skill
development, and improved performance, there would
be an increased "pay off."

Three major component programs should be developed.
Each should address the special needs of different
groups of socially disadvantaged youth,
particularly gang member and gang-prone youth.
These three component should consist of: 1) a
program for older dropout youth, 16 to 24; 2) a
program for marginal youth, 15 to 18, and still at
school; and 3) a program for hardcore 14- to 16-
year-old early dropouts. Referrals would come
primarily from criminal justice authorities,
particularly probation and parole. Police, school
disciplinary, and community-based agencies
referrals would also be appropriate. The programs
would be coordinated but each would have its
distinctive purpose and its own set of agency and
workplace relationships. The priority program would
be for dropouts, 16 to 24, and include remedial
education, training, job placement or employment,
and career development in close cooperation with
business and industry. The program for 15- to 18-
year-olds still at school would emphasize
preapprenticeship training and remedial education
at the workplace and school. The program for 14- to
16-year-olds, most of whom would be known to the
court, should emphasize remedial education, work
readiness training, and part-time work.

Each program and program segment should be of
sufficient length to meet the interests and needs
of the particular category of youth, in relation to
work and training requirements. Representatives
from the world of work would be involved in the
planning, development, and staffing of each of the
segments as appropriate. Support services could be
provided for up to two years, particularly for
youth whose training and job development experience
are interrupted by correctional school or prison
experiences. In other words, youth who complete
various segments of the program would be tracked
and followed up for an extended period of time.

Job Bank

The quality of job opportunities available through
the job bank is crucial to the success of a youth
gang employment program. Positions and places of
work that provide for useful learning and skill
development, career potential, job satisfaction,
and especially a context of support relationships
by supervisory personnel and peers are most likely
to be successful. Low-paying initial jobs may be
appropriate if other personal and social factors
induce youth to stay on the job, particularly those
that provide positive beginning work experience as
part of a job sequence or progression. Of special
value for gang youth with limited experience are
jobs (e.g., mail-room worker) that provide
information and contacts about other employment.

A job bank should be developed by a specialist or
expert in the field who knows how to obtain
commitments from both private and public employers
to accept applicants who successfully complete the
special education and training program. The job
development specialist must establish strong
alliances with private businesses, government
agencies, and not-for-profit organizations, and
convince them of the special employment potential
and needs of youth gang members. Youth who give up
their gang member role can become hard working,
loyal, and productive workers. Knowledge of
specific employer needs and employer recruitment
practices is a must for the specialist. 

The specialist must be able to gain commitments
from employers to hire some of the program's
graduates and even non-graduates who may not yet be
fully qualified. Many employers are willing to take
some risks and support a special jobs program.
Certain employers will be willing to engage in
cooperative agreements to subsidize preemployment
and training programs with a guarantee of
employment for those youth who successfully
complete the agency's program. Trade and business
associations and labor unions are also resources
which may provide names of potential employers and
assist with the program.

A job bank should draw from a variety of
occupations, e.g., manufacturing, commerce,
transportation, clerical, human services, health,
communications, and recreation. Job longevity is
preferred but may not be critically important, at
least from the youth's perspective. Success is
largely dependent on fitting the person to the
"right job". Bad job fits, due not only to
inability or lack of motivation of the youth, but
also to lack of multiple job opportunities from
which to choose, are likely to lead to high
turnover rates. Varied work shifts may also prove
beneficial. For example, many youth gang members,
motivated to leave the gang, prefer late shifts to
avoid gang entanglements in the evening and early
morning hours. Location of potential jobs is
another important factor in building a job bank.
Some gang members are in areas with good access to
public transportation to employers. Other youth are
in neighborhoods that are relatively isolated and
do not have convenient transportation to employers
located either in the central city or the suburbs.
Consequently, a major responsibility of the youth
gang employment project will be to develop special
transportation arrangements with business
contractors or public authorities.

At all times, the job specialist should attend to
concerns of the employer for productivity. The
specialist must demonstrate that in due course the
investment of the employer in the gang youth
training and employment experience will not result
in lower productivity, and that gang youth can
forego their prior street patterns and become
skilled and stable workers.

Work Acclimation

The most important consideration for the gang
youth's entry into a job is work acclimation.
Experience in the specifics of testing, assessment,
completion of application forms, and knowledge of
organizational procedures are of secondary
importance. The gang youth may like the idea of a
job and especially collecting a paycheck, but often
he does not understand what holding a job entails.
He may have grown up in a neighborhood environment
where few people have legitimate jobs. No one in
his household may be a work role model. The trainer
must instruct the youth how to feel, think, and act
as a worker. The youth must be exposed in some
significant simulated fashion to the experience of
employment before entry into the actual world of
work.

Of special importance is simulating conditions of
job-related interpersonal relations -- those that
are appropriate and inappropriate -- in the
workplace. The youth must not take inappropriate
attitudes and skills learned on the streets,
correctional institutions, or prison to his job. He
must learn how not to intimidate his co-workers or
challenge his supervisor for control or authority.
The youth must become aware of his street behavior
and learn to control it. Role playing can be
helpful in these situations so he can learn through
simulated experience what new roles are required
and how it feels to perform in these roles.

In the course of attitude training, the youth needs
to develop a belief that a legitimate job can be
rewarding; that it provides opportunities to
acquire skills, status, and pay; and that he can
learn from and enjoy relationships with people
around him. The youth must learn to be hopeful and
positive about the world around him and realize
that there is a sequence of job experiences that
can provide him with increased satisfaction. The
training must attempt to counter the bleak, if not
fatalistic, attitudes that many gang youth have
developed about their prospects.

Interest in and understanding of the world of work
by the gang youth can also be developed through a
series of direct observational and didactic
experiences. Visits by the youth to different work
sites, which permit observation of workers at their
jobs and communication with employers, foremen, and
workers, can demonstrate the meaning of specific
work settings and job tasks, and what is required
of them. The youth needs to understand the
realistic constraints of the workplace, for
example, the mundane nature of certain idealized
jobs such as computer operators. The youth must
begin to assess the skills and attitudes necessary
to prepare for the specific jobs he would like to
hold. He also needs to realize that he must improve
reading, math, and writing skills for many jobs.

The gang youth is ready for certain types of
prework training and education after he has
developed an interest and attitudinal readiness to
undertake a job. He needs to develop academic and
procedural skills in preparation for job entry. A
first phase of this more formal or traditional
aspect of training is testing to assess his
academic and skill needs and potential for specific
types of employment. These include basic math and
English achievement and occupational interest
evaluations. Youth gang members must also be
examined for potential learning problems that would
interfere with training and future employment
success. Assessment of the educational needs of
each youth enrolled in the project is especially
important to develop appropriate group and
individualized remedial programs necessary for
career development. Small classes and special
tutorials should be arranged at convenient times
and locations to begin to address the literacy
demands he will encounter in most job situations.

A second phase of preemployment training is
practice in the procedures a job candidate follows
to obtain employment. Each youth must learn to fill
out job application forms using actual samples. He
must be taught how to interview properly for
employment. This includes correct dress, proper
personal hygiene, coaching in speech, and
appropriate behavior expected at the interview.
Further attitude training may also be required for
youth gang members in how to relate to authority
figures and peers who may also be gang or former
gang members from the same or different
neighborhoods.

Job Placement and Employment

After the gang youth begins to experience certain
significant aspects of the world of work, he needs
to seek out and procure placement in an entry-level
position. He must obtain some work experience in
order to better understand what it means to work.
He needs to "crack the job market", establish a
work record, and obtain references for further
career development purposes. It may not be possible
for many of these youth to hold a first or even a
series of initial jobs for very long. However, some
job experience is required before the youth seeks
another job or enters a more formal vocational
training program. 

Many youths in their first legitimate job
experience create problems, are fired, or quit at
the slightest pretext. It is at this time that
follow-up and supportive services become particu-
larly important. The youth must be persuaded that a
career ladder exists, that it is possible to move
through a series of legitimate jobs and training
experiences and that ultimately successful
employment will come and be more rewarding than
life with his gang on the streets. The youth has to
receive special kinds of interpersonal support and
constraint to counter the youth's resentment and
not always accurate belief that he has suffered a
cut in wages, that life on the street was more
exciting, that he now has to take orders. 

A major objective of the orientation should be to
welcome the youth, explain employer policies and
employee benefits, describe how the youth's job
fits into the finished product or service, and to
introduce him to co-workers. These acts should
demonstrate to the youth that the employing
organization has a personal interest in him. The
job specialist should orient and assist the company
to understand the gang youth's special needs for
acceptance, status, and respect.

Supervisors and staff personnel (human resources or
industrial relations) also need some guidance by
the employment specialist in holding youth gang
members accountable as employees. These personnel
need to know how to communicate with the youth gang
member about furthering his educational and skill
development, setting clear and fair limits on the
youth's behavior, handling conflicts and gang-
related problems (e.g., use of gang signs, graffiti
on the walls), and obtaining assistance if a
problem occurs. 

The first four to six weeks on the job is a
critical period for the employer to determine
whether or not to continue employing the youth. The
decision has to be made based on the youth's
demonstrated ability and productivity. For the
youth, if the employer is satisfied, the decision
to stay on the job may be more complicated. He may
not be making enough money. The youth's street
survival and hustling talents may come to the fore.
He may decide to quit the job and find another that
pays more. It is also possible that at this point
the youth is ready to seriously undertake
vocational training. He may be a little clearer as
to where his interests lie and what he wants to do.
The employment case manager can play a special
guidance role at this time.

Support Services

A whole series of support services must be built
into the program which directly and indirectly
affects the gang youth in his social and job
development. The employer and supervisory personnel
should be oriented to the needs of the youth.
Mentors, whether volunteer or paid, family, close
friends, and neighbors should be involved in the
training and work support process. Probation and
parole officers should be continually engaged in
this developmental process, especially around
obstacles or problems concerning adaptation to
employment. Special academic support and vocational
training classes should be accessible to the youth
and perhaps even to family members as well, to the
extent that resources permit. The case manager
worker or advocate will have to make special
arrangements, perhaps in conjunction with, or to
supplement the efforts of the probation or parole
officer to deal with the youth's drug abuse, health
impairment, housing, marital relations, public aid,
and legal problems.

Ideally, the employing organization should appoint
or identify a mentor for each youth in the program.
Mentors could be a senior-level worker on the job
who could further assist and sustain the
development of the youth as an employee, a
community volunteer, or even a paid
paraprofessional. Probably the most effective
mentor or support worker -- or as one observer has
termed the role, "ass-kicker" -- is a relative,
friend, or neighbor with strong interest in and
influence over the youth; this is preferably
someone who himself has had successful work
experience. This person's primary role is to advise
the youth, provide him with "strokes" for staying
on the job, and "kick his ass when he goofs".

Family and close friends could be invited to
special orientation sessions at the agency or
project facility to enlist their cooperation in
encouraging the youth to successfully follow
through on his job and training commitments. Crisis
intervention workers could also be contacted
periodically to ascertain whether the youth has
returned to street contacts with his former gang
associates. In other words, a community support and
constraint system utilizing periodic visits by
justice system and/or other community-based agency
personnel should be established to bring both
inducement and pressure to bear on the youth to
take on a legitimate adult role.

Once on the job, many youth will require continued
instruction in remedial English and math. The youth
gang employment program should continue this
responsibility, either at its facility or in
coordination with an outside educational service,
i.e., public school, community college, or even
private tutor. Testing should continue to determine
placement in appropriate-level courses or tutoring
modules for each participant. Strong emphasis
should be placed on directing the youth at various
points to continue education part time or even
vocational training full time, particularly if it
is linked to his career objectives. 

The youth's progress in school, at work, and in
various social adjustment areas should be monitored
and tracked by the youth advocate. This will
include recording attendance, tardiness, repri-
mands, productivity, career development,
participation in education and training programs,
or involvement in criminal or gang-related
activities. Monitoring can be carried out through
on-going contacts with the youth, employer
(supervisor and mentor), family members and
friends, police, probation and parole departments,
and community-based agencies. 

If a serious work problem or crisis occurs, the
case manager should convene a meeting including the
youth, supervisor, mentor, family member, probation
or parole officer, or youth agency gang crisis
representative, as appropriate. At the meeting the
problem should be defined and addressed. The youth
would be required to take an active role in the
problem-solving process. Specific objectives or
expectations would be set for his performance, and
resources identified to assist him. Every effort
should be made to handle the problem in a positive
manner. Only under the most extreme circumstances
(e.g., commission of a felony offense) should the
youth be considered for termination from the
program. 

Finally, we observe that not all special employment
programs must engage in an elaborate and expensive
support or social and academic development process.
Much will depend not only on the distinctive needs
of each youth but on his age, the particular
program component, and the accessible resources
already available. The more committed the youth is
to gang life, the more problematic his experience
at school and at work is expected to be. It is
highly likely that a less complex support system
will be required for gang members or gang-prone
youth in emerging problem contexts.

System Development

A special system is required to deal with the
training and employment needs and problems of gang,
gang-prone, and other socially deviant youth in
disadvantaged communities. Such a system is
important to complement and better integrate the
existing fragmented system of education, training,
and employment for non-college-bound youth. Basic
changes are required in our educational and
employment systems that poorly serve the needs of
low-income youth in general. The current proposed
model targets mainly gang youth and could be
modified or scaled down where a more adequate
system of education, training, and employment
opportunities are available. Such an effective
basic system would not only obviate the need for a
special employment program for gang youth but would
reduce the scope and seriousness of the youth gang
problem, itself. Other countries "operate
comprehensive labor market systems which combine
training and labor market information, job search,
and income maintenance for the unemployed. We do
not" (Commission on the Skills of the American
Workforce 1990). 

Given current inadequate or failed systems of
education, training, and employment which affect
gang youth; the issue of system development should
be addressed at three levels: 1) the special
employment program or project directed to gang
youth; 2) the interagency and community; and 3) the
larger institutional or policy level. Problems of
system development will probably be less serious in
emerging gang problem communities, where elements
of strong community structure may exist and
relatively meaningful educational and employment
opportunities are present.

A special training and employment program directed
at gang youth faces a major dilemma in balancing
accountability to funding sources and adequately
targeting hardcore gang youth. Most employment
programs directed at serving inner-city youth
ultimately capitulate to the requirements of a
funding agency, usually a public source, to show
results in terms of numbers of youth trained and
employed over a given period of time. In the
proposed employment model, performance
accountability is certainly required but
consideration of the primary purpose of the program
-- to serve hardcore gang youth and thereby reduce
crime in the community -- is also important.

The program should not equally serve all types of
youth at risk. While it must develop an appropriate
balance of service to more or less troublesome
youth, due regard must be demonstrated for priority
service to hardcore youth -- those most responsible
for serious gang crime. Standards of success will
vary with the nature of the program component and
type of youth served. Allocation of staff resources
will have to vary among the particular program
components. Service to serious gang offenders, as
part of an overall suppression and intervention
program, will be very costly, particularly in terms
of variety and skill of staff and the intensity of
service required. Teachers or remedial education
specialists, trainers, employment specialists and
advocates will require a high level of skill in
their specialty as well as ability to relate,
understand, and provide appropriate service to
aggressive gang youth. The roles of professionals
and paraprofessionals, including those who are from
the neighborhood or even former gang members, will
have to be carefully developed and their interrela-
tionship specified. Most likely, the patterns will
vary according to the purposes and scope of each of
the component programs.

At the interorganizational or community level, the
scope of involvement of different organizations
will have to be carefully articulated. Different
kinds of organizations (e.g., schools, employers,
criminal justice agencies, community-based
agencies, community groups, and residents) must
take varying and complementary responsibilities
depending on local community resources, the nature
of the gang program, and the purpose and scope of
the particular program component. A greater range
of organizations, with increased responsibility by
criminal justice agencies and employers, will
obviously be required in the priority program
component serving dropout older hardcore youth,
particularly in chronic problem communities.

Role definitions and the way each organization
links up with the other needs to be worked out.
Formal contracts or agreements should be required
in certain cases. Guidelines of service and
patterns of cooperation have to be agreed upon and
make sense in terms of particular organizational
interests and mission as well as the common program
purpose of increasing the employability of the
youth served. Appropriate interorganizational
structure and procedures need to be developed.

An advisory or executive policy board structure
must also be developed to provide for interagency
coordination and community participation in
decisionmaking. The board should advise on policy,
assist in the development of resources, and serve
as a means of integrating a range of appropriate
programs and resources on behalf of gang youth.
Leading members of the larger community and funding
sources should be represented on the board along
with representatives of employers, schools,
training institutions, police, probation, parole,
community-based youth organizations, neighborhood
organizations, parents of program youth, and even
former gang members. 

Of special interest will be the development of
productive involvement by local neighborhood
representatives or the families of gang youth and
representatives of correctional institutions,
including parole officers, particularly in chronic
gang problem cities. Grassroots organization
representatives can perform several key functions.
These entail: 1) sensitizing professionals from the
various established agencies to the complexity and
intransigence of the problem, along with giving
them advice on how to deal with gang youth; 2)
holding agencies accountable for the services they
develop and the decisions they make; and 3)
mobilizing citizens to form support groups for gang
youth in the program and to exercise more effective
social control on gang youth who "backslide" from
program participation.

The inclusion of correctional or parole personnel
reflects the fact that most gang youth return
quickly to the community. Therefore, the
correctional setting must be viewed as an extension
of local community. Indeed, what occurs in the
correctional institution may directly affect what
takes place in the community. Planning must take
into consideration the lack of meaningful training
and educational resources in the correctional
institution which interferes with or delays
adequate preparation for the gang youth's effective
employment adaptation in the community. Parole must
compensate for this deficiency to the extent
possible.

Finally, we believe that a special employment
program or project must also advocate for basic
changes in federal and state policy and legislation
that directly or indirectly impact programs to meet
the needs of inner-city and disadvantaged youth.
Vocational education programs, for example, must do
a far better job in preparing non-college bound
youth for the world of work. Better linkage between
high schools and employment is necessary. Exit
points should be provided to youth who cannot make
use of the regular school curricula. Entry points
into vocational training, apprenticeships, and jobs
should also be developed. Youth who do not proceed
to college should be prepared "professionally" for
skilled work careers in the complex technological
world of the future.

Inner-city youth require the same or an equivalent
pattern of linkages to meaningful career work
opportunities that suburban, mainly white, youth
have available to them through school counselors,
family, and community contacts. Each youth in every
high school must be reasonably assured a job or
training when he leaves school. He must also
receive adequate preparation for these non-academic
career routes. Appropriate school and community
resources and mechanisms must be developed to make
these arrangements possible. 

Evaluation

Of special importance should be a process or
formative evaluation of the initial phase of the
development of the gang employment program.
Evaluators must be able to assist administrators of
the program to articulate objectives and assess the
relationship of specific program activities and
processes to program purposes. Special attention
should be given to problems of "skimming" or
inappropriate targeting of youth who do not need
the services of the program. A careful accounting
procedure must be developed to determine what type
of youth are in the component programs, what
training they receive, what jobs they take, and for
how long. In due course, a more sophisticated
outcome evaluation must be planned with special
attention to school, work, social, and recidivism
measures. From the start of the project, careful
documentation will be required of organizational
and interorganizational procedures, program
problems and changes, and continued gang activity
by the participants. Long-term development and
evaluation of program processes and youth gang
member outcomes should also be considered.

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

REFERENCES

Berlin, Gordon and Sum, Andrew. 1988. Toward A More
Perfect Union: Basic Skills, Poor Families, And Our
Economic Future. New York: Ford Foundation.

Commission on the Skills of the American Work
Force. 1990. America's Choice: High Skills or Low
Wages. National Center on Education and the
Economy. June.