MENU TITLE: Community and Institutional Responses to the Youth Gang Problem.
Series: OJJDP
Published: January 1990
121 pages
279,794 bytes

COMMUNITY AND INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSES
TO THE YOUTH GANG PROBLEM

Case Studies Based on Field Visits and Other
Materials

by

Irving A. Spergel and Ron L. Chance with the
assistance of Candice Kane, Phyllis Garth, and G.
David Curry 

National Youth Gang Suppression and Intervention
Program
School of Social Service Administration
University of Chicago

January 1990

Distributed By:

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

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

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CASE STUDY
1 Evanston, Illinois
2 Fort Wayne, Indiana
3 Ethan Allen School for Boys, Wisconsin
4 Columbus, Ohio
5 El Monte, California
6 East Los Angeles

SUMMARY

FIGURE

5-1 Mean Number of Homicides El Monte, CA

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INTRODUCTION

No one person, discipline, agency, or community
has the answer to dealing with the youth gang
problem. In fact, we are not entirely clear that
there is a single phenomenon identifiable as a
youth gang problem. Problems of youth gang-related
violence, criminality, drug trafficking, and drug
use come in many shapes, sizes, and stages. The
notions of gang and gang incident are not clearly
defined or consistent across agencies,
communities, or even in the same community over
time. Yet, it is quite clear that the phenomena of
youth gangs exist, are spreading across
communities, and growing more serious. The gang
problem has assumed catastrophic proportions in
certain chronic problem cities and is now present
in suburban areas that do not have a history of
gang problems.

The following six case studies of five cities or
urban areas, and one correctional institution,
represent in varying degrees success stories. The
youth gang problem does not necessarily have to
get worse. While we do not understand all aspects
of this complex and evolving social problem,
specific strategies and tactics of programs seem
to make a positive difference. While little "hard"
evaluation exists of the effectiveness of agency
or community responses, there do seem to be
promising, but not as yet "sure" ways for
controlling and reducing the problem.

The six case studies address youth gang problems
as distinct from youth group or individual youth
delinquency problems. Youth gangs have special
communal and organizational characteristics, and
usually persist over time. They are distinct from
other types of youth deviancy structures and
problems. They are present in certain impoverished
and/or disorganized communities or social contexts
where opportunity and control systems have broken
down, and family, school, employment and community
organizations have failed to meet the social needs
of youth and young adults. The youth gang is a
residual institution which has come to supply many
of the resources and controls that the legitimate
(or even illegitimate) institutions no longer
provide.

The six studies originally were intended to be
reports of field visits to Evanston, Illinois;
Fort Wayne, Indiana; Columbus, Ohio; El Monte and
East Los Angeles in California; and Draper
Cottage, Ethan Allen School for Boys, Wisconsin.
These sites were selected as among the most
"promising" based on data and perceptions of
improvement in the problem between 1980 and 1987
and related agency or interagency effectiveness in
dealing with it. A survey of 45 cities and 6
institutional sites was conducted in 1988 and 1989
to determine the extent and nature of the youth
gang problem and the pattern of organized response
to it. The six sites were then selected based on
computed scores of (1) multiple agency perceptions
of a reduced gang problem (later verified with
additional police and available data), (2)
perception of agency effectiveness, and (3)
perception of interagency or community
effectiveness. Several sites with higher scores
were not visited either because of lack of varied
approaches or agency informants, or because of
excessive travel distance and expense that would
have been incurred.

The six case studies constitute the third phase of
the first Assessment stage of a Research and
Development process "The National Youth Gang
Suppression and Intervention Program," in
cooperation with the Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Justice
Department. The Assessment stage has comprised a
Review of the Literature, Survey of Cities and
Institutional Sites, and Field Visits to
"promising" sites. The second stage requires the
development of general city or countrywide and
specific agency models for dealing with the
problem. The third stage will be the development
of Technical Assistance materials and Training, to
be followed by a fourth Prototype testing stage.

The case studies were planned originally as brief
reports of visits to verify the findings of the
survey. The visits, which lasted from two to six
days, developed their own dynamic, and involved
considerably more preparation and follow-up than
expected. More local organizations and community
agencies were contacted than planned. A variety of
program documents, studies, and evaluation
materials were examined bearing on issues of
agency and community response and effectiveness
with regard to the problem. Initial drafts of the
case studies were submitted to all key
participants for comments, additions, and
revisions. Most of the suggested changes are
incorporated in the present versions. The
individual studies should be considered reliable
and valid.

The cases, with the exception of the Ethan Allen
School study, are organized into the following
subcategories. Background, the Youth Gang Problem,
Community Response, Individual Agency Roles,
Assessment, and Conclusion. The perceptions and
roles of individual participants are considered
and analyzed. Police reports on gang crime, where
they exist, are cited. Our purpose in these
reports is to provide a relatively succinct,
balanced and usable report of the program
structures and processes of criminal justice,
community-based agencies, and schools in dealing
with the youth gang problem in its various forms
and stages.

Some of the cities, areas, or institutions studied
had chronic gang problems and programs, dating
from the 1960s and 1970s or earlier (El Monte and
East Los Angeles); others dealt with emerging gang
problems, dating mainly from the early 1980s
(Evanston, Fort Wayne, Columbus, and Ethan Allen
School). The cities or communities selected varied
in population from about 70,000 to 500,000. Each
of the sites was an urban area and contained a
heterogeneous population. However, the youth gang
problems in these cities and in the correctional
institution selected were mainly African-American
and/or Mexican-American. Our studies do not
represent, therefore, the full range of youth gang
problems in the country, including other Hispanic
gangs, Asian and White gangs. Nevertheless, the
studies probably represent the efforts of agencies
and communities in dealing with the most prevalent
and typical youth gangs and their problems, based
on the findings of our survey.

The youth gang problem was regarded as a community
problem by all informants during our field visits,
requiring a complex, community-wide, as well as
individual agency, approach. Police and youth
agencies roles are represented in each of the five
city or area cases. Other justice system, school,
church, planning agency, and political roles are
also described where they were developed. our
survey revealed four or five dominant strategies
for dealing with the youth gang problem across the
45 cities and 6 institutional sites: community
mobilization, social intervention, suppression,
social opportunities, and organizational
development or modification. Each of these
strategies is represented to some degree in the
six case studies.

We should add that the survey analysis revealed
that community mobilization and social opportunity
strategies were the best predictors of positive
outcome or perception of reduced youth gang
problems. Common definition of the youth gang
problem and cooperative, proactive efforts for
dealing with it were extremely important in
chronic and emerging gang problem areas. The
social opportunities approach which we defined as
including mainly educational, training, and job
placement efforts, was more prevalent in chronic
youth gang problem cities where the problem had
been reduced or perceived as reduced. We believe
the role of the schools and employers in dealing
with the youth gang problem has not yet been
adequately developed in most of the areas visited,
and this is reflected in the only occasional
references to program efforts of this type.

We hope that these case histories will be helpful
to a variety of policy and program leaders
throughout the country in understanding the nature
of the youth gang problem, describing the range of
organizational responses to it, and suggesting
what local communities, public and nonprofit, and
sectarian agencies, and correctional institutions
can do to "successfully" deal with the problem.
These are not "quick fix" approaches. Dedicated,
sustained, and wise leadership is required to
control and prevent youth gang problems. The
present cases have provided a basis for our
further efforts to develop general city-wide
prototype and specific agency designs necessary
for dealing with youth gang problems.

If our six case studies succeed in providing
guidance to policymakers and practitioners, then
perhaps we will have made a significant
contribution. As one of our respondent prosecutors
said, "If you are successful, lives will be saved
and communities de-terrorized."

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CASE STUDY 1
Evanston, Illinois

Background

Evanston is a diverse community of 73,000 on the
northern border of Chicago. It is part of a
pattern of independent, well established, and
often wealthy suburbs. The first black families
settled in Evanston more than 100 years ago,
usually as domestics in the large homes of middle
and upper class whites. In more recent decades,
its western and southern sections have been
populated by low- and middle-income black families
escaping Chicago's more urgent and complex urban
problems. At least 20 percent of the population is
estimated to be black. Public school student
populations are 40 percent black. A smaller lower
middle class Hispanic population has also begun to
settle in the city.

Evanston remains, nevertheless, a predominantly
stable white, high status community with a
relative wealth of social, educational, cultural,
and economic resources. It is a growing high tech
area. It is the site of the main campus of a world
famous university, Northwestern. It has a very
high standard, well respected public school
system. It is a well organized progressive city
with a concerned citizenry, alert to local,
regional, as well as national and international
problems and developments, proud of its
distinctive qualities and accomplishments.

The Youth Gang Problem

Evanston has had a history of gang problems dating
back to at least 1971 when "kids were hanging on
street corners," engaged in minor acts of
vandalism and graffiti writing. Two white groups,
the Main Street Bums and the Noyes Street Raiders,
developed unsavory reputations, but are not well
remembered today. In 1973, a mixed white and black
youth group came to the attention of the police
for their involvement in petty crime. Some youth
wore "hairnets" to school. Gang graffiti was found
in school books and on the walls of some of the
schools. There was some debate as to whether these
were nuisance groups or gangs. These youth groups
or gangs were referred to as "pseudo-gangs" and
"pre-gangs" by the former Chief of Police, who
retired in 1987.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was
apparently an attempt by some Chicago gangs to
recruit members from Evanston. The development of
a Chicago oriented gang, comprising Evanston
residents, stimulated the development of a local
gang, The Sconny Hoods. More and more youth,
mainly low-income black youth, were reported to be
hanging out with gangs. Evanston's first gang-
related murder was reported in 1976. Two
additional gang homicides occurred in 1983.

The distinction between Evanston and Chicago gangs
is a source of some confusion, since most of the
Evanston gangs now have the same names as Chicago
gangs. Many of the members of the gangs come from
families which reside in Evanston, but who may
have come originally from Chicago. Rosenbaum and
Grant, in their study of Evanston gangs (1983),
reported that two local gangs existed but that
three others were "satellites" or branches of
major Chicago gangs in this period. These
researchers insist that the so-called satellite
gangs comprised largely Evanston residents and "in
a very real sense are Evanston groups." The local
gangs contained somewhat younger youths, 13 to 29
years; members of the Chicago-connected gangs were
in their 20s. One social agency executive claims
that the age range of gang members is currently 11
to 55 years.

Community Response

The community perceived a rise in the level of
gang violence and the seriousness of gang crime
beginning in the late 1970s. Young men were
engaged in assaults and shooting at each other.
Complaints of drug-dealing and involvement in
prostitution by gang members were made by some
local citizens. The violence produced an
"increasing fear of crime . . . forcing community
reaction to the problem" (Rosenbaum and Grant
1983, p. 21). Residents on the west side, in whose
area the violent gang activity was occurring, were
largely to be credited with the impetus for a
series of public hearings which took place. They
pressured the City Council and the city
administration. The Evanston Human Relations
Commission played a key role in getting Evanston
to recognize the problem by organizing the public
meetings as well as facilitating definition of the
problem and an initial response to it (Rosenbaum
and Grant 1983, p. 51). In 1978, the Bishop-
Freeman Ad Hoc Committee was formed to address the
problem of drug selling and gambling in the
Bishop-Freeman parking lot. The Executive Director
of the Human Relations Commission was chairman of
the Ad Hoc Committee which included
representatives of the police department, other
public and nonprofit agencies, as well as
neighborhood groups and residents.

No significant city or community action apparently
was taken until another public hearing on street
gang activity was held in March 1981, after the
shooting death of a recreation leader. In June of
the following year, 1982, the Evanston Youth
Commission and the Mental Health Association co-
sponsored a conference on youth problems at which
the workshop on gangs drew a large audience. A
series of meetings sponsored by the Human
Relations Commission followed later that year. Its
subcommittee on gangs formulated a series of
recommendations as to what the city should do
about the problem. One of the recommendations
forwarded to the City Council and approved was the
funding of a study by Northwestern University's
Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research
(Rosenbaum and Grant 1983).

The university study was completed in a few
months, carried out with minimal city, and
supplemented by university funds. It described the
youth gang problem, its genesis and various
efforts to deal with it, and made policy
recommendations. The study emphasized that two
factors above all characterized Evanston's
response to the gang problem. "First, there was a
strong denial for quite a long time that a problem
even existed at all. Second, once the problem was
recognized, responsibility for the problem shifted
regularly. . . . For many city officials and
residents, there was no perceived gang problem.
For others, the problem did not seem serious at
all" (Rosenbaum and Grant 1983, pp. 82-83).
Reasons for denial were related to concerns about
the city's reputation and real estate values.

No agency stepped forward immediately to assume
responsibility for doing something about the
problem, whether prevention or intervention. The
law enforcement or suppression approach did not
show impressive results initially. Key gang
members were arrested. However, in the first six
months of 1983, only 21 of the first 187 gang-
related incidents resulted in arrest. A program by
the police to identify juvenile gang members,
contact their parents, and involve them in
counseling or parent meetings was viewed by at
least one informant as not successful. Only six
mothers participated in the parent group which met
eight times in September and October 1982.
Attendance was very low at the meetings. Four of
the parents were already involved in a Victim-
Witness Outreach program (see also, Rosenbaum and
Grant 1983, p. 47).

According to the Northwestern report, very few
youth officers were assigned to work with juvenile
gang members during this early period. The Youth
Bureau and Organized Crime Bureau of the
department seemed to operate separate programs
dealing with gang youth. Community and gang member
perceptions were that the police were not eager to
deal with the problem in this period (Ibid., p.
48). The schools, youth agencies, and businesses
believed that the problem was not especially one
they should address. It was regarded essentially
as a problem about which the police should take
major responsibility.

The Northwestern study concluded with a
comprehensive series of recommendations for
general and specific community, police, agency,
city administration and school improvement and
long-term change. Special attention appeared to be
directed to issues of providing an adequate
education for minority youth from low income
families and interagency coordination and program
development in respect to the youth gang problem.
Meanwhile, law enforcement strategy shifted with
the appointment of a new police chief. The
increased level of violence and drug activity was
a deciding factor in crystallizing police and a
certain degree of community reaction.

Police

New perceptions of the gang problem and how to
deal with it evolved with the appointment of a new
police chief and departmental reorganization
between 1983 and 1984. The police emerged as the
lead or dominant agency in the city's response to
the youth gang problem. According to police
reports, eight gangs were operating in Evanston in
March 1984. The combined Evanston membership of
the gangs was 410. Older gang leaders were
perceived as role models, providing organization
and leadership. Gang activity reached an all time
high. The new Police Chief Logan prepared a plan
of action for the entire department. The number
one priority was "to increase the response to
gangs."

A four-part approach was established:

1. Gather and analyze intelligence regarding gangs
and gang leaders.

2. Strictly enforce all laws violated by gang
members.

3. Diffuse [break up] gangs in the community.

4. Educate the community about the problem.

A new Gang Crimes Bureau was created with sole
responsibility for "investigating and aggressively
pursuing gang members and their activities." It
was staffed with a sergeant and five officers.
Liaisons were established with the Youth, Vice and
Narcotics, and Crime Prevention Bureaus, as well
as Patrol. Internal communication resulted in
improved overall departmental coordination in
respect to gangs. The Department's Vice and
Narcotics Bureau established an aggressive
enforcement posture regarding gang member
involvement with drugs and worked closely with the
Gang Crimes Bureau. Special interest in training
developed; 37 officers attended a gang crimes
training seminar at the Chicago Police Academy.
Gang Crimes investigators in Evanston were now
called on to give presentations at roll calls.

Interagency contacts and community participation
were enhanced. The Gang Crimes Bureau established
a working relationship with the Special
Prosecution Gang Crimes Unit of the Cook County
State's Attorney's office. A neighborhood foot
patrol program was initiated to increase police
visibility and promote "neighborhood cohesiveness
and problem solving." The four areas of the city
with gang activity were targeted.

The Police Department took a proactive stance in
educating all segments of the community about the
nature and extent of gang activity and how
citizens and police could work together to solve
problems. Numerous presentations were made to
civic, school, and community groups about gang
problems. Various units of the police department,
including Gang Crimes, as well as the police chief
were directly involved. The presentations included
information on gangs suspected of operating in
Evanston, their symbols and slogans, their
activities, how they operate and recruit, as well
as how parents can identify children who may be
involved in a gang. More recently, certain
officers of the department have joined with
personnel of the city's recreation department to
identify youth-at-risk of gang membership and
sponsor them in summer camp.

The role of then Police Chief Logan -- now in
charge of security at the Evanston Public Schools
-- was pervasive. He made certain that all units
recognized and fully implemented their
responsibilities. If police officers avoided or
shunted their responsibility especially in
cooperation with other units on gang-related
matters, he took disciplinary action. He got
around to all parts of the department and clearly
communicated his philosophy of "zero-based"
tolerance for gang members. Officers of the
department went to the Chief Judge and his
associates to request that gang-affiliated youth
not be given I-bonds (release on their own
recognizance) or minimum sentences. Police
officials met with the States Attorney and
arranged for one prosecutor to deal with all gang
cases coming out of Evanston.

The Chief encouraged police officer communication
with all elements of the Population, including
gang leaders. He knew some of the leaders
personally, met with them as a group, and informed
them of the consequences of breaking the law. Gang
members, in turn, said they had "nothing to do and
no place to go. They needed jobs." The Police
Chief urged his gang crime unit to assist some of
the gang members to obtain jobs. The meeting by
Chief Logan with the gang leaders was viewed as
controversial in some quarters, as possibly
recognizing the gang structure, but the Chief felt
that the meeting was not harmful to the interests
of the community.

In 1984, the Gang Crime Unit sergeant addressed a
memo to Chief Logan in which he stated that the
emphasis of the unit was also, when possible, to
redirect or refer gang members into constructive
pursuits, or to social agencies who were equipped
to counsel or help them. "We enforced the law
regularly and made numerous arrests during the
critical period, but we also functioned to help
the kids and present alternatives to gang
membership."

Law enforcement tactics included: identifying and
monitoring gang leaders and hard-core members;
prosecuting all offenses, even minor ones, by gang
members to the full extent of the law; encouraging
gang members to sign complaints against rival gang
members. While this latter tactic helped diffuse
potentially violent situations, certain gang
members also attempted to use the procedure to
file false complaints against rival gang members.
Special attention was directed to getting gang
members into the criminal justice system under
some kind of supervision. In turn, the police
worked closely with parole authorities to monitor
gang members when they were later released from
prison.

Gang Crime personnel were carefully selected. They
had to meet a variety of criteria: ability to
establish rapport with gang members, diffuse gang
situations without backing down, a capacity not to
be intimidated, and on the other hand, not abuse
gang youth. Additionally, gang crime officers had
to be able to collaborate with community groups
and agencies in dealing with the gang problem. The
police collaborated closely with and aided COEPops
and Moms, a grass roots group based in the gang
neighborhood.

COEPops/Moms

The Council of Elders (COE) Pops and Moms began in
1983 as a response primarily of black parents to a
gang-related slaying of a youth in 1983. They
perceived that officials and local citizens were
either frustrated and or indifferent to the gang
problem. They believed that strong involvement of
local parents was necessary. The group established
a "network of neighborhood adults who would watch
for potential misconduct by youth on the streets."
As "community elders," they were to forestall
violence and redirect gang behavior. Local adults
volunteered their time. The organization's budget
was about $1,500 per year, of which $1,000.00 was
provided by the City's Recreation Department; the
rest was raised privately. Use of volunteers was
emphasized.

The Council's first activities were weekend night
time foot and car patrols in collaboration with
the police. While citizen patrollers did not
replace or interfere with normal police
enforcement functions, the regular presence of
COEPops on foot or in mobile units, equipped with
city radios, on neighborhood streets and at youth
gatherings, made it difficult for gang elements to
operate openly or effectively. The police helped
to organize the group and provided technical
assistance to some members in operating and
maintaining their communications equipment.

According to a key COEPops/Moms leader, Don
Colleton, the Council's efforts should be viewed
as independent of those of the police. Some
members of the Council had mixed feelings about
the police, although generally good relations were
established with police officials. If a shooting
or fight occurred, Council members would call in
the police, but the focus of their patrols was not
police work. It was to provide an adult presence
to neutralize the effect of negative youth peer
pressure, for example, at dances. Council member
involvement was "deeper than that of the criminal
justice system." It was to "enter the lives of the
kids and have a positive impact on them."

In due course, COEPops and Moms became involved in
a variety of remedial and preventive activities.
They established two drop-in centers which
provided recreation in a safe environment where
parents, not gangs, set the controlling values.
Activities such as break dancing, tumbling, and
double-dutch were used to build relationships and
promote the values of education. The Council
volunteers also chaperoned dances and parties at
the YMCA, the Evanston Township High School
(ETHS), local churches and homes. By their
presence, Council members claimed they diffused
attitudes and pressures which could spawn violence
and substance abuse. Certain neighborhood dances
were not scheduled unless the Council agreed to
attend.

The Council has become increasingly engaged in
preventive activities with a deepening focus on
education and educational opportunity. It
organized a conference on the "learning gap" in
Evanston, the phenomenon in which black school
children as a group have significantly lower tests
scores than their white counterparts. It has for
five years co-sponsored and supplied the coaching
staff for a large basketball league which it uses
as a vehicle to teach high school males -- even
those hostile toward each other or toward
demanding adults -- discipline and respect and
guide them toward productive post high school
endeavors. It has established a scholarship at
Evanston Township High School. Students who
receive the scholarships are asked to assist in
the work of the Council and to serve as convincing
examples of the accessibility of opportunity for
advancement and escape from gang involvement. At
the same time, the Council of Elders has devoted
more and more time to younger children "because
their attitudes have not yet hardened." COEPops
and Moms appear to participate less and less in
crisis intervention activities with hard-core gang
members. In part, this may be due to fewer crisis
or gang-related activities that now occur on
Evanston streets.

Other Grassroots Groups

Former Police Chief, Bill Logan, notes several
other community groups that were valuable in the
community's response to the gang problem,
particularly in their assistance to the police.
Children Adult Network Unlimited (CAN U) was
committed to working with police in the Fleetwood
Jordain area, one of the primary areas of gang
activity. They shared information with the police
and engaged in various youth diversion activities.
COMMUNITY AID was a grassroots group of local
citizens who became the eyes and ears of the
police, and performed community watch functions.
Nichols Neighbors, at an early point in the
development of the gang problem, also monitored
the streets and called the police.

Youth Organizations Umbrella (YOU)

A number of social agencies or youth organizations
have been peripherally connected to the youth gang
problem, although they had long-term concerns with
other youth problems and working relations with
police. A youth agency, YOU, as well as the
police, were solicited by community leaders in
1984 and 1985 to develop a social intervention
program for gang youth. A plan was formulated by
the organization to target fringe or peripheral,
but not highly active or hard-core, gang youth.
Peripheral gang youth or those vulnerable to
membership were to be provided with jobs, sports,
or social activities to pull them away from gangs
and to counter gang recruitment efforts. However,
the plan and YOU's involvement became a source of
controversy. YOU was a white-staffed agency and a
black community organization objected. A variety
of issues surfaced: racial distrust, competition
for funds, and questions of program strategy. YOU
has originated a program for street youth, mainly
status offenders or runaways, a few of whom may
have a gang connection. The service mix developed
includes home visits, counseling, and recreational
activities. Nevertheless, the youth service system
did not develop a substantive program directed to
the problem of gang youth.

Other Agencies

Several agencies sensitive to the youth gang
problem have developed programs and activities
which may have some secondary or indirect
influence on the problem. Neighbors at Work is
geared to low income families and provides
emergency food and shelter. Family Focus is a
program that may serve gang youth families in its
program, but does not specifically target them. It
states that it does not have the resources to
directly deal with the problem. General counseling
and recreation activity, and assistance with
academic problems, are provided to a range of
youth. Youth outreach programs, such as the Youth
Alternatives Project (YAP) do exist in Evanston
and youth advocates are stationed at YOU, Family
Focus, and Evanston Hospital to deal with a
variety of dysfunctional or multi-problem youth,
including school and family problems, but gang
youth has not been a primary focus.

Schools

Public schools have occasionally confronted the
gang problem, but have developed no concentrated
sustained approach. At one time a special police
officer liaison program with the schools existed
which apparently failed to target gang problems.
Bill Logan, the former Police Chief, observes that
the city cut back on school-related programs, such
as Officer Friendly and School Officer Liaison, at
a time when the youth gang problem was emerging.
The police department recommended that the school
district and the city each pick up half of the
bill to reestablish these programs, but the
request was denied.

School security officers presently attempt to
control and forbid gang symbolism, gang graffiti,
and recruitment. Flashing gang signs and the
wearing of hats and colors still occur at schools.
According to one informant, gang-related fights
have broken out recently at a local junior high
school. However, schools presently do not identify
the youth gang problem as serious and requiring
special attention. Teachers have received only
limited gang-awareness training.

Evanston schools are primarily concerned with
maintaining high academic standards but still
attend to the needs of less academically-oriented
students. Special programs are provided to youth
with academic, social, and psychological problems.
The presence of the gang problem or gang youth in
the schools tends to be framed in more general
academic failure and racial terms. A majority of
students who score in the lowest quartile of
academic achievement are low-income black youth.
Estimates are that two-thirds of the students in
special-track educational programs are black. The
schools seem uncertain whether to label many of
these youths as possessing or being prone to
behavior problems or involved in gang activity.
Expectations for low-income minority youth,
including gang youth, appear to be lower than for
white youth (Rosenbaum and Grant 1983). Some
informants claim that alternative education for
gang youth outside the established school system
is a preferred option.

Assessment

The gang problem, especially its violent
component, has apparently been reduced in Evanston
in recent years, based on community perceptions
and police statistical data. Reduction of the
problem has been attributed to the pro-active
efforts of the Evanston police department and some
limited mobilization of community interest and
effort. The reduction of overt violent gang
activity, however, has also been accompanied by a
less visible drug-related and more sophisticated
criminal involvement by older and, to a lesser
extent, younger gang youth.

The Evanston Police Department has developed an
operational reporting and tracking system which
facilitates the statistical assessment of the
youth gang problem. The police defined a gang as a
"group of individuals with some degree of
organization and symbolism that is involved in
criminal activity" (Rosenbaum and Grant 1983, p.
8). A gang is of "concern" to the authorities if
it has "considerable membership and is regularly
involved in criminal activity" (Ibid., 13.) More
recently the Police Department has developed a
complex two-part system for identifying incidents
which serve both to identify and track specific
gang-based problems as well as general criminal
activities of gang youth. "Gang-related" incidents
refer to acts related to gang functions,
especially when they grow out of conflict or
threat of conflict between two gangs. "Gang member
crimes" are simply those committed by gang
members.

Statistics and Perceptions. Evidence exists for
the decline of gang-related incidents between 1984
and 1988. The police report a decline in gang-
related incidents between 1986 and 1988 from 474
to an estimated 345. Arrests of individuals in
these gang-related incidents were also down from
344 to an estimated 268; charges were down from
457 to an estimated 325; and use of weapons,
specifically shots fired declined from 71 to an
estimated 41. Data were not available for an
earlier period or for more broadly defined gang
member crime incidents.

The reduction of the explicit gang problem is even
more impressive when the units of reporting by the
Evanston Police are numbers of gangs and gang
members between 1984 and 1988. The number of gang
members declined from 440 to 138, hard-core gang
membership from 155 to 77. However, there was an
increase in marginal or peripheral gang members
from 20 to 58 in the same period. There is general
agreement that the pattern of change was due to
police targeting hard-core older gang members but
paying less attention to peripheral younger gang
members. The current Gang Crimes Commander
observes that many of the older youth "are pulling
back from the hard-core gang philosophy in order
to stay out of trouble and avoid incarceration.
They are more concerned now with individualism --
selling drugs and keeping their share of the drug
market. They cannot accomplish that if they are
constantly in conflict with other gang members or
law enforcement."

Chief Logan, head of school security since 1987,
claims that "overt gang banging in Evanston has
stopped." He agrees that drug trafficking by gang
members has probably increased. He cites an
instance of a gang member whose home was seized in
a drug trafficking prosecution. According to
another police official, some gang members have
been able to post high bonds in a variety of
criminal cases and that this may be evidence of
involvement in cocaine trafficking and generally
increased drug sales in the community. The
incidence of burglaries has slightly increased,
suggesting a greater need to support drug habits,
including those of gang youths.

According to the present Chief of Police, Ernest
A. Jacobi gang-related drug trafficking may have
leveled off, at least relatively speaking. He
cites a sting investigation in 1987 in which
thirty-five (35) gang members were arrested for
drug violations. In a similar street-level sting
investigation in 1989, the same number were
arrested, but the majority were not gang members.

Observers are generally not sanguine that the gang
problem has been solved or that it will disappear
in Evanston. Gang activity per se is less visible,
although one or two gangs remain quite active. One
social agency observer claims there is recently
increased gang activity by youth in one of the
city's junior high schools. The drug problem has
worsened. Some older gang members involved in the
drug market are now believed to be recruiting and
using younger gang members in drug operations. Of
concern also is that some of the older gang
leaders who once were opposed to each other may
now be cooperating in order to share in the drug
trade.

Conclusions

The Evanston approach to dealing with the gang
problem has been based on a strong deterrent and
community-oriented strategy, directed and largely
implemented by the Police Department, entailing
close surveillance and monitoring and occasionally
harassment, but also open communication and
support of community groups concerned with the
problem. Of special value was intrapolice agency,
as well as inter-justice agency, cooperation.
Within the Police department, intelligence and
investigative functions among all units in the
patrol, special operations, and criminal
investigations divisions were closely coordinated,
although some question remains about the level of
cooperation and exchange of information between
the Juvenile and Gang Crime units. A detailed set
of procedures was carefully and successfully
implemented, regarding case assignment,
intelligence gathering, screening of all police
reports, classifying gang-related information,
appraisal of data placed in intelligence files,
and regular purging of data. Selection and
training of police personnel in the Gang Crimes
Bureau was carefully conducted.

Collaboration with other criminal justice
personnel and education of the community about the
problem were also important elements. The Evanston
Police Department worked closely with the State's
Attorney's office, to some extent the county
judges, and also Parole in the development of
special procedures to deal with the Evanston gang
problem.

The police department, especially Chief Logan,
took leadership in obtaining community cooperation
and information which aided in the development of
a successful enforcement policy and the
incarceration of significant numbers of gang
youth. The fact that Evanston is a small and
relatively stable community where people know each
other and information is readily communicated
assisted in the development of the relatively
effective approach. However, it should be
emphasized that while gang-related violence was
reduced in the 1984-1988 period, the level of
other crimes committed by older gang members,
mainly drug trafficking and possibly burglary,
probably rose.

Certain limitations of the Evanston approach
should be noted. A strategy and program of
prevention and social intervention has not yet
been developed for a complex set of reasons. Basic
institutions of education and perhaps training and
job opportunities have not yet been adequately
mobilized to specifically address the problem. A
sustained commitment by key public and non-profit
agencies and actors did not take place. Denial of
the scope and serious nature of the problem as
well as considerable uncertainty as to how to
address it in light of underlying racial issues
and tensions may have impeded a strong collective
effort.

It is likely that the successful targeting of
older gang youth utilizing mainly a deterrent and
community-oriented strategy has in the short term
contributed to reduction of gang-related violence
by these youth and young adults. Relative
inattention to fringe gang youth and those
specifically ripe for membership may have allowed
for a new round of membership and gang
development. Simple incarceration of older gang
youth and their subsequent involvement in drug
trafficking may have lead to their increased
criminalization and may be associated with recent
recruitment of a new youth to gangs.

Nevertheless, Evanston may be an example of an
effective short-term, community-oriented deterrent
approach by a sophisticated and well-coordinated
police department, addressed primarily to the
issue of gang violence in a city without apparent
long-term gang problems. While it is not an
example of a broad scale, balanced approach to the
problem, it should be regarded as probably
successful in reducing the overt gang violence
problem over the past few years. A comprehensive
approach, as suggested by Rosenbaum and Grant in
their Northwestern study is probably required for
long-term effective change.

References

Rosenbaum, Dennis P. and Jane A. Grant. 1983 Gangs
and Youth Problems in Evanston: Findings and
Policy Options. Center for Urban Affairs and
Policy Research, Northwestern University. July 22.

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

CASE STUDY 2
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Background

Fort Wayne, located in Allen county, is the second
largest city in Indiana, located in the
northeastern part of the state on main roads
connecting Chicago and Detroit as well as other
large cities such as Toledo and Cleveland in Ohio
and Ypsilanti in Michigan. Fort Wayne is a city of
190,000 population in a metropolitan area of
300,000. African-Americans comprise 17 percent of
the population, with its lower income groups
confined to certain sections of the inner city.
Fort Wayne also has a small Mexican-American
population of less than 5 percent.

Fort Wayne is in many respects a stable,
prosperous city with a diverse economy based in
large measure on light industry. Magnavox is the
largest employer. The Lincoln National Life
Insurance Company is headquartered in the city.
Business and industry are enlightened and
contribute significantly to social and youth
welfare development. The city does not suffer from
the effects of high-rise public housing, although
low-income project areas have a black population
with high rates of social problems.

Fort Wayne is a conservative but concerned
community. It has become aware in recent years of
growing social and youth problems. Representatives
of various agencies believe that gang and drug
problems were introduced and in part developed by
persons from such cities as Detroit, Chicago, and
Ypsilanti. Fort Wayne is currently regarded as the
"crack capital" of Indiana. The city prides itself
on being a law-abiding and socially pro-active
community, but is aware of an increase in family
breakdown, rising illiteracy rate, and the
isolation of its low-income black population,
which has not shared commensurately in the city's
prosperity.

The Youth Gang Problem

Fort Wayne agency informants state that its youth
gang problem is relatively recent. Law-violating
youth groups were only occasionally a problem. The
beginning of a youth gang problem was identified
about 1982 or 1983. Several older teenagers or
young adults from such large cities as Los
Angeles, Chicago, and Detroit were said to have
introduced signs, symbols, and youth-gang criminal
behavior patterns.

Some observers state, however, there was a
readiness by local youth with "little to do" after
school to be influenced by outsiders. Significant
numbers of black youth did poorly at school, could
not find jobs, and began to hang on the streets.
Youth groups or gangs were engaged in assaults
upon each other and property crimes, including
burglary, and theft. They were involved in
relatively little drug-related activity initially,
although alcohol use was an on-going problem among
teenagers.

The captain of the Juvenile Aid Division of the
Fort Wayne Police Department attributes the rise
of the formal youth gang problem to a particular
22-year-old member of a Chicago street gang who
with his family commuted between Chicago and Fort
Wayne. He recruited several other older teenagers
and formed a unit of the Disciples. The group
eventually split, and one faction became
identified with another opposing gang that
mimicked a Chicago gang, the Vice Lords. Turf
conflicts, shootings, beatings, and car thefts
ensued. Another older youth, with gang experience,
and his family moved from Los Angeles to Fort
Wayne. This youth also recruited and introduced
youth to gang patterns. Graffiti and weapons
started to appear. " . . . [F]actions developed,
confrontations and fights occurred." At first guns
were fired into the air for amusement and then
drive-by shootings followed.

The police detected an emerging gang problem in
1982, but were unsure what to do about it. They
called in an expert(s) from the Chicago police
gang unit to assess the situation. The expert(s)
concluded that Fort Wayne had a "mild" gang
problem. The gang groups or factions were small
and amorphous. Graffiti and symbols were not
clearly developed. Because of this assessment,
according to several informants, the police and
others in the community preferred to first clarify
the situation and did not take quick action.

The gang problem was recognized as serious in the
summer of 1985 during several youth festivals,
when gangs were disorderly and clashed with each
other. Shootings and serious injuries occurred.
Eight distinct gangs and between 400 and 500 gang
members were estimated to be present in the city,
particularly in the low income black areas. A
small Hispanic and white gang member population,
also present, was not regarded as a significant
problem. Two or three gangs appeared to be at the
core of the problem. The so-called Disciples and
possibly the Vice Lords were both composed of
older youth. The Renegades formed to protect
themselves from the Disciples and the MCJs formed
out of the Renegades. The Smurfs and its girls'
affiliate group, the Smurfettes, were also
identified. None of the gangs were well-organized
and the lines of membership among all of the
groups were not clear.

Turf issues were not strong since busing brought
youth from the different neighborhoods to the same
high schools where the gang problem was further
developed. Gang assaults began in and around
schools. Some youths and street groups that did
not have gang or delinquent traditions were drawn
into the gangs. To what extent the variety of
crimes by youth groups in this period, such as
criminal mischief, car thefts and burglaries, were
strictly gang-related or motivated is unclear. The
problems of drug use, possession, and trafficking
were not regarded as serious or gangrelated in
this period.

Community Response

A significant response to the problem came from
specific agency personnel and community leaders. A
unique and productive set of collaborative
interagency relations was developed to deal with
the problem. The initial reaction of the police,
business, and real-estate interests to play down
the problem was no longer adequate. In hindsight,
the assessment by the Chicago police expert(s) was
not viewed as energizing the police into a pro-
active stance. One police informant, however,
stated that the police department's initial
reaction was a way of not recognizing or giving
gangs publicity and thereby alarming the public.

Juvenile Probation and several social agency and
community leaders called a press conference in
1982 to voice concern with rising problems among
children and youth, including youth gangs. After a
period of negotiation, the Coalition for Youth
Services (CYS) was established under the aegis of
the YMCA. Various affiliated or component action
groups were formed. One of them dealt with youth
gangs. An agency network strategy evolved both
informally and formally. Representatives from the
police, probation, schools, the YMCA, prosecution,
and other agencies initially comprised the gang
action group. David Brittenham, the CYS
coordinator, was influential in the development of
the Gang Prevention Action Group (GPAG), which
produced a networking strategy and a systematic
way of dealing with the gang problem.

Police

Despite the delay by the police in formally
recognizing or publicizing the presence of gangs,
they had in fact already begun to target gang
leaders and core gang members. A broad scale
attack was initiated with the advent of the
Coalition for Youth Services. The strategy
developed as follows:

Identification of Gang Members. Patrol division
officers developed a list of 200 probable gang
members and associates, in conjunction with the
prosecuting attorney, deans at the local high
schools, and the Juvenile Probation Department.
CYS personnel served to facilitate this process of
interagency communication and cooperation.
Categories of gang members were identified. These
included gang leaders, core members, fringe
members, and even family members who might also be
gang affiliated. Other youth admitted their gang
membership. Some of the youth were identified by
the dress or gang colors they wore. The police
began to check and track gang incidents on the
basis of the lists developed by GPAG agencies and
police field cards. The members of the Gang
Prevention Action Group (GPAG) used the lists to
monitor alleged gang youth. A special public
meeting of the parents of these identified youth
was called by the Juvenile Probation Department,
which stirred parental consternation and anger
(see Probation below).

Intelligence Gathering. Information on the gang
problem flowed to the police from many quarters.
The YMCA outreach worker, who had established
rapport with gang leaders and members, transmitted
information about gang structure and impending
criminal gang activities. He was able to persuade
some of the gang leaders to provide useful
information during gang crises. School officials
who heard of an impending gang "rumble"
immediately called the police who would send an
unmarked car to verify the impending threat, deter
the action and sometimes make arrests. The police
in turn, if they had information, would notify
Brittenham or his associate, Frazier, the outreach
worker, about impending gang battles. A CYS crisis
team, usually consisting mainly of Frazier,
sometimes Brittenham, and a community resident,
would cruise the streets looking for kids who were
facing each other down and prevent conflict. The
CYS staff, because of "good relations" with the
gang, was able to pull the "power" persons aside
and get them to assist in resolving the gang
fracas before it started.

Enforcement. A special gang enforcement (or
investigative) unit was not established by the
police to focus specifically on youth gangs. The
Juvenile Aid Division continued to carry out its
general juvenile work and in addition
investigated, as well as monitored, gang activity.
However, a task force of foot patrol officers,
comprised of volunteers, was assigned to deal with
gang activity in the affected area. They operated
mainly during the night shift from 5:00 p.m. to
3:00 a.m. The officers were "screened as to
toughness, good mediators, and public relations
men." No black police officers volunteered for the
unit. The task force conducted sweeps, searched
youth for weapons, and made photos and video tapes
of youth. Gang leaders and members were identified
and targeted. The police actions at times bordered
on harassment. About 50 guns were collected and
400 arrests were made during the year 1985-86,
when the gang problem was at its height. Twelve to
fourteen hard-core youth were also incarcerated
for periods of 6 months or more on charges such as
aggravated assault, strong arm robbery, and
vehicle theft. The fact that the arrested youth
were gang members or "involved in gang-like
illegal activity," e.g., burglary, was
communicated to the judge who "enhanced" their
sentences.

There is a difference of view among police
informants as to how effective some of these
suppression activities were. One informant
observes that the curfew sweeps were a "waste of
time and manpower." Youth were quickly released to
parents and police had to provide a taxi cab
service to return youth home. Then, "they were
right back on the street." However, the situation
began to change over time. By the middle of the
summer of 1986, gang youth were no longer carrying
weapons. In September of that year, with the start
of school, gangs began to dissipate. The benefits
of a suppression approach seemed to outweigh its
costs, at least over the short term. The police
also about this time assisted the community in the
development of the Pontiac Youth Center (see
below).

Schools

The schools, as well as probation, recognized
early the importance of a pro-active approach to
the youth gang problem. The schools, a participant
in the Gang Prevention Action Group (GPAG), took a
strong stance and emphasized the importance of
good early warning and information systems. A key
school official believed that effective exchange
of information about youth gang activity was
important and that the targeting of gang
leadership for incarceration or jobs was crucial
in the attack on the problem. A justice system
official notes, however, the mixed motivations of
school officials in the use of "gang lists." Some
school deans, who were mainly concerned with
school security, wanted only to identify gang kids
and "kick them out of school." Other school
officials realized the complexity of the problem,
the general community's responsibility, and were
genuinely interested in helping problem youth.

Cooperation by the schools with the police was
emphasized. The police supplied the names of youth
who were suspected of gang activity to a key
school planning official who ran the list through
the school's computer system. School officials
were then able to determine where gang youth were
located and monitor them more or less closely
depending on their concentration in certain
schools and classes. Information as to which gang
youths were at which schools and where they were
living was supplied to the police who were able to
monitor the youth outside of school hours.
Identification of these youths, including names,
birth dates, schools, and residence, was also
given to Juvenile Probation (See Probation below).
All deans and assistant deans were continually
made aware of pertinent gang-related information
relayed by electronic mail. In turn, they quickly
transferred pertinent information on these youth
to key school liaison, usually for transmittal to
the police.

School officials took a "hard line" against gang
youth and gang activities, even harder than
probation which often advocated "alternative
school programs" for youth who were suspended or
expelled. Suspensions for gang activity were
increased during this early period, from 6 to 12
months. No form of gang activity was permitted on
campus. School officials believed that some older
students sought to transfer to the high schools
from out of town, mainly to sell drugs. To prevent
this, the presence of a parent and records from
their previous school of enrollment were required
before the transfer was completed. A "hard line"
was also taken on drug and alcohol use. "If kids
were caught with drugs or alcohol, they were
'busted' out."

Probation

The Allen County Court Family Relations
Department, and specifically its Juvenile
Probation Field Division, has received national
recognition for its innovative and comprehensive
programming with problem youth. It has an
intensive probation unit, uses urine testing to
monitor possible drug abuse, and employs
electronic monitoring devices in lieu of
incarceration. The Probation Department emphasizes
community-based treatment as well as close
supervision.

The Field Division has five juvenile "drop-in"
centers around the city furnished with offices and
also recreational areas with pool tables, ping
pong and weight machines. They sponsor soccer and
basketball teams for inner city youth, age 8-14
years. These neighborhood centers provide
education, job-readiness training. and work-
related opportunities. A wilderness site has been
created with the aid of the Lincoln National Life
Insurance Company, where youth can fish and camp.
Group rap sessions led by trained graduate social
workers are also available.

Duane Hinshaw, Supervisor of Field Services of
Juvenile Probation, claims that the Probation
Department was one of the early leaders to
recognize the gang problem and do something about
it. Probation officers in neighborhood centers
located in the gang neighborhoods became
especially sensitive to the emergence of the
problem, since probationers often had difficulty
getting to the centers and were occasionally
assaulted. In response, juvenile probation
officers began to escort youth through these
areas.

The Probation Department urged and strongly
supported the development of the Coalition for
Youth Services and the Gang Prevention Action
Group. The Department was especially concerned
about the lack of trust among agencies. Hinshaw
notes that even after the formation of CYS, it
took close to a year before effective working
relationships were created. The Probation
Department, however, was very proactive in its
concern with the gang problem.

In one instance, the Field Division utilized the
list of gang members compiled by the schools and
police under the aegis of the GPAG to "summon"
parents of alleged gang youth to a town meeting.
The letter to parents stated that their child was
possibly involved in gang activity and asked them
to come to the Court House to a town meeting
discussion. The meeting was chaired by Ken Watson,
the Chief Probation officer. The County Coroner
was also present and provided information on
gunshot and stab wounds. Many of the parents
became extremely upset. They denied their children
were gang members. They wanted to know why their
children were suspected of being gang members.

The mood of the parents was very hostile until one
of the most vocal parents used the meeting as an
opportunity to urge the development of an after-
school recreational facility for youth, since many
youth claimed they did not have enough to do. This
discussion lead to the idea for the creation of
the Pontiac Youth Center. The parents agreed to
volunteer their time. An advisory committee was
formed. Members of the police foot patrol unit
assisted parents in the furnishing and renovation
of a building for the Youth Center.

YMCA/CYS/GPAG. The United Way, influenced by key
business and community leaders concerned with the
rise of social children and youth problems in the
city, established a citywide task force to
consider means to deal with them. The YMCA,
particularly Dave Brittenham, was involved and
influential in these formative discussions in 1982
and 1983 which resulted in a three-year youth
services program. A key objective of the program
was interagency coalition building and the
solicitation of funding for projects developed by
agencies in the coalition to deal with the
problems. Agency resources were expected to be
better interrelated and used more efficiently.

Two key problems had to be overcome for the
successful building of the interagency coalition:
[1] a history of competition, distrust, and
inertia in interagency endeavors; and, [2]
underlying tension and distrust between the black
and white community particularly in regard to
recognizing and addressing problems largely of
low-income black, disadvantaged inner city
community residents.

Dave Brittenham, a social worker, had extensive
experience as a YMCA director in Detroit, Chicago,
and St. Louis and was an astute, non-threatening,
innovative administrator. He was able to establish
the Coalition for Youth Services (CYS) as an
umbrella organization under the aegis of the YMCA.
Its component action groups, comprised members who
were operational persons from key agencies
concerned with the different children and youth
problems. With the assistance of his associate,
Mel Frazier, he carefully played a series of roles
in regard to the development of the Gang
Prevention Action Group (GPAG), including
interagency communicator, program facilitator,
crisis manager, and at times outreach worker. A
key activity of the group was the "fast sharing of
information" with key operational persons during
gang crises and the avoidance of formal
bureaucratic procedures or political
considerations.

An executive committee of GPAG was set up
comprising key actors from the police, schools,
and probation, as well as the YMCA. The
interagency group operated with some secrecy. Its
decisions and operational procedures were not
widely communicated outside of the group. Trust
developed largely due to the skillful, self-
effacing efforts of Brittenham. The Chief of
Police became more cooperative when he realized
that the schools wanted swift action and that Dave
Brittenham was not running for mayor. Brittenham
was especially concerned about maintaining the
group's unity and confidentiality of its decision-
making process.

Brittenham was also somewhat sensitive to the
interests and concerns of the black community. He
was aware that when it came to certain social
problems, blacks and whites tended to go their
separate ways. He believed that "what you had to
do was find creative ways to make blacks and
whites partners in a collective effort." He was
able to partially do this through employment of
Melvin Frazier, a black associate coordinator, who
not only had special responsibility as an outreach
worker to black gang youth but who was able to
relate both to the grassroots black community and
the authoritative or established white
institutions, especially the police. Frazier had
to demonstrate his credibility with adults in the
disadvantaged neighborhoods as well as not
threaten key city officials.

Frazier proved to be admirably suited for the job.
He was "resilient to the ups and downs of outreach
work, and committed to work around the clock." He
came to be seen as a positive presence by the
police department. He did not criticize police
strategy or activity. He let youth know up front
that he would pass on certain types of information
to the police, when it was in the best interests
of youth. At the same time, he went out of his way
to assist youth and their families when they were
in crises, gang-related and otherwise. He
counseled and referred them for various services,
particularly jobs. The Lincoln National Life
Insurance Company established a special program of
employing youth at risk, as well as hard-core gang
youth. Part-time after-school jobs, along with
arrests, seemed to be a useful strategy.

The CYS eventually evolved into a networking and
planning agency, comprising a coalition of job-
training programs, a ministerial group, hospitals,
child-care agencies, grassroots groups, and
community action organizations. A drug prevention
action group has recently been organized.
Representatives of over 50 agencies participate. 
Key organizations, black and white, are involved
in various aspects of the interagency coalition
program. To what extent the coalition,
particularly its gang action group, has been able
to directly reach out and obtain cooperation of
residents of the disadvantaged black community is
unclear. Many of the agency representatives
contacted agree that parents of gang youth -- many
of them single parents -- were not successfully
involved, except for the development of the
Pontiac Youth Center. The schools, police, or
youth agencies were generally not able to mobilize
local grassroots groups to support their efforts.

CYS was able, however, to organize "8 to 10
merchants at the corner of Pontiac and Anthony
into an association . . . to work with the police"
to keep the area clear of gangs. The area was
cleaned up in about five months. . . . Gang
activity was displaced to other areas." There was
also some effort expended by GPAG in meetings with
residents at apartment complexes. Police, prosecu-
tors, and social agency staff made presentations.
Residents were informed about who they could call
in an emergency. They were also made aware of
educational and social programs available for
youth.

The basis for the Coalition for Youth Services
(CYS) and the principles of its operation are
articulated as follows:

"A smaller city will have a greater chance of
effectively addressing a developing gang problem
if it is confronted during its early stages. It is
also important for a community to realize that
gang development is a symptom of deeper causes
which must be addressed . . . gang development is
a community problem which cries out for a
collaborative community response" (Coalition for
Youth Services, U.D., p. 4).

Principles of community collaboration include (1)
The development and acceptance by agencies of
certain "facilitating leadership" . . . Someone
must have the vision and be willing and capable of
providing organization and coordinating roles.
This facilitating role is necessary to get the
process started, to get the right individuals
together at the right time to address the right
issue; (2) Significant "key" participants/
organizations must be part of the process; (3)
Issues must be identified, accepted, and (there
must be) commitment to follow through by the key
individuals/ organizations; (4) Procedures and
organizational mechanisms, whether simple or
complex, must also exist to facilitate
collaboration.

The underlying basis for these principles was: (1)
Willingness of participating parties/organizations
to give up a degree of recognition and control of
end results because of the greater value
recognized through the results of collaborative
efforts; (2) The facilitating leadership and
organization needed to be non-threatening, held in
high esteem, and have a reputation for operational
competence; (3) Trust between participating
parties (especially key individuals and
organizations) is necessary in order to bridge any
past, present, or future negative dynamics; (4)
Significant support is necessary from the power
base of participating organization(s) and/or
government(s); (5) The more comprehensive the
collaborative effort, the greater the need for
broad-based power support; and (6) Sustained
"intentional connectedness" would result from
effectively working toward a common purpose
(Ibid., pp. 6-10).

Assessment

The emerging youth gang problem is perceived as
eliminated or reduced in Fort Wayne since about
1986. It is not clear, however, that crime by
youth gang or former youth gang members has
abated. The major problem(s) of current concern to
key agency persons is drug trafficking and drug
use. There is a difference of view as to whether
"former" gang members are involved in drug
trafficking, although there is general agreement
that drug use by juveniles, including younger gang
members, is not a serious problem. There is also a
difference of opinion as to whether the
disappearance of the gang problem or its
quiescence is directly associated with an increase
of drug trafficking. However, CYS and its Gang
Prevention Action Group (GPAG) believe that the
reduction of the gang phenomena, in its visible,
congregate, assaultive form, resulted largely from
its collaborative efforts.

Statistical evidence is not available or at least
not accessible to test any of these propositions.
A key data problem may be the lack of consensus on
what constitutes a gang or gang incident and to
what extent all crime committed by gang members
should be considered gang-related. The distinction
between the activity of law-violating youth groups
and youth gangs also seems unclear. Definitions of
the problem by key actors appear to be variable.
However, it is likely that the close working
relationships of key actors and their common
understanding of who gang kids were and what the
gang problem was in specific situations overcame
differences in articulation or conceptualization
of the problem.

According to a school official, a gang-related
incident is a situation involving two or more
identified gang members resulting in a hostile or
illegal situation. "Most incidents were gang
fighting." According to Dave Brittenham, "we have
a loose definition -- any behavior which is actual
or potential of a violent or socially unacceptable
nature involving youth known to be members of, or
associated with, an identified gang." Duane
Hinshaw of the Probation Department, however,
indicates that a gang incident or gang-related
offense is difficult to identify. Activity such as
drug behavior, vehicle thefts, and burglaries by
suspected gang members should not necessarily be
regarded as gang motivated or related.

The focal definition of the Coalition for Youth
Services is very broad. A gang-related incident is
"youth activity and/or behavior which is unlawful,
harmful, and/or excessively antisocial which needs
to be addressed in its own right as well as being
or potentially being associated with gang
activity. The activities include, but are not
necessarily limited to, breaking and entering,
burglary, theft, drug use and dealing, auto theft,
and robbery, etc."

It is possible that law or norm violating behavior
by youth groups was made equivalent to youth gang
behavior. Youth gang behavior may also have been
viewed as more characteristic of or attributed to
black than to white youth. This is not to deny
that logos, graffiti, colors, gang fights, or
drive-bys are clearly gang-related behaviors and
also occurred. Further, it is possible that in a
city with an emerging gang problem, law violating
youth groups and youth gangs and their respective
behaviors are difficult to distinguish.

There is more consistency in reports about the
appearance and disappearance of gangs, mainly
traditional gangs. There was no noticeable gang
problem in 1980, although there were possibly some
youth groups engaged in law or norm violating
behavior at the time. The gang problem in its
visible form started around 1982 or 1983. It
reached a peak in 1985 or 1986, when three to five
significant gangs were identified, with average
memberships of 50 to 60 members each. By 1987 or
1988, there was no longer a set of youth gangs
committing typical or traditional youth gang
problems. Sergeant Roach of the Juvenile Aid
Division recently reports that a series of video
surveillance activities at traditional youth
hangouts, carried out in relation to a series of
vehicle thefts and armed robberies, revealed that
no new gang activity was occurring.

While there is agreement that the reduction of
traditional youth gang activity paralleled a
significant increase in drug dealing activity,
there are different views about the connection
between these two trends. Chief of Police Moore
states there has been a "significant increase in
the number of crack houses in the city." He
believes that the decrease in traditional gang
activity is linked to the involvement of older
gang members or former gang members in the drug
trade. He states there is less overt traditional
gang activity because "it could hurt their drug
profits. Recent investigations of the crack
dealers in the city have turned up the names of
former gang members." There is some agreement that
a major reason for the crack trade is the movement
of dealers from Detroit into Fort Wayne. Juveniles
are often reported to be street suppliers and
runners.

Duane Hinshaw of the Probation Department is less
sure that the reduction of gang activity and the
rise of the drug problem, at least as it is
related to juveniles, are linked. He states that a
few of the former gang leaders are now "strung-out
on crack," but many juvenile gang members have not
been involved in selling or using crack. He adds
there was at least a year separating the decline
of gang activity and the rise of the drug problem.
Most juveniles are still into use of alcohol and
marijuana. Another police informant suggests that
while the influx of crack may not have had an
impact on reducing traditional gang activity, it
could still be a factor in preventing the re-
emergence of traditional gang activity. In other
words, the efforts of CYS, GPAG, and the key
response agencies individually and collectively
could still have been significantly responsible
for the reduction of the gang problem.

Duane Hinshaw and other justice system officials
also state that criminal offenses by juveniles
"have not gone down" in recent years. Total
offenses for youth and adults have consistently
gone up while the population has remained
relatively stable. Burglaries, robberies and
homicides are up. It is possible that some former
gang members using drugs are now into more
burglaries and auto thefts to support drug habits,
although they may not be heavily into drug
trafficking. According to Hinshaw, the rise of the
drug problem and other criminal offenses may not
be related to the lack of jobs. There is currently
full employment in Fort Wayne. "Employment of kids
has gone up." The key problem is the lack of basic
academic skills of many street youths and
therefore their failure to be employed.

Captain Greer of the Juvenile Aid Division agrees
that few juveniles have been involved in drug
trafficking. Only three cases were reported during
the past year. He indicates further that he has no
reports of youth gang members arrested as part of
crack house raids, although older "former" gang
members have been involved. About 50 of 100 crack
houses have been closed down. No major drug
problems have been identified in the schools. "We
had a police informant positioned in the schools
for some time, but he was unable to buy anything."
He adds "There are not a lot of kids in drug
treatment."

A school official and Dave Brittenham suggest,
however, that there may be heavy involvement by
youth in drug selling and using, although it is
not clear how many of them are gang members. The
school official states that "kids in the middle
school are becoming involved with crack house
operations and most of the youths are from Fort
Wayne." Dave Brittenham claims that drug use is
widespread in the black and white adult and youth
populations. Furthermore, "younger kids are being
used as lookouts and runners. Kids are making fast
bucks. There is minimal competition between drug
factions, but this is beginning to change."

Brittenham suggests that the drug problem is more
complex and elusive than the traditional youth
gang problem and that the city and CYS have not
yet been as successful in dealing with it.
"Whereas in our previous gang situation we knew
who our players were, this is not the case now.
Our network approach on this issue has not clicked
yet." The city administration and police
department, although they have moved somewhat
forcefully, have also not been as effective in
dealing with the problem, as they were with the
traditional gang problem. Furthermore, the low
number of juvenile drug cases may be the result of
reporting procedures. The drug cases, juvenile or
adult, are handled by the narcotics division, but
they may not have specifically identified the
juvenile cases.

Finally, Sergeant Roach of the Juvenile Division,
Police Department, observes that CYS recently
sponsored a reunion of former gang members. "The
purpose was to see what was happening with the
gang situation in Fort Wayne. It was a big
success. Over 300 people turned out. Some of the
former gang members were now in school. Some had
jobs. They didn't seem to be interested in gangs
anymore. This led us to believe that gang activity
is at a standstill."

Conclusion

Our knowledge of the changing or disappearing gang
problem in Fort Wayne is handicapped by
insufficiency of data and lack of consistency in
definition and reporting. Nevertheless, there is
sufficient evidence to conclude that there was an
emerging gang problem in the city in the early
1980s and that a process of collaboration among
schools, police, and agencies was effective in its
control or reduction. The reduction of traditional
gang activity occurred also within a context of an
emerging, larger scale and more complex drug
problem that probably involved some gang youth and
older gang or former gang members.

The collaboration of key persons or organizations
dealing with the gang problem was mainly at the
interagency level and employed a primary deterrent
strategy by a variety of actors, supplemented by
social intervention. It is not clear that
significant preventive or community mobilization
efforts were employed, e.g., parenting classes,
use of special curricula, remedial education;
police based-sponsored community education about
the gang problem; or that efforts to mobilize
concerned parent or other direct citizen
involvement were significantly developed.

Some of the comments of informants regarding the
causes and response to the problem include concern
that there is social isolation of significant
sections of the black community and xenophobia or
racism by key elements of the white population.
One informant notes that all of the juvenile gang
members institutionalized on battery charges were
blacks. "If these kids would have been white
middle class, they probably wouldn't have been
sent away."

Another informant indicates there may have been
some violations of confidentiality of information
and youth privacy. The identification of juveniles
as gang members and their subsequent placement on
gang lists that were circulated and used as a
basis for the actions of various agencies were
based both on suspicion or hearsay as well as some
good evidence. Better criteria and procedures were
needed to establish and verify gang membership.

The remarks of the Fort Wayne informants were
extremely open and honest, reflecting deep concern
with the welfare and social development of Fort
Wayne youth as well as the safety and protection
of the broader community. Yet, Frazier, the YMCA
(CYS) associate coordinator and outreach worker,
perceives the current situation pessimistically:
"The streets are now more dangerous than before
and drug dealers have been able to more easily
penetrate communities because of the worsening
economic situation." On the other hand, Duane
Hinshaw of Juvenile Probation emphasizes that at
least one aspect of the gang situation, probably
as narrowly defined, has improved: "The number of
youths involved in shootings or caught with
weapons has actually gone down in recent times."
Despite some of these different perceptions, Fort
Wayne represents one of the best examples of a
tight networking approach spanning criminal
justice and non-criminal justice agencies of all
the cities examined in our survey (n=45).
Community agencies were mobilized and a generally
consistent approach, mainly suppression but also
social intervention, was established and
successfully implemented.

References

Young Mens Christian Association (YMCA). undated.
"Coalition for Youth Services." Fort Wayne,
Indiana.

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

CASE STUDY 3

Draper Cottage
Ethan Allen School for Boys
Bureau of Juvenile Services
Division of Corrections
Department of Health and Social Services
Wisconsin

Background
(Quotations, unless otherwise identified are from
oral written remarks by Draper Cottage staff or
Superintendent Oscar Shade.)

The Draper Cottage of the Ethan Allen School for
Boys is located in Wales, Wisconsin, a relatively
short distance from Chicago. It is one of the very
few programs in the country which attempts to deal
with the distinctive problems of gang youth in a
residential or institutional context. This
institutional program may be unique in its focus
on gang youth, its variety of activities, and its
intentions and plans to evaluate the effectiveness
of its correctional and rehabilitative efforts.

It is difficult to include corrections along with
other components of the justice system in a site
visit to a city, since correctional institutions
are often isolated from or not significantly
related to community programs. However, since gang
youth tend to be at higher risk than other kinds
of delinquents of being sent to a correctional or
residential facility, it seemed important to
specifically visit and describe such a program.

The Ethan Allen School for Boys is one of two
medium security youth corrections institutions for
the most serious and difficult to manage juvenile
offenders in Wisconsin. It is 125 miles northwest
of the Chicago Loop, located between Milwaukee and
Madison in a rich farm and resort area. The
institution contains two types of structures set
on a campus surrounded by a wooded area. The large
buildings were constructed early in the 20th
century as part of a tuberculosis hospital
complex. Other well constructed cottages date from
the 1960's. The School is visibly separated from
its environment by a high, 14-foot fence topped
with a 3-foot roll of barbed wire. Entrance to the
institution is through two sets of electronically
operated security doors. Once past security, the
School appears to be an attractive campus with
relatively free and open access for residents and
staff, albeit within the secure enclosure.

The institution has a recent history of relatively
liberal and humanistic administration. The School
was established in its present location in 1959.
The first administrator developed a cottage system
which provided youth with a considerable degree of
privacy and personal freedom. Each youth had his
own room and was permitted to wear his own clothes
and keep personal belongings. An approach which
emphasized education and personal change, in
addition to discipline, was inaugurated during the
26-year tenure of the first superintendent.

Dr. Oscar Shade is a 58-year-old African-American
with a Ph.D. in Education who has been the
superintendent since 1984. He has continued and
further developed the humanistic approach of the
School. His chief innovations thus far have been a
democratic, decentralized administration and a
specialized set of programs. Considerable
responsibility resides in program managers and
social service staff for different programs and
operation of the cottage complex. Special programs
and cottages have been established for the
following kinds of problem youth: drug and alcohol
abusers, sex offenders, serious delinquents, older
offenders, younger offenders, those requiring
intensive treatment, as well as hard-core gang
offenders. Vilas Hall, known to the youth
residents as the "hole," is the "discipline"
cottage. Dr. Shade's aim is to optimize
communication between different types of staff as
well as with the youth offenders for purposes of
improved rehabilitation and preventive work.

The Ethan Allen School for Boys emphasizes
education and preparation of youth for future
learning. More specifically, its purposes are to
prepare youth for return to the community with
changed attitudes and values that emphasize
legitimate behavioral career goals. Less
explicitly, its mission, of course, is to protect
the community from serious juvenile offenders. The
means to achieve these social educational purposes
include the provision of opportunities for basic
remedial, developmental, and exceptional
education, as well as industrial arts and
recreation. Social and psychological services,
psychiatric consultation as well as security
arrangements are present. A qualified and
certified staff is available to operate the
program.

Three hundred twenty-two (322) youths were
residents at The Ethan Allen School for Boys in
May 1989. The average age of offenders was 16-1/2
years; 60.5 percent are black, 31.7 percent are
white, and 7.1 percent are Hispanic. The age of
offenders and the proportion of minority youth
have been going up in recent years. The majority
of youth in the institution have a history of 4 or
5 prior placements for offenses. Youth are
referred to Ethan Allen School mainly for property
crimes (e.g., burglary, robbery) but also for
sexual assaults and batteries. Four or five have
been sent to the institution for homicides. There
is a reported increase in gang affiliated youth in
recent years. The average stay of offenders is 8
to 10 months, although there appear to be
pressures from legislators (for economic reasons)
and community reformers to reduce time spent at
the institution. Upon discharge, approximately 70
percent of the youth are released to alternative
placements in the community, the remainder are
sent home.

It should be noted that the institution does not
determine length of stay of inmates. A juvenile
review board establishes the disposition based on
the needs of the particular youth within a
philosophy of least restrictive placement, but
also with due regard for community safety and
protection.

The Draper Cottage assigned for designated hard-
core or committed gang youth presently contains 27
residents. The average age of Draper Cottage youth
is about 17-1/2 years. A recent analysis indicates
that 84.8 percent are black; 10.3 percent
Hispanic, and 1 youth, 3.3 percent are white. In
other words, the cottage contains relatively
older, more minority and fewer white youth than
the institution as a whole. Draper Cottage youth
are also more serious offenders, with longer
histories of assaultive crime. The pattern of
offenses for which gang youth are referred to the
institution and placed in Draper Cottage has
changed in recent years, with more involvement in
drug offenses and participation in organized
criminal behavior. Twenty-two of 30 youth most
recently resident in Draper have been charged with
drug trafficking. Draper Cottage Youth generally
stay longer than those in the institution-at-
large.

Two hundred sixty-two (262) staff are assigned to
deal with Ethan Allen's youth population, as
follows: 143 youth counseling staff, including
supervisory personnel, 50 teachers, 14 social
workers, 10 food service workers, 20 maintenance
staff, and the remainder administration and
supervisory personnel. Each cottage houses 20 to
30 boys. Staffing is staggered so that on the
first and third shifts, when the boys are either
at school or asleep, one counselor is on duty at
each cottage. Two counselors work during the
afternoon and evening hours.

The cost of the Ethan Allen School for Boys
program is $33,000.00 to $35,000.00 a year per
youth. Reliable data on recidivism are not
available at this time. Estimates vary from 50
percent to 70 percent. "In a four year study about
50 percent entered the adult system on either
probation or incarceration. While a significant
percent of the youth released from Ethan Allen
School do return and thereby recidivate, a
significant percentage of these are returned for
rules violations rather than new violations of the
law."

The apparent high recidivism rate, however
computed, may be due in large measure to selection
factors. The worst or most serious juvenile
offenders in the state are present in Ethan Allen.
Community pressure is also building to close one
of the two youth correctional institutions in
favor of less costly and perhaps more effective
programs, including intensive probation
supervision, more youth employment programs, and
more front end preventive programs, including
court orders for youth to remain in school in the
community.

Draper Cottage

The creation of the Draper Cottage for gang youth
(i.e., a specialized correctional gang unit) may
be traced to several factors: more and more youth
were arriving, especially from Milwaukee, whose
crimes seemed to be gang-related or inspired; the
Milwaukee Police Department had formed a gang unit
and thereby influenced the development of a
specialized unit in the institution; the
specialized program pattern by the institution of
assigning youth with similar problems to the same
cottage; and the Superintendent's belief that the
school had a special responsibility to teach and
assist minority youth, especially gang youth, to
modify their behavior and pursue a more productive
course.

Between 1984 and 1986, an institutional study
committee was organized to learn "about the issues
of youth gangs" and to discover what was occurring
in the field to deal with the issues. Several
adult and juvenile institutions were visited or
contacted by mail. Nothing was published or
available that could be used as a guide. "Most
agencies were dealing with the phenomena by simple
suppression of the behavior." According to Dr.
Shade, "Our own experience, the behavior of the
residents as well as what they were telling us,
made it abundantly clear that the issues were far
more significant than could be dealt with by
suppression alone."

A staff work group decided to develop a "gang
program" that would work not with gang-affiliated
youth but those who had assumed positions of
street-gang leadership, who had a history of
aggressive-assaultive behavior, and who "to the
best of our intelligence gathering, had a
connection between their delinquent acts and their
gangism." The decision was made to "provide a
broader educational and social-psychological
rehabilitation" program within the institution for
those "residents who posed the greatest risk to
the community."

Ethan Allen School invested "a great deal of time
and resources in the training of staff" in the use
of relevant psychological approaches for dealing
with criminally oriented youth, e.g., "Behavioral
Errors in Thinking." A special consulting
psychologist, Dr. Dave Smith, was hired to teach
the model and its implementation. The counseling
model is a cognitive approach to rectifying poor
decision-making and is based upon the work of
Stanton Samenow and Samuel Yechelson.
Nevertheless, it is not clear that staff have
received adequate training specifically relevant
to youth gang phenomenon, particularly its group
and community-related aspects.

Some staff turnover has been experienced in the
Draper Cottage program, but this is no more
serious than in any other program operated by the
institution. Turnover is not specifically related
to the type of program being developed at Draper.
The management and control problems of youth in
the Cottage are typical of those generally
encountered in most institutional settings. A
recent report observed, however, that "although
the residents still require a great deal of
monitoring and control, they respond to the
permanent staff and generally have few problems in
the Cottage; however, when relief staff work in
the Cottage without a permanent counselor, it is
not uncommon to experience behavioral problems --
particularly with youth recently assigned to the
Cottage (A Program and Operations Review 1988, p.
111)."

The Ethan Allen School approaches the problem of
rehabilitation of gang youth emphasizing social
education as well as a community-based strategy of
suppression and control. Primary contacts are made
with law enforcement departments in Kenosha,
Racine, Beloit, and Madison, as well as Milwaukee,
to obtain gang-related information prior to
arrival to the school, as a basis for diagnosis
and cottage placement, as well as for monitoring
the youth's progress when he goes on furlough and
determining whether he remains out of the gang
after his release from the Draper Program. A
relationship has also been established with the
Midwest Gang Crime Investigators Association for
staff training and policy guidance purposes.

Specific procedures have been formulated to carry
out monitoring and supervisory objectives. The
Draper Cottage Program depends on the correct
identification of youth who are gang members, the
nature and severity of their gang-related
offenses, and whether gang youth return to gang
affiliation and gang-motivated offenses upon
release. Law enforcement information and
cooperation is essential to the effective
implementation of these facets of the School
program. The Ethan Allen School relies heavily on
police-level information to determine the
eligibility of the youth offender for the Draper
Program. In turn, the police are notified when a
Draper Cottage youth returns to the community. A
questionnaire is also directed to the police
department to determine whether the youth
continues to associate with gang members and
whether the criminal acts he may commit are gang-
related. The designation of a former Draper
Cottage youth as gang-affiliated is made if the
youth is seen by the police department (in
Milwaukee), with other gang members on five or
more occasions.

In addition, there is some interaction by the
School with community-based aftercare programs.
The Career Youth Development Agency in Milwaukee
has established ties with the institution to offer
a variety of services to youth upon their
discharge (See below). Major aftercare linkage,
however, is carried out through field parole units
and contracted group homes and half-way houses.
Ethan Allen staff also exchange information on
gang-related matters with other adult and juvenile
correctional institutions in the state, for gang
management and control purposes.

Cottage Selection Criteria and Special Youth
Characteristics

The Draper Cottage Program addresses the problems
of gang youth in terms of not only their
distinctive personal and social needs but in
relation to their potential influence in the Ethan
Allen School at large. Only 20 to 30 gang youth
are selected for admission to the Draper Program,
but in fact 150 or almost half of all resident
youth are estimated to be gang-affiliated. Only
the most serious gang-affiliated youth (i.e.,
highly aggressive, core or leadership gang youth)
are selected for the program. Broader programs
that involve peripheral gang youth or youth at
risk of gang membership in the institution have
not been yet developed.

The purpose of the Draper Cottage Program is to
address the problem of "gangism" and how it may
affect the gang member's delinquency "in an effort
to diminish both." "Gangism," however, is not
specifically defined or described. Group and
contextual factors are at least partially
addressed. Distinction is made between gang-
instituted crime, which grows out of gang
structure, interests, and processes, and other
types of more individually related crime. It is
assumed by program staff that the immediate
genesis of gang behavior is in the needs of youth
for adolescent peer affiliation and for social and
recreational purposes.

However, distinctive cultural, economic, and
social structural factors are viewed as accounting
for the different kinds of gang youth and their
behaviors which the program must confront. It is
assumed that black gang youth are more committed
to criminal organization and economic interests,
that Hispanic gang youth are more identified with
collective group interests and turf traditions,
and that white gang youth, in their gang-
equivalent Satanic cults, are not only often
committed to racist ideology but have more
disturbed personalities than blacks or Hispanics.
Nevertheless, most gang youth come from
dysfunctional and/or single-parent families, or in
some cases homes where parents and other family
members have been gang members or have criminal
histories.

The specific characteristics of youth which become
a basis for program intervention include the poor
educational preparation of gang members. They tend
to be high-school dropouts, although there is no
evidence that they are more in need of one kind of
special education than another. They tend to be
highly aggressive with low self-esteem. A number
of them are substance abusers. Some are fathers
and in need of parenting information. Staff are
continually struggling to understand distinctive
but changing gang linguistic and behavioral forms
to make their interventions meaningful. Youth
apparently do not want staff "to understand their
linguistic and behavior forms." This poses special
challenges for staff.

Program Elements

The basic aim of the Draper Cottage Program is to
"contain gang-related behavior in all activities
. . . and try to teach them to use their skills to
move beyond negative gang behavior and work toward
becoming a better person and citizen, . . . to be
successful without being dependent on gang
activity." The primary model of intervention is
directed at the development of "cognitive skills
of decision-making and the use of rational
thinking rather than emotional response as a means
for determining action and response." A behavioral
framework, including positive reward and negative
consequences, as well as an educational and
recreational resource approach, are also utilized.
The following program opportunities are provided:

- Behavioral Errors in Thinking Counseling (BE-IT)

- Perception and Communications Training (PACT)

- Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse (AODA) Counseling,
Individual and Group

- Anger Reduction Training

- Association with Career Youth Development Inc.
(CYD) for Community Alternatives

- A Reward System at the Cottage Level for
Treatment Progress

- Primary Counselors Providing Direct Counseling
Service

- Post-Ethan Allen School Evaluation

The primary counseling method is the application
of the Behavioral Errors in Thinking (BE-IT),
modified in order to find a "shared language" with
gang youth and to facilitate discussion of gang-
related behavior. These primary errors in thinking
are the basis for encouraging change on an
individual as well as on a group basis: "Victim
Stance"; "Lack of Concern for Others"; "Fears of
Being Put Down"; "Refuses a Trust or Obligation";
"Shows Weak and False Pride"; "Using Anger in a
Wrong Way"; and "Poor Planning and Decision-
Making." The Cottage residents are required to log
daily behaviors that are a result of errors in
thinking, identify the specific error in thinking,
and develop in its place a strategy that would
have been successful. Residents also receive daily
instruction around the errors model.

A second set of activities of the program
emphasizes Perception and Communications Training
(PACT). The mini-course of 12 sessions focuses on
how people communicate with each other, what is
successful communication, and values
clarification. The Cottage also offers Alcohol and
Other Drug Abuse (AODA) counseling through
programs presented by Career Youth Development in
Milwaukee, as well as through the Waukesha Council
on Alcoholism. Anger Reduction Training utilizes a
group process to teach youth skills to control
their anger reaction to various stimuli. The
Career Youth Development Agency provides
counseling mainly on an aftercare basis. Youth are
also encouraged to seek out the agency after
release to complete their G.E.D.

Affiliation with a specific gang is deliberately
not a criterion for residence in the Cottage
program or participation in its activities.
Members of rival gangs are not only housed
together, but participate in the same activities.
The mixing of opposing gangs "does generate some
management challenges," but the design is
justified since it "keeps the gang behavior from
going underground and undetected," and provides
opportunities for staff "to challenge gang values
and participation." Whether staff are fully or
adequately aware of the consequences of mixing
members of different gangs and are able to
confront such behavior is discussed below.

Various gang behaviors are proscribed and
different demerits or punishments are meted out
for different degrees of gang behaviors.
Apparently the way the institution views certain
gang behaviors has changed over time. For example,
"signing is no longer regarded as a major
violation of the rules," particularly when other
more serious gang-related behaviors occur. Youth
are also randomly tested to see if they have used
drugs during weekend furloughs from the
institution.

Assessment

The program has been in existence in its present
form for less than two years. It is too early to
assess the success of the program, which is still
undergoing significant change and development.
Staff are aware they are engaged in an extremely
difficult and challenging enterprise. They are not
sure that they have been successful. They believe
they are doing some things "right" and that the
program may prove worthwhile in the long term.
While it is not possible to assess the program in
terms of recidivism rates, varying aspects of
program implementation may be considered.

Staff regard the Be-It activities as a
particularly important effort to change behavior
and achieve overall program goals. One staff
person believes that youth who complete the Be-It
program recidivate less. A cursory review of
statistical information reveals, however, that
only about a third of the Cottage residents appear
to have attended 10 sessions or more, and another
third have attended zero or one session. PACT
sessions seem to have been poorly attended, with
the majority of youth not attending any sessions
and others attending between four and seven
sessions. These statistics, however, may not take
into consideration that youth who don't accept the
re-education process may be "resistive" and are
then subject to the "discipline process" and a
stay in the so-called discipline cottage, after
which they must start group sessions over again.
The Superintendent estimates that "most youth upon
departure" [from Ethan Allen School] have attended
a range of 24 to 30 sessions.

AODA sessions were also poorly attended. The
majority of youth presently in Draper Cottage
attended two or fewer AODA sessions. However, the
intent of these sessions is to bring youth into
contact with community agencies, as they are being
prepared to leave the institution. In any case,
this program has been recently restructured,
providing more intensive treatment and education.
It now incorporates youth from the entire
institution.

The relationship between frequency of attendance
at these activities and behavioral adjustment
within the institution is also not clear. For
example, there does not appear to be a statistical
relationship between frequency of attendance at
Be-It sessions and the number of days spent in
Level IV, the maximum security for serious rule
violation.

This is not to deny that some youth in Draper
Cottage are making optimal use of program
opportunities, are currently doing well in terms
of conformity to Cottage rules, and have
incorporated -- or at least express -- "desired"
values. Some youth indicate they have profited
from the Draper Cottage activities. We note that
in a recent non-random survey of gang youth in six
different programs, mainly community based, the
youth at Draper Cottage reported the most varied
participation in services and that they were most
often helped by them. To what extent this
acknowledgement is translated into positive
community adaptation is not yet known. On the
other hand, it is possible that a sizable group of
Cottage youth is "playing it cool" and "lying
low." Some may already be committed to organized
criminal careers, particularly in the drug trade.
Drug use within the institution has admittedly
occurred. Its nature is not known or at least
revealed. Some gang recruitment occasionally takes
place. There have been other serious rule
violations by individuals.

Staffing a pioneer demonstration effort such as
the Draper Cottage Program is difficult and
challenging. Better specifically trained gang work
staff is admittedly required. Only one staff
member is a minority group member and from an
inner-city community. Selection of appropriate and
sufficient staff is limited by civil service
requirements. There has been some problem with
staff turnover. It is not clear that staff are
trained to understand the complexities of the
youth gang problem and to develop appropriate
strategies and procedures of intervention in an
institutional context. Expertise to remedy this
deficiency seems not to be readily available.

A staff "wish list" reveals uncertainty about the
value of the program and its prospects. There is a
general sense that the program needs to be
strengthened. Group therapy opportunities should
be expanded. "Criminal thinking behavior" needs to
be better monitored with "immediate constructive
feedback and consequences as appropriate." Staff
is unclear whether there are two few "program
resources" or "too many luxuries" presented to
youth. One staff member was looking for a "quick
fix" to solve the gang problem; for example, a
special procedure, event, or ceremony to "initiate
youth out of the gang." The integration of both
support and control or supervision activities in
regard to gang youth while in the institution and
after release needs to be better conceptualized.

Additionally, the staff seems unclear as the
Draper Cottage Program needs to be further
developed and encapsulated or whether there is a
need to develop a broader, institution-wide
approach. The gang problem appears to be pervasive
in the institution, at different levels of
severity. Many non-Draper staff at Ethan Allen
School are not aware of gang-related behavior by
youth residents and may not respond appropriately,
creating an inconsistent, or at least not a
generally informed, approach. The response to
gang-related behavior is generally well recognized
and consistently addressed within Draper Cottage.
Staff in the Draper Cottage are impressed with the
seriousness of the gang problem and the
difficulties of dealing with it. Some would like a
more isolated, longer term, concentrated, and
restrictive program for seriously committed gang
youth. Other staff favor an earlier, more
preventive approach. "Get the kids at a younger
age," 13 or 14 years at the time of their second
or third offense. Older adolescent gang youth may
be too far gone for a rehabilitative program.

Staff believe that they have worked very hard and
have accomplished a good deal, but are clearly
uncertain how effective their efforts have been.
There is a sense that a variety of factors over
which they have no control, such as general
institutional policy, legislative, criminal
justice system, and community pressures will
significantly influence the future of the program.

We remain unsure about the extent of the gang
problem in Ethan Allen School. However, the
Superintendent estimates that based on police
reports, 50 percent to 60 percent of youth
generally at the institution may be regarded as
gang-affiliated at some level. Draper Cottage
addresses only about 20 percent of the most
serious gang offenders. To what extent the
problems that staff have to contend with in regard
to Draper Cottage youth reflect problems of
institutionalization or problems of gang
affiliation, or both, remain unclear. The
Superintendent, nevertheless, declares that the
institutional "gang problem is in better control
and management today than at any other time in
recent history."

Conclusion

The Ethan Allen School for Boys has recognized
that a youth gang problem exists both in the
institution as well as in the community and has
attempted to deal with the problem in its various
manifestations in meaningful ways. A dedicated
professional staff and administration are
confronting the problem in a humanistic manner
consistent with community interests and values.
There are few, if any, guidelines for staff to
follow in this challenging effort. It is not clear
that an appropriate overall design to deal with
the problem has yet been developed or that certain
elements may prove effective. At this time, the
program seems to be in a state of clarification
and further development. The institution is
commendably committed to an evaluation of the
effectiveness of its program. To what extent the
program has sufficient external support and
consistency of internal direction and staff has
the knowledge to mount an effective program remain
to be determined. There are apparently a number of
obstacles to creation of a special institutional
program geared to the youth gang problem. Research
results on this unique and remarkable program are
expected to be forthcoming in 1990.

References

Shade, Oscar D. 1988. "A Program and Operations
Review." Ethan Allen School. Bureau of Juvenile
Services. Department of Health and Social Services
Division of Corrections, Wisconsin. December.

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

CASE STUDY 4
Columbus, Ohio

Background

Columbus, a city of over half a million, situated
in Franklin County, is located in the center of
the state with major roads to other large cities
in Ohio as well as to Detroit and Chicago.
Columbus has been expanding into the county for
almost forty years. It now contains an area of
about 200 square miles, with an increasingly
diverse population. Blacks comprise 22 percent of
the population, a sizable number of whom are poor,
congregated in low-rise, low-income public housing
on the near east side of the central city.

Columbus is the capital of Ohio with a thriving,
well-balanced economy. A major high-tech industry
has grown up over the years, partly around Ohio
State University, including a world renown
research center, Battele Memorial Institute. A
well-trained, highly educated work force is
associated with state government, industry, and
the university. Columbus has a relatively low
unemployment rate of 6 percent compared to other
large cities in the Midwest. Still this is an
increase from 3.8 percent in 1970. Columbus has
fewer manufacturing jobs than in an earlier
period. The available jobs now require higher
levels of education and training than many members
of the black population, particularly its youth,
possess. The drop-out rate for black youth is 50
percent or more, with estimates for gang youth of
90 to 100 percent. Nevertheless, Columbus
continues to have a reputation as a typical
American city, with a stable middle class
population, conservative politically but with a
rich tradition of innovation in education and
social service fields.

The Gang Problem

Columbus recently identified a youth gang and
youth violence problem. While the youth gang
problem was mainly a black inner-city problem, it
also affected Franklin County, including
predominately white suburban communities, such as
Washington and Ground View. The problem was
different in different communities. For example,
some youth gang members were mainly disruptive at
football games and shopping malls. However, 90
percent of the youth gangs are estimated to be
black (Huff 1989, p. 526).

A youth gang problem emerged between 1983 and 1984
and peaked around 1987. Huff observes that between
April 1986 and May 1988, there were 20 "separately
named gangs," but "the number of truly separate,
viable gangs at present is approximately fifteen"
(Huff 1989, p. 526). Since then a "crack" problem
has developed, resulting, according to many
sources in the city, from "outside penetration by
older gang members from Detroit and Los Angeles."
The "crack" problem has also been associated with
rising rates of robbery, theft, and burglary as
well as individual-level violence. The youth gang
problem apparently began when several street
groups engaged in break dancing or "rapping"
evolved into youth gangs. Members of street groups
engaged in property crime, auto theft,
shoplifting, and burglary before they developed
gang names, symbols, colors and engaged in gang
conflict. Some of the gangs in the early period
were white, however, most are now black, or at
least the problem is recognized and defined as
black. A United Way source indicates that a youth
gang problem, in fact, exists in several white
suburban communities, but police, schools, and
parents in these communities state they "do not
have a problem." The current coordinator of the
Youth Outreach Program adds that the "drug problem
is not exclusively a black problem as evidenced by
the recent arrest of suburban whites and other
ethnic group members."

A variety of reasons have been presented for the
development of traditional -- although not
necessarily turf-based -- gangs and their later
transformation to drug dealing groups or cliques:
the busing of students from opposing gang
neighborhoods to the same high school; the
presence of a family with gang-wise youth recently
moved from Los Angeles; the splintering and spread
of gangs; the expansion of the narcotics trade
from Detroit to Columbus; and deteriorating
economic opportunities for mainly poor, relatively
unskilled, and isolated black youth; although the
current unemployment situation may be beginning to
affect some white youths as well.

Youth gangs are viewed as aggressive and coercive,
engaging in a broad range of criminal behaviors.
One source indicated that two to three killings
could be attributed to gang activity in the early
period. However, much of the youth gang activity
occurred in and around roller rinks, recreation
centers, shopping centers and buses. Students at
some of the schools began to wear colors, signify,
i.e., "throw gang handsigns," and engage in
recruitment activities in the early period.
Although some gang altercations occurred at school
football games, no substantial evidence of drug
use or trafficking was reported on school grounds.

Youth gang structure and activities have changed
in the past three years. The number of gangs has
declined from an estimated 15 or more gangs with a
membership of 800 in the mid-1980s to an estimated
5 to 8 gangs with a total membership between 50
and 400, currently. Youth gangs have become
smaller, better organized, less visible and more
closely related to older youth and young adults
engaged in drug trafficking. However, it is not
clear that gangs per se have gone into the drug
trafficking business. It is more likely that gang
or former gang members are involved in the drug
trade on an individual or small clique basis.

One justice system source claims that youth 12
years and possibly younger are now used as
lookouts and runners; those 13 to 16 years are
employed as street dealers and runners; 17 to 19
year olds may be used as the drug holders, and
those who are older play significant roles in
running the crack houses. The youth are mainly
from poor, single-parent families, dropouts with
little prospect of obtaining well paying
legitimate jobs. However, a number of middle class
clean-cut black youth, some who do well at school,
are said to have recently become involved in the
drug trade. But it is not clear that these youths
are also youth gang members. Some black youth do
not see "themselves having a stake in the future
through legitimate channels." However, only two of
the gangs are reported with a primary commitment
to drug dealing. Drug use and trafficking play a
secondary role to traditional youth gang
activities for the majority of youth gangs.
Companionship, status, protection, intimidation,
and partying remain primary gang activity.

Community Response

Certain events may have precipitated the
community's awareness of a gang problem and the
need for agencies to do something about it. The
media paid a great deal of attention to two
instances of gang attack on youth in Columbus in
1985 and 1986. The Governor's daughter and the
Mayor's son were attacked in separate gang
incidents. A gang leader who was interviewed on
T.V. and made threats against another gang was
killed in a drive-by shooting a few days later. A
school superintendent, caught in the middle of a
gang altercation at a school football game,
"jumped out front" in getting the community to do
something about the problem. The Mayor also met
with a group of gang youth who informed him of
their lack of training and consequent inability to
find job opportunities.

A group of community and agency leaders, including
representatives of local city government, the
Metropolitan Human Services commission, and
service agencies began to meet in 1985 (Foulk
1987). The group focused on law enforcement,
coordination of existing youth agencies, and the
development of a special program entity, the Youth
Outreach Project (YOP), to both divert core-gang
members into the "mainstream" and also to provide
youth at the "fringe" of gangs with alternatives
to gang activity (Ibid., p. 1).

Responsibility for funding YOP and/or providing
in-kind services was undertaken mainly by the
United Way of Franklin County, the City of
Columbus, the Columbus Board of Education, and the
Columbus Foundation. The project was administered
over the first two years by United Way. The
schools provided the first and later the second
project coordinator. In each case, school
administrators were released for the special
assignment. The Franklin County Youth Coordinating
Committee provided general oversight and
evaluation of the project. It comprised senior
officials and administrators from the Franklin
County Juvenile Court, Franklin County Children
Services, United Way, Suburban Police
Department(s), and the Metropolitan Human Services
Commission. They had the power to make decisions
and obligate funds. Operational guidance and
assistance in the development of the intervention
models was lodged in the Franklin County
Coordinating Task Group comprising executive
directors of agencies actually involved in the
project as well as representatives of the Columbus
City Schools, Columbus Police Department, and the
Franklin County Juvenile Court. The task force
group was responsible for the details of program
administration.

The YOP program was planned so that all community
participants would have a stake in the success of
the project. There was also an effort to establish
flexibility of goals so that the program could be
refocussed with changing problems and needs. The
United Way was able to play facilitator and
coordinator roles, they "were able to get key
funders involved directly with providers [and]
reach into various communities and municipalities
to get resources together."

The project commenced activity in the spring of
1985 and its goals were to: 1) draw upon the
natural strengths of families and communities; 2)
provide for better coordination of information and
services; and 3) explore several different models
for interacting with youth. The first year's
objectives were development of information about
the scope of the problem and establishing initial
relationships with youth and the agencies to which
youth would be referred. The second year's
objectives focused more specifically on reduction
"of the incidence of youth violence" as perceived
by a wide range of officials and agencies' staff;
and improvement of the "behavior of target youth
by way of direct intervention and linkages to
appropriate social service programs."

The project structure plan included a coordinator,
assistant coordinator, 8 to 10 outreach workers
based in three "magnet" youth serving agencies --
under dual supervision of the coordinator and the
particular magnet agency, a crisis intervention
mobile team, a neighborhood Advisory Council --
which apparently was not established -- a part-
time suburban worker, and a community youth
liaison worker. The outreach effort was modelled
in part after the Chicago YMCA outreach worker
program developed in the 1960's. Workers were sent
out to the gangs in the streets to establish
relationships, to obtain information to be shared
with police and schools, and most importantly to
refer youths, particularly from the schools, to
youth-serving and other agencies for needed
services.

The major goal of the Youth Outreach Program was
the development of a network of information for
purposes of monitoring the gang problem, assisting
other agencies to deal with the problem, and
helping youth mainly through referrals. This set
of purposes required that youth agencies,
community organizations, and components of the
juvenile justice system, especially the police,
collaborate with each other. Turf issues and gaps
in communication among agencies were to be
overcome.

Earlier separate efforts to deal with the youth
gang problem by the Columbus Police, Columbus
schools, and various agencies had apparently not
proved sufficient. The police developed a Juvenile
Task Force which did not have sufficient manpower
to deal with large congregations of disorderly or
antisocial youth groups. The Columbus schools
outlawed "colors" and tightened disciplinary
standards, as did the city's recreation centers.
The YOP was to be an important step in the
direction of a comprehensive community approach to
the problem, including not only deterrent
objectives, i.e., more organized and greater
police involvement to reduce the incidence of gang
violence in Franklin County; but social
intervention objectives, i.e., improving the
behavior of targeted youth through appropriate
social service programs and provision of
"effective and targeted prevention effort"; as
well as community development objectives, i.e.,
increasing the responsiveness of the local
community to the needs of targeted youth; and also
research evaluation, i.e., determining the
project's impact on the youth it served and the
current magnitude and severity of youth violence
and related problems in Franklin County.

Youth Outreach Project

Based on reports of actual activity over the past
two or more years, the project has focused on its
second priority, social intervention for a range
of youth, including not only core and teenage gang
members, but youth at risk and non-gang members.
Its current practices and procedures (Youth
Opportunities Project, 1988) were stated as
follows:

"A. Case Review

A review of the youth is conducted routinely to
determine if the youth is achieving the set goals
and objectives that were developed prior to any
in-depth involvement by the outreach worker.

The primary objective is to relegate the dependent
youth to independent status . . .

The Outreach Workers, the Assistant Coordinator
and Community Liaison Person meet twice a month to
discuss the status of each youth . . .

B. Pilot of Prevention

. . . The Project is consistently engaged in
`agency networking . . .' I the workers are
assigned hot spots (i.e., skating rinks, athletic
events, parties, etc. (Workers) assist youth in

1) conflict resolution
2) employment skills
3) drug/alcohol education
4) behavioral modification programs . . .

C. Explore Employment Services

. . . this project has taken the following steps
to assist youth seeking employment.

1. The referral process for employment has been
revised in order to centralize contact for
participating employers.

2. Work readiness workshops are held . . .

3. A referral procedure is utilized in placing
youth with agencies whose primary function is to
provide employment for youths.

D. Inventory Local Prevention Services

E. Summarize Use of Referral Information

F. At-Risk Data Base

. . . As the Project begins its third year,
changes in the activities of targeted youth have
facilitated an emphasis on individuals rather than
groups or gangs . . .

These 'individual at-risk youth' will include
youth:

1. referred by the school system as having unruly
behavior, truant, suspended, expelled (for various
reason) and in need of outreach intervention as a
means of prevention.

2. referred by the courts due to criminal acts, on
probation or need of intervention to curtail
future problems . . . "

Youth who are referred to the project do not
necessarily fall within specific problem criteria
in order to receive assistance.

"Cooperation, with the agencies and programs has
`open[ed] the door' for the Outreach Project to
direct youth to the proper agencies that can
provide more adequate services . . .. The project
has taken the responsibility to guide 'troubled
youth' in the direction where assistance is
available."

Two research reports were commissioned to
"evaluate" the project, but in fact provide mainly
a description or some sense of what the activities
of the project have been in 1987 and 1988. Very
little funding was allocated to the research
effort. The findings indicate that core-gang
members did not comprise a large proportion of
youth served. The percent of core-gang member and
gang leadership served was 15.9 percent and the
percent of non-gang and fringe youth served was
47.7 percent in 1987. Those percentages include
adult contacts as well. In the second report of
1988, 64.6 percent of youth served were "at risk,"
non-gang, and other youth, while 32.2 percent are
gang leaders and core-gang youth. There was
apparently some greater attention paid to gang
youth in the second year, nevertheless the primary
target of service remained non-gang core or
leadership youth. The age range of youth served
was between 14 and 19 years, although most of the
youth contacted were between 14 and 17 years.

The pattern of service to these youth appeared to
shift between the first and second year. Much time
and effort apparently was taken in the first year
to get to know youth on streets, to identify their
problems, and establish relationships. There was
much general discussion but little crisis
intervention (3.3 percent), job search (2.5
percent) or school-related counseling (3.3
percent). In the second year, project efforts seem
to be more focussed and directed to job search
(39.6 percent) and school-related activities (31.1
percent). Those latter percentages have to be
reduced by about a third since the proportions of
services provided add to considerably more than
100 percent. Unfortunately, no specific data is
provided as to which kinds of youth were referred,
what the nature of school-related problems were,
how many youth were referred to how many jobs, and
how long the youth stayed on them.

According to the reports, a variety of problems or
issues were identified in the conduct of the
program over the first two years. The agency
operators believed that expansion of the program
and more funding were required. Dual supervision
for outreach workers at the magnet centers created
some problems. A need was expressed for better or
expanded clinical case review involving social
workers with youth outreach workers. Referral was
clearly regarded as "an essential method," and the
evaluators found that consistent community contact
across agencies on behalf of YOP youth served had
been achieved.

Police

The Columbus Police Department has been a major,
if not the primary, player in the city's efforts
to cope with the gang problem. Huff notes that the
Youth Violence/Crime Section is unique "in its
centralization of all four major gang control
functions (intelligence, prevention, enforcement,
and investigation) in one police unit (Huff 1989,
p. 532). In recent years, however, the gang
problem has evolved and has been more and more
defined in individual violence and drug
trafficking terms. The police have taken an
increasingly broad community approach. Huff
comments that the police now take a "balanced
approach," having realized that "a total
suppression strategy" is not the solution. At the
same time, the commanding officer of the Youth
Violence/Crime Section states that the unit is
"geared to high visibility enforcement" and this
strategy has contributed to a reduction of the
youth gang problem in Columbus.

In light of the purposes and structure of the
Youth Outreach Program, the police and YOP should
have a close interdependent relationship. This
does not seem to be substantially the case,
however, even with some sharing of information on
the gang problem, the provision of some training
by the police at YOP seminars, and the
participation by representatives of the police in
the YOP Franklin County Coordinating Task Group.
The director of YOP notes that "the police and our
project work hand-in-hand, but stay independent in
our activities. We don't want youth to associate
us with the police." The police are also quite
cautious in their relations with YOP staff. This
was so particularly during the first year of the
program.

Questions were raised initially by the police
about the quality of outreach workers, their
possible over-identification with gang members,
their occasional "interference" with law
enforcement operations. The fact that some of the
YOP workers had criminal arrest records was
troubling to the police. YOP no longer requests
the assistance of the police in criminal history
screening of all new YOP staff candidates, since
they are of a higher caliber. Almost all YOP staff
now have some college education.

A manual of Procedure of the Columbus Police
Department, dated October 1988 and revised
February 1989, states that the mission of the
Youth Violence/Crime Section is "to reduce or
prevent violent acts and crimes committed by and
against the youths of the City of Columbus. This
mission will be pursued by using strict
enforcement of the law against those individuals
who are active members of violent groups, gangs,
and by following up on those crimes committed to a
successful prosecution in courts. The mission will
also be pursued by steering youths to agencies
that may help them, counsel them, and giving
presentations on the negative aspect of gangs and
drugs."

The mission of the Youth Violence/Crime Section is
implemented by its Investigative and Enforcement
Units and through its Juvenile Narcotics/School
Liaison Unit. The latter unit works with the
schools through investigative and enforcement
activities as well as presentations to school
youth on the negative aspects of drug use and
trafficking. Police officers in the unit concerned
with gang activities are expected to "identify
gang members . . . write intelligence reports
. . . use aggressive enforcement against gang
members and others involved in youth violence
problems . . . keep photographs and information on
these people . . . talk with witnesses, victims,
suspects, other officers, and citizens about their
knowledge of the gang members who cause youth
violence. . . use free time to patrol the areas
known as gang hang-outs. . . Transit Authority
buses, and school activities for gang problems --
devote some time to talking with younger teens
. . . become aware of various city services that
can help those people. . .. "

According to one source, the Youth Violence/Crime
Section "was designed" to play a community-wide
coordinative role in respect to the gang problem.
To what extent this coordinative role conflicts or
complements the coordinative role of YOP is not
clear.

The Youth Violence/Crime Section is staffed by a
lieutenant, 3 sergeants, and 15 officers. It
developed its approach after a visit by an officer
to the police gang program in Los Angeles city and
a seminar presented by the Chicago Police
Department's Gang Crime Unit. Explicit criteria
for identifying gang members and gang incidents
have been developed. The Youth Violence/Crime
Section maintains a gang file which is updated
continually and purged every two years. An
information system is in process of automation,
however, only police officers from the department
have access to gang files. At the same time, the
department does not keep statistics on gang-
related crime per se. "However, information is
shared with other agencies on a need-to-know
basis."

Police and school security have worked together
closely. The police have requested the schools
keep an information file on suspected gang members
to include the gang member's name, a short
biography, and the parents' address. School
principals have formulated these lists and given
them to the director of school security. The Youth
Violence/Crime Section provides information to the
media, makes presentations to judges, and civic
groups. However, as with YOP, there is some
question about how closely related the Youth
Violence/Crime Section is to the Probation
Department's program in the Sullivant housing
project.

The Youth Violence/Crime Section pays special
attention to the connection between gangs and drug
trafficking, but a special unit has also been
established in response to community pressure to
deal with the drug trafficking problem -- the
Street Crime Attack Team (SCAT). This may result
from the fact that gang membership is no longer as
clearly visible as it used to be. Gang members may
have been driven "underground" because of
effective police pressure. The commander of the
Youth Violence/Crime Section indicates that "it's
tough to get good intelligence", on gangs
currently, because "they don't talk."

Schools

There is a general recognition by sources in
Columbus that the police and the Youth Outreach
Project are the key components and the key
coordinating units of the city's approach to the
youth gang problem. At the same time, it is
possible that the schools may provide effective
functional linkage between these two
"coordinating" agencies as well as a significant
contribution to the city's mobilization of
efforts. The School Board saw an incipient gang
problem developing in 1985. It was concerned with
the safety of students at school and sporting
events. Its strategy was first to maintain order
in the schools, then to support community efforts
for dealing with the problem, and then finally to
move from a reactive to a preventive mode.

Schools have been at the heart of both the gang
problem and efforts to deal with it. One source
reports that "busing caused gangs to spread like
wildfire." The stability of neighborhood schools
was destroyed as opposing gangs from the different
neighborhoods confronted each other at the same
high schools. At the same time, while gang
tensions and some problems were manifest at
schools, major gang fights and drug dealing have
not been regarded as a significant problem on
school grounds. First, the schools attempted to
"tighten up its academic and behavioral
standards." Teachers were encouraged to exercise
greater control in the classroom. Marginal
students were reportedly "pushed out." At the
present time, youth, especially more violent
youth, are "expelled to the Youth Outreach Program
and then referred to Urban League and community
center programs for remedial education,
recreation, counseling, and job placement."

The schools exercised leadership, not simply
participating in the creation of the YOP but
supporting it materially. A principal was released
and assigned to coordinate the project. Housing
was provided. Procedures were developed for
referral of youth from schools who needed special
services. However, it is not clear that YOP
workers were in turn able to refer youth back to
school and assist with better learning
arrangements for them.

The schools have been able to manage the gang
problem mainly through the efforts of its Safety
and Security Department. Sufficient knowledge and
relationship with gang youth have been established
so that gang leaders are identified and influence
is exercised to "cool" gang conflict or potential
conflict situations. The department has assisted
in the development of training sessions to
sensitize teachers to the gang problem. School
Security has been responsive to police efforts to
identify gang signs and symbols and to their
suggestions about handling the youth gang problem.
The police were also permitted to serve warrants
for gang youth on school property. More recently
the school policy of summary suspension of youth
for gang-related behavior has been replaced with a
less stringent policy of more in-school suspension
and alternative programs for youth who do not fit
into regular class routines.

Probation

The Probation Department of the Franklin County
Court of Common Pleas, Domestic Relations/Juvenile
Branch has recently created an outreach program in
the Sullivant Gardens low-income housing project
which focuses to some extent on the youth gang
problem. The project, supported by a grant from
the Governor's Office of Criminal Justice
Services, was initiated in 1988 to provide
alternatives to a gang and criminal lifestyle. The
program serves primarily as a resource for
probation workers, with little direct contact with
police and YOP.

The specific programs appear to be built around
the influence, interest, and personality of a
particular probation officer, Harvey Halliburton,
with long-time roots and contacts in the Sullivant
Gardens project whose population is mainly low-
income black in single-parent households. The
program focuses on early intervention for youth, 6
to 12 years old, and employment referral,
education, and job training for older youth.
Grassroots relationship as well as an individual
services strategy is emphasized. The program
operates out of an apartment provided by the
Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority and also
uses the facilities of the Sullivant Gardens
Recreation Center, the PAL Center, and the
Southwest Community Center. Counseling sessions
are also conducted in the Youth Detention Center
and psychological treatment services are provided
by the Community Mental Health Center.

There are two major components to the program of
which Mr. Halliburton is the director, assisted by
two former gang members who work part-time as
project consultants. First, the Youth Leadership
program focuses on youth 12 to 17 years of age who
are on probation or who have some type of court
contact. The caseload is expected to be 200,
although only 12 are gang-affiliated probationers.
Some difficulty was encountered initially with the
program in overcoming resistance from some of the
local delinquent youth or gang leaders. This
situation was resolved after several of the youth,
presumably on probation, were arrested. The second
program targets high-risk youth 6 to 20 years,
delinquent and non-delinquent, through positive
youth development activities. The objective is to
enhance self-esteem and create legitimate norms
and values. "Good kids" are used as role models.
"Bad kids" are linked with them in a series of
athletic, recreational, and cultural activities,
including a basketball league, art classes, and
visits outside the ghetto area. Mr. Halliburton
indicated that this program serves or will serve
1,000 youth of all kinds in the community.

The program aims to influence the environment of
youth and has a community development emphasis.
However, the extent to which community groups and
other agencies are involved in the project appears
to be limited. Adult volunteers and local
community groups are apparently not involved in
service delivery or advisory capacities. The
program maintains a certain distance from the
police who are perceived as too distant from the
local community. Mr. Halliburton is concerned that
too close or overt a linkage with the police would
threaten his rapport with or even his safety in
the community. He states he is able to violate
probationers if they fail to comply with terms of
probation. There is apparently little or no
contact with YOP. Mr. Halliburton believes YOP is
concerned primarily with short-term monitoring of
youth gang activity and diffusing violence through
rumor control and information sharing with police
and other agencies. He has adopted a long-term
rather than a short-term crisis intervention
strategy. For example, "his program is starting to
develop vocational training and job opportunities
for youth" (e.g., fast food service).

Assessment

A good deal of information is available on the
effects of the various programs which have been
mounted to deal with the youth gang problem in
Columbus. There is little "hard" data, however, on
the effectiveness of these efforts. Three studies
provide data on various aspects of the gang
situation, the structures and programs developed.
One is a study of gang problems and programs in
several Ohio cities, including Columbus (Huff
1989). The other two are evaluations of the Youth
Outreach Program, published through the United Way
(Foulk and Associates 1987, 1988). It is extremely
difficult to estimate the impact of the programs
on gang crime in Columbus despite the conclusions
of these reports.

The statement that the Columbus approach is "as
well-balanced and well-coordinated as any in the
nation" (Huff 1989, p. 532) is questionable. The
"effectiveness" claimed for the Columbus
"approach" is not supported by data or the
opinions of local agency sources. While it does
appear that a "traditional" type gang problem has
considerably "dissipated," and probably has been
transformed into a "crack" drug problem, there is
no clear evidence that either problem has been
influenced by any of the programs established. It
is possible that the "effectiveness" of police
efforts may have "driven gangs underground." The
"crack" problem may have been the key change
factor.

Foulk and Associates report in their 1987
evaluation of the Youth Opportunities Program that
"If the project needed to be successful in the
development of an extensive network involving a
wide variety of organizations and actors which
worked in concerted action to impact youth, then
the project is yet to accomplish this objective
. . . " (p. 42). Foulk and Associates in their
1988 evaluation conclude that YOP has more than
exceeded its objective of serving a targeted
number of youth -- n=120 -- but there is no
evidence that these youth were "hard-core" gang
members as project objectives required. Referral
relationships were clearly established. Finally,
"gang activity has decreased. However, the
proportion of the decrease that is directly
attributable to the project is debatable" (Foulk
and Associates 1988, p. 33).

A good deal of descriptive data, mainly at an
anecdotal level, is available on the effects or
output but not on the effectiveness or outcome of
the city's programs established to confront the
youth gang problem in its changing manifestations.
Little hard statistical data is available.
Impressionistic or anecdotal reports indicate
there has not been a full or substantial sharing
of data and substantial coordination of programs
among agencies dealing with gang youth and youth
violence. It is not clear that agencies such as
the police, YOP, and probation fully share
information on these problems or have developed
joint operations to cope with them. Not all youth
agencies have been accessible and willing to
provide services to gang youths.

To what extent there has been or will be a de-
emphasis of services to core-gang youth and a
greater emphasis on preventive services to fringe,
at-risk, and non-gang members is not clear. What
the shift, if it occurs, will imply for control or
prevention of gang and violence related problems
has not been conceptualized. What the idea of
prevention means in operational terms is currently
a source of debate in Columbus, e.g., at what age
should what program be initiated for what types of
youth. Huff observes that Columbus has a two-
pronged approach to the gang problem: (1) active
and aggressive enforcement against gang leaders
and hard-core gang members via the Youth Violence
Crime Section . . . and (2) prevention directed at
marginal gang members and would-be members via the
Youth Outreach Project . . . " (Huff 1989, p.
531).

Reports indicate that certain educational and job-
related programs for gang youth are not working.
G.E.D. activities are not at all successful. Gang
youth are signed up for classes but do not show
up. Their academic skills are too low, they cannot
catch up. Job referrals are generally not
successful. Youth do not know how to present
themselves adequately for job interviews. There is
apparently a good deal of "red-tape" involved in
job referrals and YOP youth often do not follow-
through. If jobs are offered for which youths
qualify, usually at minimum wage, they often
refuse. They reportedly claim they can make more
through illegitimate endeavors, such as drug-
dealing. A Youth Enterprise project which involved
youth painting dumpsters was deemed at least
partially successful. Youth learned to take
certain job-related responsibilities. But the
project was not "picked-up" by YOP or some other
agency.

In regard to the level of crime, the commander of
the Youth Violence/Crime Section indicates that
all figures are up, however. The relation of
general crime to youth gang crime patterns is less
clearly delineated. The realization of gang
activity came in 1983-84. A special police
approach to deal with it developed in 1986. There
was little traditional-type gang activity reported
in 1988 but organized criminal activity,
particularly in the drug trade is up and
presumably involves significant numbers of former
and current gang youth. How many or what
proportion of youth arrested in narcotics charges
are gang members, we do not know.

A school source, formerly with YOP, states that
gang activity began to decline in the second year
of the YOP and Police Task Force Operations. But
this coincided with the increase of "crack houses"
to 150. While there was a decrease in group-
related assaults, there was an increase in
robberies and thefts. The source adds that there
are currently 300 to 400 crack houses in Columbus.
Early in 1989, the Probation Department reported
that of 100 youth with full project assessments in
their project, only three had further contact with
the court. However, we do not know what the risk
period or program exposure time of these youths
were, what services they received for how long,
what the characteristics of youth were, and how
these factors are related to the reported success
rate.

Conclusions

The Columbus approach to dealing with gang youth
is in process of development. A number of gang-
and non-gang youth are now receiving services, who
probably were not before. A higher level of
sophisticated surveillance of gang activities is
being conducted in a variety of places where youth
congregate. Agencies are in process of learning to
cooperate. The police, schools, and youth agencies
are apparently in closer and more extensive
contact with each other than in an earlier period.
The gang violence problem appears to have
subsided, but serious drug trafficking has arisen
in its place which involves youth who formerly
were or still presently are gang members. It is
not clear that a well-coordinated or a
comprehensive approach to the youth gang problem --
including attention to basic causal problems,
such as insufficient educational and job
opportunities for "at-risk" youth in isolated
segments of Columbus -- has yet to be articulated
and satisfactorily implemented.

To a large extent the availability of a
considerable amount of information -- albeit of an
anecdotal or reportorial nature -- suggests that
while the Columbus approach shows promise, more
program elaboration and "hard data" testing are
necessary to determine validity and success.
Nevertheless, Columbus is a relatively large and
complex city. It has moved rapidly and with vigor
to deal with its changing youth group violence and
drug-related problems which has confronted the
city in a very substantial way.

References

Huff, C. Ronald. 1989. "Youth Gangs and Public
Policy." Crime and Delinquency 35 (October): 524-
537.

Foulk and Associates. 1987. Youth Outreach
Project. An Assessment of the First Year.
Columbus, Ohio: United Way of Franklin County,
May.

Foulk and Associates. 1988. Youth Outreach
Project. Evaluation Conclusions. Columbus, Ohio:
United Way of Franklin County, 1988.

Youth Outreach Project. 1988. "YOP Status Report."
Columbus, Ohio. November 11.

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

CASE STUDY 5
El Monte, California

Background

El Monte, a suburban community of 100,000, is
located 15 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, in
east central Los Angeles County. It consists of a
10-square mile area with a small airport, 8 parks,
28 elementary schools and 5 high schools. About
one third of El Monte's area comprises industry
and retail stores. It has a fairly strong
industrial base of light industry and factories
requiring ample numbers of semi-skilled and
unskilled labor. The community has undergone
considerable cultural and economic change from an
85-percent white population living in mainly
owner-occupied single dwellings to a more than 62-
percent Hispanic population living mainly in large
apartment complexes and rental dwellings.

El Monte has experienced continuing population
mobility and expansion. In the early 1970's, it
had a population of 70,000. Growth has come mainly
from low-income Mexican-American families, often
dispossessed from properties and communities
partially demolished because of the expansion of
the Freeway system east of Los Angeles. There has
been an average population influx of a 1,000
persons per year during the past three years. Yet
there is a sense that the community's population
and way of life have stabilized. The population
seems older.

In some respects, the growth and development of El
Monte, particularly its gang problem, has been
influenced by its adjoining community, a separate
jurisdiction of South El Monte, listed in a recent
census report as the 15th poorest suburban
community in the country. The South El Monte
community was regarded as the most gang- and
crime-ridden of the greater El Monte area. Heroin
trafficking and gangs, especially gang graffiti,
were listed as the top crime concerns in police
and school surveys of the mid-1970's.

The Youth Gang Problem

The youth gang problem in El Monte was preceded by
"hot rod" clubs in the early 1960's. The El Monte
Flores (EMF) gang was formed in the city with an
influx of youth, particularly from South El Monte,
in 1968-69. Soon counter gangs formed. The
delinquent groups or gangs were not well-
developed, with symbols, colors, and other gang
identifications. Some of the youth were arrested
for crimes against property and sentenced to
probation camps, where their identification with
gangs solidified. EMF especially became better
organized. By the mid-1970's, their numbers had
increased from 600 to 1,500 members in El Monte,
according to several informants.

The problem grew very serious in this period.
Seven gangrelated homicides were identified by the
El Monte Police in 1975. "Violence, shootings,
stabbings were common," according to the principal
of Mountain View High School, one of five high
schools that students from the area attended. Gang
activity, including student harassment and forced
recruitment, was at its height. In addition to
EMF, there were varying estimates of 4 to 13 other
gangs, ranging in size from 10 to hundreds of
members. The most active of the gangs, other than
EMF, had no more than 100 members, however.

Community Response

The Boys' Clubs and the police department were the
key agencies in a long struggle to deal with the
youth gang problem. In 1975, a meeting took place
between members of the police department and the
local chapter of the Boys' Clubs. "The El Monte
Plan" was formulated to attack the problem. Prior
to the meeting, the police concentrated on a
suppression approach, and according to Clay
Hollopeter, Executive of the Boys' Club of San
Gabriel Valley, the strategy was "not successful
in stemming gang violence." Police wore helmets
and had the appearance of storm troopers.
Hollopeter stated publicly that "this approach was
not right." However, he also approached the police
chief, M. L. Matthews (who retired August 1978)
and Deputy Chief Wayne C. Clayton (who succeeded
Matthews and is currently Chief of Police), to
develop an alternative, more comprehensive effort
that would include the Boys' Club, local
businesses, and other agencies.

Hollopeter's strategy was for the El Monte Police
Department and the San Gabriel Valley Boys' Club
to join resources and locate "jobs for
identifiable leaders of the gangs. The older
youth, 18 to 21, would be placed on evening
shifts, and the younger youth would be placed in
part-time jobs, with commitments to remain in
school." The underlying idea was to remove
"leadership from the gangs by introducing them to
economic dependency and family responsibility."
The strategy was not so much to obtain jobs for
youth as to divert them from criminal activity
during a vulnerable adolescent maturational
period. The employment was to be the basis for a
"long-range solution to our revolving-door
delinquency problem."

Officer Ken Weldon, in charge of the community
relations unit of the police department in the
mid-1970's, was assigned to work with Hollopeter.
A division of responsibility between the Boys'
Clubs and the police department was established.
The police continued to operate on the assumption
that if they eliminated the "hard-core" of the
gang, the gang problem would subside considerably.
However, suppression would not be the answer
alone. The police department could not afford "a
special project such as the Sheriff's Office or
L.A.P.D. did, and decided that the amount of work
necessary to put the large number of 'hard-core'
members in jail was a very difficult goal to
attain. In addition, the average jail sentences
for even the most violent of crimes then committed
by young adults was not sufficient to ensure peace
on the streets for any extended period of time"
(Poirier 1979, p. 23-29).

A two-pronged attack was formed. "First, assist
those gang members who showed any desire whatever
to go straight with whatever was necessary to
accomplish this goal, and second, to concentrate
enforcement efforts on those who would not try to
conform to normal social behavior, (Ibid.).
Control and reduction of gang violence as well as
removal of graffiti were key. Gang leaders were
the first to be targeted. Eventually, a wider
range of youth and young adults were targeted to
receive services, including females, youth and
young adults at risk, as well as delinquents
generally from the community. Excluded from the
program were gang members who used heroin.

Jobs

Jobs were to be the heart of the program. Jobs had
multiple values for dealing with the gang problem.
According to Hollopeter, it gets "rid of the
leaders." The lifestyle of the gang leader is
changed in "an adult direction." It not only takes
him off the street for a large portion of the day
but also fulfills his need to assert his manhood
by being able to support his family. It helps to
breakdown gang affiliation. It is an acceptable
excuse for "not hanging around with the boys."
Ideally, the employment should be located outside
of the neighborhood. Alternatives to jobs include
the Armed Services, Job Corps, and the California
Conservation Corps.

The police, mainly the Community Relations Unit,
handle all applicants over 18 years. "Two full-
time Community Relations Officers administered the
program with the assistance of several part-time
volunteers. The services included all phases of
securing a job: 1) obtaining job leads; 2)
contacting gang members and raising the issue of
prospective employment; 3) familiarizing gang
members with application procedures and . . . the
job interview situation; 4) arranging
transportation, if necessary, to assure that the
interview appointment was kept and that the client
arrived on time for the first day of work . . . ;
5) encouraging applicants to discuss work
adjustment problems with Community Relations
personnel" (Willman and Snortum, 1982).

The Boys' Club was expected to handle all of the
job applicants under 18 years of age. Their role
included: 1) "recruiting" youth through an
"outreach" process to see if the youth was able
and willing to assume the responsibilities of the
job; 2) providing counseling in regard to work
adjustment skills since many of the youth were
handicapped by inadequate values, attitudes, and
expectations about a job; 3) matching the right
youth "with the right job"; 4) individualized
"follow-up counseling" to keep him on the job
"long enough to see that he can master needed
skills and overcome any frustrations and difficul-
ties"; 5) ongoing "support services and referral"
so youth can solve their other personal problems.

At one time, before a gang member was sent on a
job interview, he was also given a 12-hour course
developed by The Boys' Clubs of America and the
U.S. Labor Department. The number of hours of
instruction was then increased for younger youth
to between 20 and 30 hours and reduced for older
youth to between 6 and 7 hours. The course was
conducted by two of the Community Relations
Officers and covered essentials such as how to
fill out a job application and how to act in a job
interview. The gang member was sent to the
interview alone so that he could "feel proud that
he got the job on his own if he is hired."
Providing employment shows the youth that he does
not have to "continue to be a gang member." It
should be noted that some employers attempted to
determine the youth's interests in order to place
him in a job he would like.

Suitable jobs were found in various ways. The
Chief of Police and his staff used their
acquaintances in the private business sector to
explain the program and gather commitments to hire
gang members. The director of the Boys' Club did
the same: positions were sought that required no
specialized training, and the businessmen were
informed that follow-up would be provided, in case
problems developed. The businessmen were requested
to place the gang members on night and weekend
shifts, prime time for gang activity. Since gang
members were used to night living with late
morning or early afternoon rising, it was also
thought they would adjust to night shifts more
readily. Special care was given to placing gang
members in businesses or places of employment on
their own or neutral turf to avoid contact with
rival gang members and thereby minimizing problems
of commuting to and from work (Poirier, pp. 29-
30).

Graffiti

A graffiti analysis and removal program was
initiated by the Boys' Club in close cooperation
with the El Monte Police Department, and with the
assistance of a great many businesses and
citizens. The graffiti analysis and removal
program was extremely important, but not simply
for cleanup or aesthetic purposes. It was a source
of intelligence information intimately connected
to the control and prevention of gang activities.
It was estimated that gang-related vandalism and
graffiti were costing the San Gabriel Valley
communities, mainly El Monte, over a half million
dollars per year. Graffiti was the prime concern
of all area citizen groups. It was indicative of
greater crime-related problems.

The program involved a team and a truck operated
by Boys' Club staff 40 hours per week. The team
included painters, either from C.E.T.A., employees
of the Club, or youth or adults assigned by the
local municipal court to work in lieu of fines or
other punishment. The team painted over any
graffiti that was visible from the streets and
alleys (with the owner's permission). City, county
and state paint crews were notified as soon as
graffiti appeared on public structures, such as on
freeways, sidewalks, and roadways, particularly
when sandblasting was required. Paint for the Boys
Club's graffiti removal operation came from
donations by large businesses as well as from
monies provided by the city.

A special graffiti day removal project was held.
The El Monte Police Department Community Relations
officers played a major role, speaking at civic
organizations, including Rotary and Kiwanis clubs,
and soliciting funds for paint, brushes, rollers,
refreshments, and gasoline. Requests for
volunteers were widely advertised; scouting and
explorer groups, school clubs, and concerned
citizens responded. A month of planning was
required to identify the worst areas, divide the
city into manageable units, and make appropriate
team assignments. Within a ten- to twelve-hour
period "graffiti was completely removed from a
community that was covered from one end to the
other." The Boys' Club team was then able to
continue on a maintenance basis. A "Graffiti
Hotline" at the Boys' Club was established;
stickers were placed throughout the community
which indicated that a call to the Boys' Club
would result in a same-day response. In addition,
police patrol officers made written notations of
all graffiti on their beats and gave them to the
Community Relations Officers who in turn
transmitted them to the Boys' Club for removal.
Schools and parks have continued to make graffiti
reports on a regular basis.

Just as important, if not more so for purposes of
police intelligence, the paint crew carefully
copied the graffiti onto paper, before removal.
Nicknames, monikers, and gang names as well as
locations were analyzed by police officers and the
director of the Boys' Club. Information was
thereby obtained on the scope and changing nature
of the gang problem, particularly the state of
relations between certain gangs and those
individuals active in precipitating gang
hostilities. The top writers became the targets of
efforts by the Boys' Club staff and the police
department. Identification of the graffiti writer
and the location of the graffiti permitted the
police to know when a new graffiti writer or a new
gang was in town. The police and the Boys' Club
representatives then visited the home of the youth
and informed him and his parents about steps that
would be taken should gang activity continue.

The Boys' Club and Police Community Relations
staffs notified probation and parole agencies if
the need for increased supervision of or special
attention to the youth existed. This information
was sometimes submitted by probation or parole
reports to the court for consideration in
sentencing. Job assistance for a graffiti writer
might be contingent on graffiti removal. The Boys'
Club staff also contacted parents who often were
not aware that a son was an active member of a
gang. Letters were sent to parents with bills for
the cost incurred in graffiti removal, not so much
to collect damages as to make parents aware of
violations by their son of the penal code and the
civil liabilities involved if their son was
caught.

Other values of the program included removal or
even prevention of graffiti before rival gang
members became aware. This avoided gang
confrontations "ranging from name calling and fist
fighting to stabbings and shootings." If the rival
gang did not see the graffiti, the temptation or
need to retaliate was often removed (Poirier 1979,
pp. 34-38).

Project Return

The third of the major collaborative projects
undertaken by the Boys' Club and the police
department was called Project Return. It was first
undertaken in 1977 when Gus Collingsworth, the
California Youth Authority Parole Officer in the
El Monte area, Clay Hollopeter, and the two Police
Community Relations Officers began monthly visits
to the CYA Training School in Chino, California.
The program is currently largely underwritten by
the County Justice System Subvention Program and
is designed to help incarcerated youth returning
to the San Gabriel Valley. All the youth are on
probation at the time of intake and many are gang
members.

The police are advised by CYA when a youth is
coming out of the probation camp. One of the
strategies is to single out "gang leaders, get
them a job, and keep them occupied so as to remove
them socially from the gang." Contact is also made
with parents to assist in adjusting to their son's
return. The Boys' Club provides "aftercare support
services and counseling to a youth returning from
Probation Department detention [camps]. Services
include pre-release screening and assessment,
development of individualized case plans, school
re-enrollment, and/or employment assistance,
social adjustment counseling and other supportive
interventions deemed advisable. Intensive Services
are offered during the first month" (Application
for Funding, County Justice System Subvention
Program 1988).

Normally the youth remains in the program for six
months after release from a camp. The critical
time, and the point when the program is most
active, occurs when the youth first returns home.
The El Monte Day Center School, operated by the LA
County Office of Education in the agency's El
Monte facility, permits a ready transition from
the probation camp's school without loss of
academic credits. It provides Boys' Club staff an
opportunity, especially in the first transitional
months, to maintain close contact with the youth
and deal with possible family crises, individual,
and other problems.

Non-camp youth may also be referred to the program
by probation officers and/or the Juvenile Court.
The program does not perform any probation
functions such as monitoring and/or enforcement of
court orders.

Networking

Respondents in El Monte believe that the key to
their distinctive approaches to the gang problem
has been its networking or collaborative
character. Despite formal contracts with the
county and city for funding purposes, all
collaborative or coordinated arrangements have
been informal without regular official meetings.
No formal task force has been developed. Close
relationships have existed among principal actors,
particularly the Chief, Deputy Chief, the
Coordinator of Community Relations of the Police
Department, the Director of the Boys' Club, the
high school principal, the probation and parole
officer liaisons in the area, and key business
persons. All have been deeply committed to the
same philosophy, perspectives, and set of
strategies.

At the heart of these informal networking
relationships is the rapport developed between
Clay Hollopeter, the Boys' Club director, and Ken
Weldon, the Police Community Relations officer.
The trust and openness developed between those two
actors apparently has been a catalyst or context
for the development of open lines of confidential
communication about gangs, gang youths, and
related problems with a great variety of other
actors: from obtaining information about homicide
suspects, locations of weapons, tips on jobs to
special arrangements, or "breaks" for youth in
court. This rapport or positive relationship has
apparently been transferred to gang youth
themselves, who have established a surprising
amount of trust with various officials and
community actors, including the police.

Agency Leader Roles

A long-term, complex, and comprehensive approach
of a communal nature, developed to deal with the
gang problem, is part of an articulated, rational
philosophy of delinquency prevention and control.
The key organizations, the Boys' Club and the
police department, have evolved a set of
complementary strategies and programs, along with
those of schools, probation, and community
businesses for affecting the problem. The
character, basic assumptions, and perspectives of
the leaders of these organizations need to be
examined.

Boys' Clubs

Hollopeter is a charismatic, deeply committed
advocate on behalf of the interests and needs of
gang youth. He perceives the gang problem as a
very complex one. On the one hand, he describes
gang youth as normal, with leadership potential
and other qualities that can be transferred to the
role of effective employee. On the other, he
reports that a typical gang member is from a
broken home or a large family without supervision,
has no male authority figure to provide strong
parental discipline, has a poor self-image, and is
an underachiever (Barker, 1980).

Hollopeter states that gang leaders "have the
ability to assume leadership roles in a job." They
have a strong sense of loyalty which can be
transferred to the job. "We're not trying to
destroy the gang to reduce the gang's influence on
the kids. Gangs are not necessarily bad. They
provide needed security and brotherhood. I tell
the kids to stop doing stupid things. I don't tell
them to give up their friends" (Keynote Magazine,
1977).

Hollopeter reportedly makes a distinction "between
gang activity and delinquent criminal activity,"
although he states that "by and large, all of the
gang leaders are delinquent criminal types"
(Barker, Ibid.). He makes an interesting
distinction between the gang member in his gang
role and in his individual delinquent role. He is
reported to have said that "individual members may
steal cars, rob houses or take dope, but this
activity is independent and incidental to gang
membership." The gang presumably connotes
something positive and traditional for the social
development of barrio youth (Baker, 1980). These
are complex,and not always clear, or consistent
perspectives, but they do permit Hollopeter and
his Boys' Club staff -- some of whom were gang
members themselves at one time -- to manage
relationships with gangs and gang members and at
the same time to facilitate the transition of gang
youth to more conventionally acceptable patterns.

Hollopeter has articulated a three-pronged
approach to helping gang youth: 1)
Individualization -- "It is necessary to offer
each youth an individualized program of service
needed to normalize his life"; 2) Networking -- "A
network of supportive service providers, agencies
and referral has to be developed that can provide
long term aid and assistance . . . Other agencies
must . . . work with our youth and to provide them
the quality and quantity of service that they
would otherwise offer their other clients. The
Club becomes the conductor of an orchestration of
varied services . . . "; 3) Advocacy -- "Advocacy
on behalf of the youth and an effort to bring
about corrective changes in the community. . . .
Sometimes you must take a firm, hard, strong stand
on critical youth services and risk offending
policemen, social workers, probation officers,
teachers, principals and other so-called youth
workers when you defend your position as a youth
advocate and ombudsman." Hollopeter advises that
"at risk" youth be mainstreamed rather than put
into special "gang" programs "existing programs
and procedures must be modified so that they 'fit
the youth' rather than expecting the youth to 'fit
the program.'" There must be faith that the youth
will turn out okay, the agency or worker is only
speeding up the inevitable. To achieve these
objectives, Hollopeter indicates that the Boys'
Club program provides a variety of camping,
recreational, job referral/placement, crisis
intervention, mediation, collaborative agency and
advocacy programs (Hollopeter 1985).

Police Department

The police department approach, especially under
the leadership of Ken Weldon, Community Relations
Unit, is a unique example of community involvement
and innovative community policing. The blend of
social worker, community organizer, and police
officer in Ken Weldon is unusual. He believes a
key reason for "El Monte's success has been
because his unit has been able to transcend its
traditional law enforcement role. His unit is
physically separated from the police station and
thereby provides a setting in which people feel
comfortable."

Weldon says his unit's role is the development of
"school programs, sporting and camping activities,
counseling, employment, tutoring, and assistance
with any social problems." His prevention
objectives at the present time are "intervening
with family and psychological problems,
employment, and school problems." Weldon's staff
also engages in crisis intervention and mediation
of gang conflict. However, a basic function of his
unit is also to provide intelligence and guidance
on gang-related matters to patrol officers and
other units of the police department. Weldon and
his staff generally are not involved directly in
arrests of gang youth and related court
proceedings.

The community relation unit's officers have
"intimate knowledge of the maneuverings of the
local gangs and have been instrumental in solving
numerous cases, all the way from thefts and fights
to murder." Weldon and his staff are closely
acquainted with families and girl friends "who
would not normally talk to police officers and
will tell them many things that are going to
happen, and of things that have already happened"
(Poirier, p. 40).

Weldon believes that there are two levels of gang
affiliation: gang members who are "criminals
first, and secondarily members of the gang . . .
who are aggressive and give leadership in gang
activities, but the rest of the time are involved
in heavy-weight crimes of personal gain." The
remainder of the gang members do not necessarily
condone these non-gang criminal activities. The
criminal leaders are the target of the unit's and
the police department's attention. These
assumptions are not fundamentally different from
those of Hollopeter. The reality of the gang and
certain behaviors of the gang are accepted, but
criminal behavior is not.

Illustrative of his techniques of crisis
intervention and mediation is the following: In a
graffiti battle between two gangs that was
escalating to the point of physical violence, he
identified the key players in each gang and told
them they would have to come together and resolve
their issues or the police would step in and make
life miserable for them, e.g., high visibility
patrol, strict enforcement, and various search
procedures. The gangs quickly responded and were
able to come to terms on their own. If someone is
shot or stabbed in an incident involving gang
members, either as victim and suspect, the
Community Relations Unit visits the victim as soon
as possible, investigates the details of the
incident, and focuses on getting the combatants
together to make peace. They deliberately
encourage gang youth to be aware of and prevent
retaliations or the spread of violence.

Weldon goes to great lengths to sensitize police
officers to the interests and needs of gang youth.
For example, he points out that both like
excitement and adventure; both wear uniforms. He
describes an incident in which gang members were
allowed to ride along with police officers, in
order to improve mutual understanding and
relationship. On one occasion he involved police
and gang youth in a role playing session in which
gang members arrested police officers. One of the
gang members was particularly rough during the
mock shakedown process. Tempers flared. Weldon
asked the gang member why he was being so rough.
The youth gang member replied that recently he had
been shaken down by the same officer in the same
manner and humiliated in front of his friends --
for no apparent reason. He said this angered him
so much at the time that he went out and
vandalized some property to let off steam.

Weldon handpicks his staff. They must be "firm and
fair, willing to work long hours, comfortable in
gang neighborhoods, non-aggressive." Police
officers rotate through his unit when they first
join the police department and periodically
thereafter when police transfer (or get promoted
out of his unit). As a result, "they have a much
more balanced perspective on gang and problem
youth."

Other activities and programs of the Community
Relations Unit include: mental health counseling
of problem youth. "Operation Increased Attendance"
involves Community Relations officers in picking
up truant youth and transporting them back to
school for "needed counseling." The officers visit
schools to conduct drug education and crime
prevention activities. They have developed
recreational activities for "youth-at-risk"; for
example, forming a sports team consisting of
truants and dropouts. They work closely with
probation officers in a variety of related
diversion activities.

The Community Relations Unit is responsible for an
extraordinary range of activities. They include:
"Adopt-a-Cop," "Bicycle Safety," "Camping with
Cops," and a "Citizen Ride Along" in which local
citizens (14 years of age or older) can ride with
a police officer on a regular shift for a period
of three hours. Community Relations officers make
home visits to juveniles who are detained for
misdemeanor charges to determine if any problems
exist in the family and to then make appropriate
referrals to community services. The unit
supervises a law enforcement Explorer Scout troop.
During summer months, Community Relations officers
are assigned to foot patrol in the community
parks. Other programs, directly and indirectly
related to gang youth, include neighborhood watch,
child abuse, runaway, and the development of
volunteer activities.

Schools

A key actor in the development of a community
approach for dealing with gangs was Fernando Le
Desma, Principal of Mountain View High School, one
of two high schools where core youth gang members
attended. Now principal of the El Monte Adult
School, he shares many of the values of Hollopeter
and Weldon and worked closely with them in the
various programs developed over the years to deal
with the gang problem. He believes his success
with gang youth was due to "showing that we
cared." Clear rules for behavior were also
established. When a student stepped over the line,
he was certain that "consequences would be
enforced."

The principal was strongly identified with youth
interests and community culture. "We would to go
to the funerals of gang youth. We got them part-
time jobs and employed them on campus. As long as
the kids were not creating major problems, we kept
them in school. If they were failing, we tried to
employ them as groundskeepers. We made them part
of staff. Graffiti eased or almost stopped, since
they would inform us who was responsible. We went
to court with the kids and would advocate for
them. We went the extra step and even patrolled
the community during crises."

He states that he targeted the most difficult kids
to show that the school could succeed with them.
When youth succeeded, he made sure that the
community knew about it. He told troublemakers
"they were not bad." He emphasized that they could
help make the school a better place and that they
"were all Latinos and should work together." He
utilized the influence of a former student who was
a gang leader to get students to behave. He tried
to get school staff to accept and care for gang
youth. He rewarded administrative staff with
promotions for pursuing this approach. He also did
not permit teachers to lock classroom doors and
encouraged teachers to resolve problems with gang
youth through discussions.

The principal helped Clay Hollopeter and Ken
Weldon in carrying out special programs for gang
youth. Special recognition was directly and
indirectly provided to certain youth to build up
their esteem. Their successes at school were well-
publicized. Gang youth were hired to coach teams
in the various sports leagues established at
school.

Probation

There is a tradition of collaboration by probation
with police and the Boys' Club in a variety of
programs: job development and job referral; the
use of the Boys' Club and the Special Community
Day Center to supervise youth from probation
camps; notification of Community Relations Unit
personnel when youth are about to be released from
detention; and referral of youth on probation
generally both to the Boys' Club and police for
special attention and activity.

Since 1988, a probation officer of the Los Angeles
County Probation Gang Alternatives Prevention
Program (GAPP) has been located in the Community
Relations Unit of the police department. This is a
pre-probation program to divert youth from the
criminal justice system. Focus is on youth in
grades 5 to 8, aged 10 to 14 years. The youth
referred by teachers and the police must meet some
of the following criteria: 1) the youth associates
with gang members; 2) wears gang dress; 3) there
is a gang member in the family; and 4) there is
evidence of drug use by the youth. Parents are
contacted and requested to sign a release and/or
waiver form for GAPP to work with these identified
youth. A variety of services are offered in this
program: remedial tutoring, parenting classes, and
referral to other agencies.

Assessment

The El Monte experience with gangs since the mid-
1970's is noteworthy and promising, if not
exemplary. A variety of agencies, particularly the
Boys' Club and the police, as well as probation
and schools, with the cooperation of the business
community and other public and non-profit
organizations have formed a sustained, innovative,
and collaborative set of programs to reduce gang
violence and crime. To what extent local community
grassroots organizations, churches, and parent
groups were involved is not clear. Special
emphasis was on the provision of jobs, removal of
graffiti, involvement of youth in social and
personal development activities, and ultimately
the reduction of gang violence and crime. A
combination of approaches was used: social
intervention, opportunity provision at school, and
on the job, targeted suppression, and a community
development approach, involving organizational
change and innovation.

What have been the effects and effectiveness of
the El Monte experience? The effects of the
program appear to be reasonably clear. A
considerable amount of anecdotal and media
material and some limited statistical information
is available to assess the program. The results or
effects of the El Monte program, particularly the
more tangible job development and placement
efforts, the graffiti removal program, Project
Return, and the less tangible collaborative social
and community climate change efforts are fairly
well documented.

Effects. Since the mid-1970's, more than a
thousand jobs reportedly have been provided to
gang members, delinquents, and others through the
efforts of the Community Relations Unit and the
Boys' Club, with the collaboration of local
business and other community organizations. More
than 100 businesses have participated in the jobs
program. A variety of jobs for youth have been
developed or tailor-made that otherwise would not
be available without the program. Gang youth have
learned a variety of vocational skills. Many have
gone on to become skilled, loyal workers at good
wages. Some have entered junior college. Youth
hired for part-time or summer positions have in
some cases stayed on for a year or more (20
percent stayed on at one firm).

Some employers have come to depend on the pool of
gang youth. They call Ken Weldon and Clay
Hollopeter when openings arise for unskilled
workers. Most of the jobs are very repetitive and
employers report a high turnover rate is common
when not using gang members (Poirier 1979, p. 31).
Open communication, respect, and understanding
have developed between employers and gang youth or
former gang youth. In the process, the police have
come to be accepted as job developers and
counselors and have developed positive relations
with gang youths, useful for a variety of law
enforcement purposes including information about
gang and other crime activities. Also according to
Weldon, many employers who had previously
experienced problems with graffiti and occasional
fights between employees because they had
unknowingly hired rival gang members, no longer
have this problem.

A cautionary note or reservation, however, must be
added. One of the key employers in the program
could not distinguish between the gang youth and
non-gang youth he hired in the summer programs.
Some of the referring sources, schools and police,
claimed that the youth they referred for jobs were
not yet gang members or delinquents and that the
purpose of the program was prevention of deviant
behavior. Some of the youth referred by probation
were not gang members or delinquents. It is not
clear whether delinquent gang members, non-gang
delinquents, and non-delinquent gang members were
regarded as essentially the same kinds or
equivalent youth. The extent to which non-gang
youth are referred to the program is also not
known.

It would seem important to determine what
proportion of youth in the program fit these
various categories. Ken Weldon states the criteria
for selecting persons who needed employment was
"basically in the following order:

1) Active gang members with a crisis,

2) Other at risk youth or young adults with a
crisis,

3) Family or friends of the above,

4) Other troubled or homeless persons in our
community."

The effects of the graffiti removal program are
less easy to document, although the police chief
announced shortly after the initiation of the jobs
and graffiti removal activities that arrests were
down. The sense of aesthetic pleasure or relief
was undoubtedly heightened for community residents
at the sight of cleaner, relatively unmarked
buildings and institutions. "It takes a little
hard work, but costs only time. The program to
cover or remove graffiti also did not cost the
community any money because all paint was donated.
Salaries of the Community Relations officers who
coordinate these efforts were a part of the
regular city budget" (J. D. Franz Research Report,
1975, p. 386).

Project Return is regarded as a successful
program. It has received funding for seven or
eight years under the Justice System Subvention
Program for Los Angeles County. El Monte was
selected by the Boys' Clubs of America to receive
the "Honor Award for Excellence" in the area of
Delinquency Prevention. Project Return achieved
its goal of keeping two thirds of its clients
arrest-free in the six-month period following
release from camp between 1984 and 1987.

A newer Gang Alternatives Prevention Program,
established by the Los Angeles Probation
Department within the last year or so and based in
the Community Relations Unit of the El Monte
Program has not yet shown significantly positive
results. Parents of gang youth in the middle
grades referred by schools are not apparently
responding to counseling and referral efforts.
"Parents usually go into denial and the program
has had few successes so far." According to the
probation officer in charge, the program is
expected to be more successful over time.

The State of California Commission on Crime
Control and Violence Prevention has viewed the "El
Monte Plan as being a noteworthy program because
it is a unique and demonstrably effective approach
to prevention of gang violence" (J. D. Franz
Research, circa 1978, p. 386). The program has
received high marks from community businesses and
the police. The community, including gang youth,
now look upon these institutions more positively
and even as a source of help.

The El Monte Plan, or parts of it, have become a
model for other cities or areas in California,
including Stockton, Hayward, and East Los Angeles.
A report, titled "The El Monte Plan - Hire a Gang
Leader!" (Boys Club of San Gabriel Valley, 1983),
summarizes many of the positive effects and
possibly indicates the effectiveness of the
program:

"Another benefit resulting from the program ranges
from the obvious, (i.e., with formerly
unemployable juvenile off the streets and
productively occupied for eight hours a day,
crimes committed by those juveniles had dropped).
Often their relatives are taken off the welfare
roles and less directly obvious, their incomes are
generating taxes. Perhaps, the least expected
spin-off benefit has been the almost complete
elimination of graffiti in the community, partly
because of the boys placed into jobs. A commitment
has been made to stop writing graffiti. . . . "

Effectiveness. What is lacking in the above
appraisal is statistical data or findings based on
adequate research design.  One evaluation of the
jobs program published in 1982 based on 1975,
1976, and 1977 program data indicates that of "198
gang members placed: 104 were still working, 27
were unemployed, 18 were in jail, 2 were facing
pending court action, 15 had gone back to school,
3 were in the service, 2 were in the job corps,
and 27 had left the area or were otherwise
unaccounted for." This appears to be a positive
outcome.

However, a group of program youths were matched
with 100 companions or control subjects on age,
sex, ethnicity, and gang membership. All subjects
were gang members and each group contained 93
Hispanic Americans and 7 Anglo-Americans. The
outcome variable was post-intervention period
detentions on a quarterly basis for "All Crimes"
and for "Crimes Against Persons." The pre-
intervention rate of detention was similar and
generally flat for the two youth groups in the
seven quarterly periods before intervention.

But there was a "clear decline for both groups
during the post-intervention period. Thus while
the experimental subjects seemed to be
successfully diverted from illegal activities over
successive months, the parallel effects for
control subjects suggest the credit for this
decline cannot be assigned to the employment
program. The data for crimes against persons
showed less decline over time than did 'all'
crime." (Willman and Snortum 1982, pp. 211-212.)
The authors attribute the positive change in both
groups to the aging process itself -- the tendency
to "mature out" of delinquent activities.

An earlier report in 1977 of the Planning and
Research Unit of the El Monte Police Department
covering a similar period, 1976 and 1977, compares
arrests for which the suspects are 16 to 22 years
of age and victims 16 to 22 years of age. While
this is a crude measure it is estimated to cover
90 percent of gang members in El Monte. The
specific comparison is between a gang territory
(Flores) served by the El Monte jobs project and a
set of gangs not served by the project. The
territory receiving the most concerted attention
from the Boys' Club and the Police Community
Relations office was the Flores territory. Another
special program focused to a limited extent on
gangs in the other areas. "One set of findings
indicates that violent crime increased by 16
percent in the gang area served by the project,
and decreased 18 percent in the area not served by
the project. In other words, the gang territory
"receiving the most concerted focus . . . shows
the least improvement, and in fact indicates an
augmentation of the problem" (Willman circa 1978,
p. 4).

There are methodological flaws in both studies,
not the least of which is the lack of clear
specification of who is a gang member, level of
gang member commitment to the gang, and explicit
criteria for what constitutes a gang incident in
contrast to a non-gang incident by a gang member.
Yet the pattern of findings suggest little if any
positive effect on gang or non-gang crime
reduction by the Boys' Club and Community
Relations El Monte Project in the study period
1976-1977.

Also revealing is a comparison of gang-related,
non-gangrelated, and total homicides in El Monte
for an 18-1/2-year period from 1971 through part
of 1989. Figure 1 reveals a remarkable stability
in the total amount of homicides in the community
over the 18-1/2-year period. Given the fact that
the population increase for the area over the
period was approximately 43 percent, from
approximately 70,000 to 100,000, and assuming that
demographic and socioeconomic patterns were
basically the same, its likely that the homicide
rate in fact declined. It is possible to
extrapolate to the general crime situation which
may have also fallen in this period. We must
recall that the perception of key informants is
that gang crime and perhaps crime generally has
fallen in the area.

The data reveal, however, that patterns for gang
and non-gang homicides show striking variations
over the years, particularly for the periods
between 1971 and 1980, and 1981 until the present.
Gang homicides account for 35.1 percent of total
homicides in the period (1971-1975) essentially
prior to project effect in El Monte and for 36.1
percent of total homicides in the period (1976-
1980) a time of very heavy project emphasis. In
other words, there seemed to be little change in
the relative homicide rate for the two periods,
although it is likely there was an absolute
decline in homicide rate, given the likely
population increase.

However, in the period 1981 and afterward, while
total homicides remain constant, or in fact the
rate is probably declining, there is sharp
variation in patterns of gang and non-gang related
homicide. The mean number of total homicides
remains fairly constant over the 18-1/2 year
period. The number of gang homicides does not
decline during the first five years of program
operation. However, a sharp decline sets in during
the second five years of operation (see Figure 1).
It is difficult to understand what accounts for
this radical change. It is hard to believe that
the effect of the El Monte Plan took at least five
years to have a significant effect, and then a
radical decline set in. We would have anticipated
a decline not long after the program started.
Furthermore, we cannot clearly account for the
relatively sharp rise in non-gang homicides. Our
key informants indicate that this was due to an
increase in newcomer violent Hispanic population.

We cannot explain this pattern of change and
cannot attribute it entirely to program affects.
Ken Weldon indicates that their "definition of
gang-related crimes has never changed." However,
he also states that the police department "has
never kept gang-related statistics, except for
homicides." We may speculate, nevertheless, that
one or more of the following may have also
occurred: there may be recent difficulty in
distinguishing gang-related and law violating
youth group activity; certain demographic or age
effects may have occurred; or socioeconomic
conditions may have improved. Gang deviancy
patterns may also have been changing. Drive-by
gang shootings have declined. There is indication
that the number of gangs has contracted, although
the number of gang members has not changed
significantly. Smaller gangs may have been
incorporated into fewer but larger gangs. What is
possible is that gang member interest in intergang
violence has now shifted to increased drug use and
selling, although several of our informants
suggest there was little change in the youth gang
drug problem over the years. Emphasis has
continued to be on recreational use of marijuana
but very little PCP. Sales by gang members were
quite limited and primarily within the gang;
however, estimates by informants of the percent of
youth involved in sales of drugs vary from 10
percent to 75 percent. Most recently, Ken Weldon
estimates that the percentage is less than 10
percent.

The findings of drug trafficking in El Monte by
the Los Angeles County Probation Department
(Specialized Gang Supervision Program), in their
1987 Progress Report differ from several of the
other key informants. A marked increase in sales
of marijuana and large-scale heroin sales is
reported:

"The `Street Boys' . . . are heavily involved in
the sales of marijuana in a local park. The
Bonward/Klingerman area of El Monte continues to
be a boom area in drug sales. There were 43
arrests in February of 1987 compared to 0 in the
same month of 1986 for drug sales. In March there
were over 60 arrests but large-scale heroin sales
continued. It was rumored that the Mexican Mafia
(EME) was using a local gang, El Monte Flores
(EMF), to intimidate Mexican national drug dealers
so EME could take over drug sales in the area. . .
. Many speculate that a movement toward profitable
drug dealing may be equally responsible for
decreased warfare. Gang violence is there in the
form of drug-related robberies" (Duran 1987, pp.
15-16).

The full accuracy of this report, however, has
been challenged by several of the informants.
Hollopeter states that "The `Street Boys' was a
transitional clique and no longer exists. There
was no Mexican Mafia use of the gang to expand
drug trafficking." Weldon adds that when the
Street Boys were active, they were "responsible
for a very small percentage of marijuana sales."
Duran, the author of the report, has since stated
that these data were not verified. However, most
of the informants believe that drug use is present
in the gang and that some increase in drug
trafficking by gang and non-gang adults has
occurred. Gang members, when they are also active
gang members, are generally responsible for a
small percentage of drug sales.

Conclusion

In many respects, the El Monte Program is a model
of comprehensive, balanced approaches, highly
effective and sustained leadership, a great deal
of interagency collaboration, and broad community-
based support, particularly by business and
government agencies. Exemplary employment,
graffiti removal, detention/ correction aftercare
programs, and supportive services were developed.
A large low-income minority population migrated to
the community, however, unskilled and semi-skilled
jobs were apparently plentiful. Violent and
criminal behavior by gangs was entrenched for a
period of years.

The El Monte programs were innovative and
apparently skillfully carried out. Many youth,
gang and non-gang, were probably reached and
served. Many jobs were obtained for these youth.
The graffiti problem largely abated. The problem
of gangs, according to reports, is largely
resolved or stabilized. The data on gang violence
is somewhat supportive, although the relatively
sharp drop in gang-related violence and the
escalation of non-gang related violence,
particularly homicide, is not adequately
explained. The Project's effect on this changing
pattern is not clear.

Nevertheless, the likelihood remains that the
large-scale efforts of community agencies to deal
with the general gang and delinquency problem in
El Monte have been effective to a substantial
degree. The El Monte Program may have had a long-
term positive preventive effect on crime and
delinquency generally. This is not to deny that
increased drug use and trafficking opportunities
may also be a significant cause of changing gang
deviancy patterns.

References

Baker, Bob. 1980. "Youth Gangs." Los Angeles
Times. September 20.

Barker, Mayerene. 1980. "Prosecution of Gangs
Difficult." Los Angeles Times. October 5.

Boys' Club of San Gabriel Valley. 1983. "The El
Monte Plan - Hire a Gang Leader." El Monte,
California. March 1.

Duran, Michael. 1987. "Progress Report,"
Specialized Gang Supervision Program. Los Angeles
County Probation Department. El Monte, California.
March 1.

Franz, J.D. 1975. "Research Report." California
Criminal Justice Authority, Sacramento.

Keynote Magazine. 1977. "In California Gang
Members Punch Time Clocks." Fall.

Poirier, Michael P. 1979. "Strategy for Reduction
of Street Gang Violence." Class Paper. El Monte
Police Department, August.

William, Mark T. 1977 (circa). "Trends in Crimes
Against the Person." Planning and Research, El
Monte Police Department.

Willman, Mark T. and John R. Snortum. 1982. "A
Police Program for Employment of Youth Gang
Members." International Journal of Offender
Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 26(3): 207-
214.

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

CASE STUDY 6
East Los Angeles

Background

East Los Angeles had until the late 1970's the
worst or most serious gang problem in the county,
if not the country. East Los Angeles is located on
the eastern border and outside of the city of Los
Angeles. Extreme gang violence was traditional or
endemic in the community until the mid-1970's.
While a large number of youth gangs and gang
members are still present, the community's gang
homicide rate has declined markedly. Between the
late 1970's and early in 1989, the situation in
East Los Angeles was in contrast to the growing
gang problem in other parts of the city and
county. South Central Los Angeles, in 1988 and
through the middle of 1989, for example, in many
respects was the current version of the East Los
Angeles gang community of 10 to 15 years ago,
particularly in respect to the gang violence, but
not necessarily the drug problem.

The success of East Los Angeles in reducing the
level of gang violence during the period
identified may have been a result largely of
cooperative community and agency efforts, positive
county policy efforts targeted to the area,
improved socioeconomic status of the community, as
well as changes in youth gang and deviancy
patterns. All the key factors and their relative
weights are not clearly known to us, however.
Community mobilization and interagency
coordination, in particular, stands in sharp
contrast to the fragmentation and lack of
collaborative approaches in other communities of
the city of Los Angeles. What occurred in East Los
Angeles at a certain period may serve tentatively
as one model for dealing with the chronic gang
problem in large urban areas.

The general street gang problem in the county was
described in a recent report of the County Wide
Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee
Interagency Gang Task Force (1989) as follows:

"The gang homicide rate was up 25.4%, attempted
murder up 47.9%, felonious assaults up 13% and
batteries on police officers up 84.4%. Within the
areas policed by the Los Angeles Sheriff's
Department, the [gang] homicide rate is up 21%,
attempted murders up 4.7%, felonious assaults up
4.7%, and batteries on police officers up 6%.

In 1988 there were 452 gang-related homicides in
Los Angeles County, a 16.8% increase over the
previous year. In five years the County has
experienced a 113% increase in gang murders and
unless the present level of gang violence is
abated, the number of gang-related homicides may
rise to 515 in 1989 . . . In the city of Los
Angeles gang homicides accounted for over a third
of the total number of homicides in 1988 . . . In
1989 there was a dramatic rise and spread of gang
crime in areas of the county which at one time
reported little or no gang activity. . . "

Los Angeles street gangs may have become one of
the nation's leading "youth" gang-related sources
of rock cocaine distribution with confirmed law
enforcement arrests and/or contacts in 46 cities
across the nation. It should be emphasized,
however, that in most communities, even in Los
Angeles County, youth gangs per se are responsible
for a small part of the drug problem.

Lorne Kramer, commander of a special gang drug
unit of the Los Angeles Police Department provides
additional estimates describing the growing scope
of the problem in a recent interview: "With the
penetration of crack into the Los Angeles area
four to five years ago, the percentage of gang
homicides has risen. Last year this percentage was
35 percent. For 1989 this figure is running about
40 percent."

Richard Alatorre, a member of the Los Angeles City
Council, observes:

There are a myriad of influences confronting young
people in our city today -- including economic,
social, and structural processes on the family,
growing ethnic and language diversion, the threats
of child abuse, substance abuse, and peer
pressure. Children confront these challenges in an
environment of declining funds, services, and
support structures from all levels of government
and the community. Most government agencies work
chiefly alone, as do churches, synagogues, and
community-based organizations. There are fights
over money and turf-fights which sometimes mirror
the animosity of gang altercations.

Councilman Alatorre adds:

I am not naive enough to believe that the turf
battles between the gangs or politicians or
community organizations can be easily set aside. .
. . Segments of the Los Angeles community are not
used to working together, including that of the
Los Angeles Unified School District and the
County, and sometimes each of us in the City
Council define problems as our own or someone
else's.

The varied reactions to the youth gang problem are
indicated by the different patterns of response of
the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department (LASD) and
the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). The LASD
response appears to be relatively centralized and
better coordinated. The Sheriff's gang unit,
Operation Safe Streets (OSS), more often targets
specific gangs with a record of violent activity,
rather than all gangs in an area. The LAPD
approach appears to be more decentralized, yet not
as well anchored in relationships with agencies
and community groups for dealing with the problem.
Structures or strategies for dealing with the
youth gang problem appear to be different, with
"sweeps" emphasized more by LAPD.

The perception of the LAPD and LASD in regard to
involvement with community agencies appears to be
quite different. The LAPD has tried to remain
aloof from community groups. "Some are here today
and gone tomorrow." Also, the LAPD apparently does
not want to alienate community groups by being
perceived as more favorable to one and not to
others. "Our role is primarily enforcement. The
only program that we have outside of an
enforcement role is DARE." LASD, at least its gang
unit, makes every effort to attend community
meetings an respond to the interests and concerns
of the great variety of community agencies and
groups.

Despite the seriousness of the gang problem and
the diversity of approaches, there is evidence
that some of the most innovative and relatively
most successful approaches in the country are to
be found in Los Angeles County. However, a
cautionary note is required. None of the
approaches has been adequately evaluated. Our
description and assessment of the youth gang
problem in East Los Angeles and the response to it
for the period from the late 1970's through early
1989 must be regarded as largely impressionistic,
based primarily on informant observations. 

Hard data on the East Los Angeles community and
its gang problem are not easy to come by. The
community is not clearly or consistently defined
geographically or in terms of jurisdictional
responsibility. The Los Angeles County Probation
Department defines the community as including
parts of Los Angeles City as well as the County.
The Los Angeles Unified School District and its
East Los Angeles Skills Center obtains students
from both county and city. The Los Angeles County
Police Department claims jurisdiction of a city
area called East Los Angeles. The Los Angeles
Sheriff's Department has jurisdiction mainly in
the county, which includes an East Los Angeles
sector, but LASD also deals with gang problems in
a public housing project on the border of East Los
Angeles, both in the county and the city. The Los
Angeles County Department of Regional Planning
officially classifies East Los Angeles as located
in the county outside of the city, containing the
communities of City Terrace (Census Tract 11.21),
Belvedere Gardens (Census Tract 11.22), and
Eastmont (Census Tract 32.82). This area
encompasses 13 neighborhoods, according to one
East Los Angeles youth agency director.

The population in East Los Angeles appears to be
both stable and changing. Population size in the
three census tracts was estimated to be 111,652 in
1988, a decrease from 116,280 in 1984, but a
slight increase from the 1980 census of 110,017,
which in turn was a small increase over the 1970
census of 104,881. Despite the slight changes in
population size over about a 20 year period, there
have been significant changes in population
composition, according to agency informants,
although the character of the population remains
Hispanic, predominantly Mexican-American or
Chicano. Some upwardly mobile families have moved
to the suburbs, while a substantial population has
moved into the area from Mexico, including legal
and undocumented immigrants. Newcomers also
include persons from Guatemala, San Salvador,
Nicaragua, Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. About
10 percent of the population are non-Hispanic
blacks, whites, and Asians. The gang and drug
problems are particularly serious in certain
sectors of the community, especially in the
previously mentioned low-income housing project,
which contains a mixed population and a variety of
gangs in a very small area.

The East Los Angeles community, nevertheless, is
reported to have been upgraded socially,
economically, and physically in the past decade or
more. The area's population, agencies,
organizations, and churches have developed a
strong sense of self-identity and community. Urban
redevelopment has served to improve the community,
affecting an area of about 10,000 persons. A
thriving and stable business and industrial base
exists. Yet the community must still be regarded
as an inner city community, with significant
sectors of the population poor.

The Youth Gang Problem

The nature of gang activity has changed in East
Los Angeles. In the time period identified, there
has been a shift from traditional turf-based
violence to Stoner gang phenomena. Stoners are
often youth from lower middle-class, 2nd and 3rd
generation families. They are distinguished by
their long hair, commitment to rock music, drug
abuse, but only occasional involvement (until very
recently) in serious violent activities. Stoners
are reported from time to time to be engaged in
vandalism, satanic activities, and desecration of
church property. Some Stoner groups, nevertheless,
have had close ties with the more traditional
turf-based and violent gangs. There may also be a
growing alignment in the border neighborhoods
between Hispanics and blacks in groups identified
as CRIPS and BLOODS, increasingly engaged in drug
dealing. There are many strands and complex
interconnections among the different aspects of
the youth gang problem in this community.

Youth gangs have been present in East Los Angeles
for more than 60 years. The traditional groups
vary in size from five or six to 200 or more
members. They are organized in age groups from
Tiny Loco, or peewees, to Veteranos or old men
claiming identification with a particular group.
Approximately 6 percent of the total gang
population are hard-core gang members, according
to one local agency director's estimate. Some of
the youth gangs spend much time talking about
defending turf often in response to pressure from
and expectations of older gang members who now may
be, however, primarily engaged in heavy drug use.
Because of the substantial period in which some
gangs have not engaged in violence, a lack of
continuity may also exist between veteranos and
new or aspiring youth gang leaders. Despite the
reduction in extreme gang violence, members still
fight and engage in a range of criminal
activities. Drug use and sales, mainly of
marijuana cocaine, and heroin, are prevalent. Drug
trafficking in East Los Angeles is not as well
organized as in some of the low-income gang
problem black communities. But this situation may
be changing, particularly with the introduction of
new drug patterns, e.g., use and distribution of
"ice."

Community Response

Community groups, agencies, and even youth gangs
in East Los Angeles during our defined period may
have developed both a deep concern over youth gang
violence and an uncommon pattern of mutual
interaction and cooperation in dealing with the
problem over the years. Community efforts seem to
have been highly coordinated at formal and
informal levels, with overlapping social agency,
criminal justice, and grassroots group concern and
membership resulting in an unusually well-
integrated set of community strategies and
programs.

A history of organized response to the gang
problem dates back at least to the 1960's (and
probably to World War II and earlier). Civil
rights protests, Chicano empowerment, and local
community development movements contributed to the
formation of various efforts, including the
Federation of Youth Gangs or Barrios, in the early
1970's to control gang violence, to "break the
hold" that certain gang leaders had on the
community, and to engage in community improvement
programs. The Federation represented an effort by
certain youth gang leaders, Leo Cortez, Charles
Pineda, and others to control youth gang violence.
An organization of youth gang presidents was
created who directed their energies and those of
certain gangs and gang members to community
betterment. Their activities included park and
security patrols, and collaboration with local
merchants to control graffiti. Jobs were obtained
for some of the youth. A parents group was
initiated. The Federation became later, in part, a
model for the development of the Gang Violence
Reduction Project of the California Youth
Authority. Close links were established with the
Los Angeles Probation Department and with a
variety of other agencies, including the Sheriff's
Department, and other community-based agencies.
Michael Duran and later Brother Modesto Leon and
others were highly important to these early
collaborative efforts.

In due course the East Los Angeles Interagency
Committee was organized which involved all key
agencies and community groups in a series of
formal and informal meetings to develop
cooperative suppression measures and social
development programs to deal with the problem.
Representatives of parent groups, churches,
Sheriff's Department, Probation, District
Attorney's Office, judges, the California Youth
Authority, community-based organizations, such as
Cleveland House, Boys' Club, YMCA, Neighborhood
Watch, United Neighborhood Organizations, Victory
Outreach, and others began to meet every third
Tuesday of the month. A pattern of interdependence
and networking among organizations became
ingrained. Of special importance over time has
been the interest, responsiveness, and political
support of County Supervisor, Ed Edeleman, in the
development of various community projects and
especially the provision of resources and sanction
to support them.

A Youth Task Force continues to meet, now on a
weekly basis, to share information about gang
problems. No single person or agency "runs the
show." Members of this group have not only
influenced the response to the local gang problem
but also the development of city- and county-wide
approaches, including that of the county-wide
Community Youth Gang Services (CYGS) Project,
which has been closely involved in these local
East Los Angeles efforts as well since 1980. CYGS
is headquartered in the facility of the Probation
Department in East Los Angeles.

The East Los Angeles response to gangs appears to
be guided by certain principles: (1) Insiders take
key, front-line responsibility for addressing the
problem in terms that make sense to local
community culture; (2) Whatever is done must
emphasize concern with the general welfare and
development of youth; (3) Activities and contacts
with gang youth must be characterized by respect
for them; (4) At the same time, close supervision
of gang youth and appropriate punishment for
criminal behavior are appropriate to "force social
reality" on targeted youth gangs and their
members. While it is assumed, based on the
community's tradition, that most youths will be or
continue to be gang members, an increasing amount
of energy is directed not only to the control and
limitation of gang violence, but to prevention of
young people from joining gangs.

Community mobilization with respect to the youth
gang problem is carried out through agency and
community group coalitions. The Concerned Parents
Group is closely associated with Brother Modesto
and the Catholic Church, and also with the Gang
Violence Reduction Project (GVRP) of the
California Youth Authority (CYA) and the Community
Youth Gang Services (CYGS). The Concerned Parents
Group works closely with probation officers around
supervision of gang youth, many of whom are their
own children. The East Los Angeles Adult Skills
Center calls in staff of GVRP, CYGS, and Probation
to deal with gang problems which break out or are
threatened in the school. This Center works
closely with local business and industry to assist
students (including gang members) to learn skills
and good work habits GVRP and CYGS have somewhat
overlapping functions, yet manage to work in a
reasonably cooperative way, with little friction.

Both the Gang Violence Reduction Project and the
Community Youth Gang Services have different scope
and emphases but rely to varying degrees on gang
consultants or crisis workers, sometimes ex-
offenders with extensive contacts with youth
gangs, to monitor, control, and mediate gang
behavior and intergang conflicts. Both Agencies
have close relationships with the Sheriff's
Department. When community influentials decide to
control gang outbreaks at a local school, a
variety of agencies, including GVRP and/or CYGS,
Probation, and Concerned Parents Group members are
at school on a daily basis working with school
staff to control gang violence.

The Catholic Church and the Concerned Parents
Group have been especially closely allied in the
exercise of influence over gang youth. Gang youth,
agency representatives, law enforcement, as well
as church and parents group representatives, are
sometimes involved together in helping to resolve
intergang conflicts. Most recently the Concerned
Parents Group of East Los Angeles attempted to
influence neighborhood parents not to accept
"drug" money from their gang youth who are selling
drugs.

A key community advocate and facilitative force
recently has been the Catholic Church, mainly
through the efforts of Brother Modesto and Spirit
House. Brother Modesto has played a primary role
in bringing agencies and community together. He
has raised his voice, marched, and brought
pressures to bear on public agencies to develop
more effective outreach programs of services for
gang youth as well as to exercise more control of
gang youth behavior, including drug trafficking in
the low-income housing projects.

The pattern of interagency coordination and
community mobilization in East Los Angeles
appeared for a long period of time to contrast
with a less active and fragmented approach in
other parts of the county and Los Angeles City.
Agencies in the city have been apparently slower
to respond to the gang problem, although recent
efforts by the County Wide Criminal Justice
Coordination Committee Interagency Gang Task
Force, the city's Criminal Justice Planning
Agency, and certain community organizations may be
in process of more effectively mobilizing local
citizen interest and coordinating agency efforts.
However, it is still not clear that the city and a
number of agencies are prepared to deal in a
sustained and comprehensive way with the more
serious aspects of the youth gang problem.

Informants indicate that key city decision makers
were slow to recognize the scope and seriousness
of the gang problem until it was almost too late.
There was too much concern with business flight
and loss of tourism and too little influence by
local community groups representing poor minority
interests in city decisions. There was a tendency
to meet a variety of agency interests through
distribution of limited funds for nominal programs
which may have had only very minimal impact on the
gang problem. Coordination itself was a
significant issue with various task forces and
coordinating groups often in competition with each
other for funds and influence. The degree to which
city government, local agencies, and grassroots
groups collaborate with each other to meaningfully
target various aspects of the problem remains a
question.

Some communities, such as South Central, are in
considerable disarray, with massive turnovers of
population and little community identification.
Local public and voluntary agency and grassroots
efforts appear at times to reflect an "us against
them (youth)" approach, in contrast to the sense
of East Los Angeles community identification with
its youth. Interestingly, there is at present a
movement by some East Los Angeles community
agencies, grassroots groups, and leaders into
South Central to try their hand at community
mobilization and control of the gang problem,
which is not only a black but a growing Hispanic
problem.

It is important therefore for various reasons to
examine closely the specific contributions of each
of the key organizations and community groups, as
well as of their leaders to the reduction of
serious gang violence which has taken place in
East Los Angeles, at least until recently. The
patterns developed there are now being tested or
being considered for adaptation in other communi-
ties in Los Angeles and elsewhere. To some extent,
they are also being reinvigorated in East Los
Angeles.

Soleded Enrichment Action (SEA), Concerned Parents
Group, and Brother Modesto

Brother Modesto Leon of the Claretian Order was
initially assigned to the Our Lady of Soledad
Parish in East Los Angeles in 1972. He immediately
demonstrated special interest in dealing with the
gang problem. He stimulated the development of a
series of projects. Soledad Enrichment Action
(SEA) was begun by Brother Modesto as an
alternative school staffed by nuns, priests, and
lay Catholics to reach gang youth who were not
"making it" in the regular public school.

"SEA strives to prepare problem youths with
learning disabilities to reenter the public
education system and to prepare them to pass their
high school equivalency examination (G.E.D.). The
program assists minority youth 12 to 19 years old
and their families with educational services, in-
service training programs, parenting skills,
workshops, and counseling to program
participants."

The SEA program is funded by the East Los Angeles
Unified School District, Project Pay, and the
Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. A primary
purpose of the program is to enable students --
usually gang members to come together despite
different gang affiliations, to learn to better
accept each other as well as resolve their
academic deficiencies. After a period in the SEA
students return to their home schools to
successfully complete their education.

Another program further developed by Brother
Modesto, now also connected with SEA, has been the
Concerned Parents Group. It started as a support
group for the parents of "young men who had been
killed in gang violence." Brother Modesto
encouraged the group to move beyond its mutual
support function, to become proactive and contact
and communicate with each other across gang turfs
to deal with impending gang fights and better
control their own children. The Concerned Parents
Group learned to trust the authorities, to call
the police when necessary to prevent or stop
fights, and to work closely with probation
officers both to assist in the control and
protection of their own children. They came to
believe that it was all right and beneficial to
keep children off the streets and even in jail to
protect them. Much of this was due to the strong
identification which agency leaders had with the
community and their extra outreach efforts to work
with the Concerned Parents Group.

The Concerned Parents Group can call crisis
meetings at SEA on which occasions representatives
of other agencies, churches, as well as gang youth
are present. Members of different gangs, and their
parents talk about the "foolishness" of gang
fighting and what can be done to avoid such
conflict. Mediation meetings are often conducted
after a gang killing. Parents have patrolled the
streets to prevent both gang violence and drug
dealing activities. Some of the members of the
Concerned Parents Group are closely involved as
board, advisory group or staff members in the
activities of the Community Youth Gang Services
and Gang Violence Reduction Project.

The Concerned Parents Group has also expanded its
efforts to include youth in correctional
institutions. They periodically visit the Nellis
Correctional School, part of the California Youth
Authority, to counsel gang youths and work with
the parents of these youth back in their various
communities throughout Los Angeles. The Concerned
Parents Group are said to be uniquely persuasive
because many have had their own children killed,
seriously injured, or imprisoned. Some of the
parents of youth at the Nellis Correctional School
have now joined the Concerned Parents Group.

The interests and efforts of Brother Modesto, SEA,
and the Concerned Parents Group have spread beyond
East Los Angeles to Pomona and South Central.
Alternative schools have been established under
Catholic Church auspices. Nuns, priests, and lay
Catholics are actively encouraging parents, youth,
and other agencies to deal collectively with the
youth gang problem. Brother Modesto, along with
Michael Duran and more recently Steve Valdivia of
CYGS, has been significant as a catalyst in the
mobilization of bureaucratic and political
interests in dealing directly with the youth gang
problem.

Gang Violence Reduction Program (GVRP)

The Gang Violence Reduction Program (GVRP) was a
partial outgrowth of the Federation of Young Gangs
or Barrios in 1976. It is a unique project of the
California Youth Authority, established to control
gang violence using gang leaders or gang
influentials as consultants or workers. Its
specific mission is "to mitigate gang feuds and to
provide positive activities in which the
neighborhoods [barrios or gangs] can become
involved." The parole department of the California
Youth Authority funds and operates the program.
Professional, experienced parole agents administer
and supervise the program which relies on
consultants, some former gang members from East
Los Angeles gangs now settled down, as well as
individuals identified as "movers and shakers" in
the community, to provide crisis counseling,
engage in community resource development, and most
recently drug and youth gang prevention activities
in elementary schools of the community. However,
it is possible that the emphasis on prevention may
have to some extent shifted attention from already
gang-affiliated junior high and high school
youths.

The staff consists of one supervising parole
agent, four parole officers -- two males and two
females -- and nineteen gang consultants
(including six females). The consultants, ex-gang
offenders and neighborhood workers, are paid $5.50
per hour with no benefits. About one third of the
consultants have served prison time and may be on
parole. These particular consultants are under
pressure from two worlds -- peers in the community
and parole agents representing the "straight"
world. Close supervision and special training
maximize the potential of the consultants for
effectively carrying out their assignments.

GVRP is a highly indigenous approach, dependent on
close identification of workers with the positive
interests and needs of gang youth and the local
community. The activities of the workers range
from planning trips, ball games and arranging
handball tournaments to graffiti removal projects.
Major objectives of workers are to identify
trouble spots, resolve intergang tensions, and
exercise influence in the control of gang
conflict. Workers gather information on impending
fights, share information about individual gang
youth and gang activities with police, probation,
schools, and Concerned Parents Group. GVRP has
increasingly turned attention to dealing with
problems of drug abuse and preventing elementary
school youth from joining gangs in the first
place. Special student curricula, brochures, and
presentations have been developed for these
purposes.

The Gang Reduction Violence Program has worked out
collaborative relationships with the Community
Youth Gang Services (CYGS), a somewhat similar
gang crisis intervention and prevention project
with greater scope in terms of jurisdiction and
purpose. Executive leadership style and agency
contexts are quite different, nevertheless, line
staff from both agencies sometimes move from one
project to the other. However, while GVRP workers
are anchored in and identified with specific
neighborhoods, CYGS workers are more mobile. GVRP
workers concentrate in certain neighborhoods and
are closely identified with certain gangs,
neighborhoods and local business groups. Both
agencies employ former gang members who have at
times been involved in illegal or questionable
practices and "busted."

GVRP has been the subject of some controversy,
particularly in an earlier period, when claims
were made that workers were overidentified with
gangs and tensions existed with law enforcement.
Smoother relationships have been developed over
time. Extensive research (Torres 1980, 1985) has
been conducted on the effectiveness of the
program. Evidence exists of a reduction in gang
homicides in the areas served by GVRP, but to what
extent the declines can be attributed specifically
to project efforts is not entirely clear.
Currently the East Los Angeles Adult Skills Center
and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department appear to
have a very high regard for the crisis
intervention skills and accomplishments of the
GVRP in keeping gang violence at a low level.

Community Youth Gang Services

Community Youth Gang Services (CYGS) is a
comprehensive crisis intervention, prevention,
youth development, and community mobilization
project established in 1982 to deal with a rising
gang crisis in Los Angeles City and Los Angeles
County. The project is funded mainly by the county
and the city and is a partial adaptation of a
crisis-intervention, probation-related, and
community mobilization effort in Philadelphia that
was associated with a sharp reduction in gang
violence. Some informants state the Philadelphia
Crisis Intervention Services Network (CIN) was
itself originally modelled in the early and middle
1970s after the work of the Federation of Youth
Gangs.

CYGS has undergone reorganization and leadership
change in its history. Its third and present
director, Steve Valdivia, was formerly a youth
gang member and later became director of a local
community-based agency. He, therefore, has strong
roots in both youth gangs and the agency world.
His efforts at dealing with youth gang problems
date from the days of the Federation of Youth
Gangs.

CYGS has changed the primary focus of its program
from crisis intervention to prevention and
community involvement, with increased targeting of
specific areas in the county and the city and
closer collaboration with law enforcement and
schools. CYGS is headquartered in East Los Angeles
and retains a strong commitment to the East Los
Angeles community, although it reduced staff for a
period of time when other areas demonstrated more
serious gang problems.

The current plan, entitled the Reduction of Street
Violence Program (RSVP) includes child care, after
school, employment readiness and other human
service activities. Emphasis is on working with
elementary school youth, family counseling of
marginal gang youth, and the mobilization of the
community to provide extra supervision and control
of youth as well as protection of community
property. The approach is also integrated into the
plans and objectives of the county-wide Los
Angeles Inter-Agency Task Force.

CYGS with a staff of more than 70 workers is
presently located in four key areas of the county
and the city and sponsors or participates in the
following:

1. Operation Stay in School (OSIS). This program
is coordinated with law enforcement and the
schools. After a police officer picks up a truant
and drops him off at an OSIS Center where he is
counseled by school personnel, a CYGS worker makes
a home visit and assists parents to become more
"responsible for [the] youth."

2. Safe Harbors. CYGS worker, in cooperation with
law enforcement and park rangers, has targeted
certain schools and parks which have become
centers of gang activity. The workers engage in
positive relationship interactions with youth and
assist them and their groups to develop more
constructive activities.

3. Career Paths. CYGS workers are now more
involved in preventive educational efforts in
elementary schools. They teach a 15-week
curriculum consisting of classes -- 45 minutes in
duration -- in order to "inform, stimulate and
steer the child to a life of formal educational
and honest hard work, and away from the street
life of crime, drugs and death." Parents are urged
to attend child development workshops and teachers
and administrators at school receive in-service
training to reinforce efforts initiated by CYGS. 

4. Community Mobilization Program - 100 Men Plus.
This program is designed to involve parents and
adult community members in the "suppression of
gangs, gang activity, and recruitment." Apparently
this is to be a community mobilization effort
around men of the community willing to serve as
catalysts for "non-violent direct action for
neighborhood groups, churches, and other
organizations willing to engage in positive
strategies to reclaim and maintain control of
their neighborhoods." Certain community
recreational and developmental activities have
resulted thus far.

5. Graffiti Removal Project. This is a
continuation of a program to clean up and beautify
targeted communities as well as to provide on-the-
job training to youth gang members. Ex-gang
members, parents, and others are also involved in
graffiti removal efforts. Under the old graffiti
reduction program, free services were provided to
certain communities for graffiti removal. In one
community, wet sandblasting and graffiti paint-out
services were provided at no charge. A variety of
services were also offered to meet the "needs of
private, commercial industries, and municipal
entities . . . " for profit.

CYGS conducts or participates collaboratively with
other agencies in a variety of programs, including
court ordered restitution through provision of
community service opportunities to youth, a gang
jeopardy program in which younger youth are picked
up by the police if they hang around with gang
members, and counseled by CYGS workers. Crisis
intervention and mediation is still conducted by
CYGS, although apparently not with as high
priority as earlier. More networking with a
variety of agencies and community organizations is
also now carried out. It is not clear how many of
the above described programs will be established
in East Los Angeles and with what priority. CYGS
is highly responsive to gang crises, community and
political pressures at city and county levels.

Los Angeles County Probation

The Los Angeles County Probation Department has
been concerned with the youth gang problems and
has established programs of intervention and
supervision of gang members since World War II.
Its Group Guidance Program in the 1960's used
outreach probation officers to work with gangs. It
developed special individual and group activities
to prevent and control gang violence in the
1960's. Many of the ideas of this early program
evolved in the East Los Angeles area. Michael
Duran has been a leader at the street, agency,
East Los Angeles community and county levels in
the development of gang control and prevention
efforts for three decades. He is currently
Director of all special gang programs of the
Probation Department.

The Specialized Gang Supervision Program was
established in 1980 to reduce the rate of
homicides and violent acts by gang probationers,
and to significantly improve Probation control and
surveillance of gang-oriented probationers by
ensuring compliance with all conditions of
Probation and promptly handling violators by
returning them to court for short juvenile hall
sentences and correctional institutions or prisons
when necessary. Deputy Probation Officers were
expected to provide extended supervision,
including evenings and weekends, through ride-
alongs with law enforcement officers, and provide
surveillance of youth directly in the community.

Probation has adopted a strong suppression
strategy, a shift from its earlier counseling and
social support approach. It focuses not only on
more serious gang offenders but utilizes the
various powers of Probation to "violate" youth or
lock them up, for example, for three days without
court action -- a power even the police do not
have. The Probation Department is making use of an
old law that gives Probation special arrest
powers. It allows Probation Officers to pick up
gang youth and "violate" them immediately if they
are not in compliance with their Probation
conditions, however, arbitrary use of this power
is discouraged. "Front-line" suppression is
emphasized in all five units of the Specialized
Gang Supervision Program. The administrative
officer of each of the units in addition, may
determine whether the unit's gang probation
officers will wear bullet proof vests in
potentially dangerous situations. Probation
officers are not allowed to be armed.

The East Los Angeles Probation Unit covers an area
larger than the more narrowly defined East Los
Angeles area in the county. Its 8 officers are
expected to carry 400 gang probationers, most of
whom are felony offenders for sale of drugs, or
sentenced for possession of weapons, assaults with
deadly weapons, attempted murder, "drive-by"
shootings, burglary, and car thefts. Ninety-nine
percent of the caseload comprises male offenders,
mainly Mexican-American or Chicano. The program
serves gang juveniles as well as gang adults. The
current age range of probationers is from 14 to 45
years of age, however, the most active offenders
ranges between 15 and 22 years. Approximately 80
percent of the probationers served in this unit
are under 18 years.

A key objective of the program is the provision of
"intensive" supervision, which consists of a
minimum of twice monthly face-to-face contacts,
with two additional phone contacts and several
collateral contacts with parents, schools, and
agencies, mainly by phone, during the month. Good
collaborative relationship with other agencies is
emphasized. Information on gang youth is readily
shared with other agencies. Special attention has
been paid in recent years to the improvement of
relationships with law enforcement and the courts.
The program's general goal of gang homicide
reduction was reported to have been achieved by
1987. However, a recent increase in violence rates
is apparently a result of increased drug
activities, including crack sales, as well as a
return to greater traditional gang-related
activity by Stoner gangs.

Christine Wong, Supervisor of the East Los Angeles
Unit, observes that a highly intense monitoring of
gang probationers is required, but since Probation
Officers are mandated by law to "process a lot of
paper work," only about 50 percent of the time is
spent on "suppression and rehabilitation." The
unit experiences a 50 percent turnover in
caseloads of 50 probationers every three months.
With 50 youth on a caseload and 22 working days
per month, this means a minimum of 5 required
contacts per day. "Add the time we spend on ride-
alongs and collateral contacts with other
agencies, we are under tremendous pressure."

Other programs of the Probation Department
directed to control and prevention of the gang
problem, which impact the East Los Angeles
community include the Gang Drug Pusher Program
(GDPP) to reduce drug-related gang violence
through the use of intensive monitoring and
electronic surveillance of gang members/drug
pushers. GDPP is viewed as a cost effective
solution to controlling drug pushers when there
"is no room for them in a correctional
institution." The Gang Alternatives and Prevention
Program (GAPP) was established to supplement
current efforts to "combat gang violence and drug
use." The objectives of GAPP are early
intervention, education and supervision in order
to deter youth from joining gangs, and using and
selling illicit drugs. Services provided include
individual and group counseling to beginning
offenders, bicultural and bilingual services,
tutoring, parent effectiveness training, job
training, and narcotics testing. Intensive
supervision is supplied to youth on various school
campuses. Christine Wong believes that the risks
of labelling youths not known to the justice
system are outweighed by the benefits of
preventing vulnerable youths from joining youth
gangs.

The Los Angeles County Probation Department is a
major program, policy, and political force dealing
with the youth gang problem county-wide. It has
established close facilitative relationships with
a great many agencies and community groups. Many
of its ideas continue to be tested in East Los
Angeles. The Specialized Gang Probation Unit
retains major links with all key groups concerned
with the gang problem in East Los Angeles.

East Los Angeles Adult Skills Center

The East Los Angeles Adult Skills Center, located
in the East Los Angeles community, operates under
the direction of the Los Angeles Unified School
District and appears to have a special mission
with regard to gang youth. The center provides job
training, counseling, basic education, and job
placement to approximately 1,200 students from 14
years and up. The bulk of the students (70
percent) are in the 16 through 21 year old age
range. The Skills Center serves the eastern,
southern, and northwestern areas of Los Angeles
County including various school districts in Los
Angeles County. The program is based upon open
enrollment; there is no set training period,
although the cycle of vocational training in a
given class usually runs about 20 to 26 weeks.
Classes are available to prepare students for
G.E.D. certification and for a variety of business
and industrial jobs. Requirements for the
Alternative Education Work Center (AWAC) dropout
program are that a person will have been out of
school for 45 days or more.

Courses are planned to meet the special interests
and needs of both students and business and
industry in the area. Curriculum is based on
recommendations and input from business and
industry, advisory councils, and the mandates of a
state licensing agent. Transportation to and from
the Center is available to concurrently enrolled
high-school-age students. Emphasis is on training
for jobs that have a future career potential.
Students normally attend vocational and remedial
education courses six hours a day, five days a
week.

The school operates similarly to private
employment. Students are expected to sign a
contract as part of their training, which includes
expected student behavior: regular attendance,
avoidance of tardiness, and no use of chemical
substances, i.e., drugs and alcohol. Any person
suspected of use, possession, or being under the
influence of improper substances is immediately
terminated from the program. However, terminated
youth can be afforded a second chance. A dress
code, which includes proper grooming, is enforced.
The following are not allowed at school:
headbands, hair nets, gang shirts, sweaters,
jackets, earrings, beepers. Certain types of
athletic sportswear which designates gang
affiliation, e.g., a specific brand (Puma) or a
specific team (the Oakland Raiders football team)
are also prohibited. I.D. cards are mandatory. The
Center claims a placement rate of over 90 percent
even during periods of high unemployment.

An estimated 10 to 15 percent of the student body
are gang members, many from the immediate East Los
Angeles community. The principal of the school is
especially identified with the interests and needs
of the community, with close relationships to the
City Terrace Community Council as well as the
larger Mothers Group of the greater East Los
Angeles area, Brother Modesto and the Catholic
Church, the Probation Department, CYGS and GVRP.
Workers of the latter three organizations are
called in periodically to assist with actual or
potential gang problems on the premises.

The Principal, Pete Fernandez, calls in the
representatives of the various agencies as
appropriate. CYGS and GVRP workers may each have
special rapport and be able to control particular
gangs or gang youths. For example, Probation was
called in recently when two of the students who
were involved in a "drive-by" shooting came to
school. CYGS has given special presentations at
school. GVRP counselors had especially close
relations with the school and have even "taken
some of the kids to church." Mr. Fernandez's
approach in the school district is fairly unique.

Principal Fernandez observed that the basis for
their considerable degree of success in dealing
with gang youth at the Skills Center has been: 

1. Genuine care and concern for these kids, and
treating them with respect.

2. A no-nonsense approach: no tolerance of gang
signs, colors, and sports team jackets.

3. Use of talented, handpicked counselors.

4. Development of a close relationship with
parents, calling on them when necessary, and
holding parents responsible for certain behaviors
of youth.

5. Development of mechanisms and procedures to
involve parents, including a parent support group,
parent group meetings, bringing parents of rival
gang members together.

6. Development of a close relationship with
employers.

7. Placement of youth in part-time jobs while at
school, on condition and arrangement with
employers that such jobs are contingent upon
regular school attendance.

The Center attempts to provide a "normalized" yet
sensitive and supervised learning environment for
gang youth.  There are many adult and non-gang
adolescent students in attendance. Teachers and
counselors are trained to integrate youth into
normal, adult-oriented programs, but with
opportunity for extra support and in-depth
counseling to gang youth as necessary. The essence
of the approach is a highly supportive and well
supervised environment that involves not only
youth and adults at the center but parents,
agency, and community group representation in a
highly visible fashion. School personnel are
especially responsible for establishing
relationships with youth to forestall gang
activity and disruptive behavior and for using
whatever outside influence is necessary to deal
with actual or potential problems.

A major objective of counseling gang youth at the
Center is to help them realize that they are
productive individuals who "do not need to belong
to gangs to be someone." Nevertheless, school
staff believe that more needs to be done to
alleviate use of weapons and drug possession by
hard-core gang members in the program. The
principal believes also that more needs to be done
by staff in his school, and especially in other
schools, to assist gang members with a variety of
problems of adjustment they face not only at
school but in the community.

The philosophy of the Skills Center is not to
eliminate gang members from the program but to
communicate to them the serious negative
consequences of gang membership. There is an
awareness and understanding that gangs have been
an important and traditional source of
identification for male youth in the process of
growing up in the community. Focus is on certain
behaviors, such as violence, drug use, sale, and
possession, as well as other criminal activities,
that will not be tolerated in the Center and
should be eliminated generally by students.

Los Angeles Sheriff's Department

The Sheriff's Department has played a major role
in the development of effective efforts to deal
with the youth gang problem in East Los Angeles.
Several of the department's officers have been
assigned to the gang problem in the community for
many years. They know the gangs, agencies, and
community groups, and communicate closely with
them. They have targeted particular gangs for
surveillance and control, and participate
regularly with agencies and community groups in
efforts to deal with gang problems.

The department's police functions, i.e.,
investigating gang crime, identifying gang
members, locating witnesses, follow-up
investigation and case filing, patrol and arrest
appear to be well organized and conducted in a
manner responsive to community interests and
needs. The department's Juvenile Operations
Bureau, primarily responsible for gang crime
arrest and investigation -- adult as well as
juvenile -- regularly exchanges information with
local agencies regarding gangs and gang members.
The department's gang information system, under
the leadership of Sergeant Wes McBride, is one of
the best in the country. The department also
relates closely to other law enforcement and
criminal justice agencies in prevention, arrest of
parole and probation violators and executing
search and arrest warrants.

The Juvenile Operations Bureau is divided into
Operation Safe Street (OSS) concerned primarily
with investigation and intelligence matters and
the Gang Enforcement Teams (GET). The OSS officers
are non-uniformed; GET officers are uniformed and
constitute the "trouble shooting," patrol
component. Despite its title, the Juvenile
Operations Bureau deals with all gang-related
offenses and problems and coordinates its efforts
with those of narcotics, homicide, and other units
around gang-related matters. It is usual for
Sheriff's officers to respond to any community
concern with the gang problem.

The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department believes that
its success in working with gangs is due to
emphasis on use of trained, experienced gang
investigation and patrol personnel, targeting the
most seriously active gangs (14 gangs are targeted
in East Los Angeles), centralization of effort,
i.e., gang personnel working under one commander,
strong commitment to interagency cooperation and
an increasingly efficient community-oriented
system to teach about gangs. Criteria for the
selection of OSS officers include an interest in
youth gangs, an even temper ("no hotheads"), and
"an ability to talk with kids."

East Los Angeles District Attorney's Office

A significant and somewhat unique role was played
by Jerry Haney, a Deputy-in-Charge of the Los
Angeles County District Attorney's Office, located
in East Los Angeles between 1982 and 1985. He
worked closely with Michael Duran, Los Angeles
Probation Department and Captain Lynn Poos, Los
Angeles Sheriff's Department, as well as Brother
Modesto in reaching out to the community to assist
with a variety of gang-related problems.

The District Attorney observed that the most
effective way to address the gang problem was to
utilize all key elements of the community, with
law enforcement spearheading the attack using
traditional crime prevention and suppression
methods, to diffuse the most active gangs. Law
enforcement should also provide some focus and
direction to the community groups concerned with
these belligerent groups. Haney, Poos and Duran
attended a great variety of community meetings
together to address various aspects of the
problem.

The Probation Department, Sheriff's Office and the
District Attorney worked out a system with the
courts to deal with the community's graffiti
problem. A variety of approaches were used. The
District Attorney wrote letters to all of the
property owners and tenants whose buildings had
been defaced by graffiti, urging them to remove
the graffiti promptly, indicating that assistance
would be available from the Sheriff's Department,
if necessary. The judges and Probation then
assigned probationers to remove the graffiti under
supervision of Sheriff's deputies.

The authorities established direct communication
with gang leaders to enlist their participation in
the removal of the graffiti. They also focused
community attention on particular "hot spots" in
the area (usually nightclubs), effectively
addressed the negative aspects of the late-night
weekend "cruising problem," initiated contacts
with local politicians and school authorities, and
secured substantial support for a variety of
community programs.

District Attorney Haney, now Head Deputy of the
Norwalk Office, is convinced that the
extraordinary degree of cooperation among East Los
Angeles agencies and community in dealing with the
gang problem was primarily responsible for the
remarkable reduction in gang homicides.

Assessment

There appears to be general agreement that gangs
and gang problems continue to be present in East
Los Angeles, but that the level of violence was
significantly reduced, at least until about the
summer of 1989. The number of gang homicides
declined from an average of 21 per year in the
late 1970's, an average of 14 in the early 1980's,
to 2 gang murders in 1987 and zero homicides in
1988. Two homicides, however, were recorded during
the first half and an additional 7 homicides into
December of 1989. A sharp rise in youth gang
homicides has suddenly occurred in East Los
Angeles in recent months. Several knowledgeable
informants, including a Sheriff's Department
officer and a school administrator, agree on an
estimate that there were about 30 traditional turf
gangs and between 4,000 and 5,000 gang members in
1980; and 39 traditional gangs with about the same
number of members in 1987. Noteworthy, however, is
the estimate that there has been an additional 25
to 30 Stoner gangs with a membership of more than
500 youth in the current period. This set of
Stoner gangs apparently has constituted the core
of the recent renewal of youth gang violence in
East Los Angeles. According to Sergeant Bob
Jackson, LAPD, there were 91 Stoner gang-related
incidents in 1987 in East Los Angeles, part of the
city's jurisdiction, 88 in 1988 and 167 in 1989
(up to December), but he could not speculate about
the reasons for the increase.

Thus, there was no evidence of a decline in the
presence of gangs, or gang members, but evidence
existed of a decline in serious gang-related
violence in East Los Angeles at least until about
the Summer of 1989. We cannot clearly or entirely
account for these changing patterns. The reduction
in gang violence may have been due at least in
part to effective community mobilization and law
enforcement activity, and changing youth gang
patterns, especially a shift to non-violent Stoner
gang phenomenon, at least until very recently, as
well as increased drug use and trafficking. Some
informants claim that second and third generation
Hispanic males were from somewhat higher
socioeconomic status families and were for a long
period more constrained or have changed the
pattern of their rebellious behavior.

Other reasons offered to explain the decline in
gang homicides include the following: the
community had been educated to the nature of gang
violence and how to deal with it; more witnesses
came forward to testify against gang offenders; a
special police unit was more efficient in solving
gang crimes, arresting and incarcerating shooters;
parents were more involved in the problem; crisis
intervention and mediation efforts of the Gang
Violence Reduction and the Community Youth Gang
Services programs; improvement in medical
treatment of assault cases by hospital emergency
teams; the catalytic efforts of Brother Modesto in
mobilizing greater involvement by agencies; the
charisma, special talents, and commitment of Leo
Cortez, one of the original organizers of the
Federation of Youth Gangs and still active in
dealing with youth gang violence problems; and
extremely important, the commitment, sustained
interest, and provision of resources by Los
Angeles County Supervisor, Ed Edeleman.

One relatively objective observer, no longer
connected with East Los Angeles, emphasizes the
importance of individual leadership in the
development of programs which were associated with
the decline of the youth gang violence problem
during the mid-seventies and much of the eighties.
"Mr. Duran was the single most important
individual in making the East Los Angeles programs
work. No one else was a close second. . . . He
provided leadership; he bridged the gap between
the authorities and the community groups. No other
agency came close to rivalling the Sheriff's in
their expenditure of time and resources, and in
overall effectiveness. Specific individuals who
were most active were Captain Lynn Poos, then-
Lieutenant Elmer Omohundro, and then-Sergeant Bob
Malone . . . there is a need for law enforcement
to interact with the community on a sensitive,
humane and people-oriented plane was exceptional
[sic]."

There are also a variety of reasons to explain the
recent sharp rise in youth gang killings. They
include: the shift of certain agency programs out
of the area to other parts of the city and county
and a consequent loss of focus or intensity of
coverage on the youth gang problem in East Los
Angeles; the presence of new youth gangs from
newcomer families or immigrants who are attempting
to develop their own turfs by challenging existing
gangs; the recent release of several veteranos of
a particular gang from prison who are recruiting
and organizing younger gang members; and perhaps
most important, the shift of Stoner group behavior
from a non-violent to a violent gang-related
pattern. Possibly all of these factors and others,
including a weakening of the economy, are
interrelated and cumulative in their contribution
to a suddenly escalated gang problem.

Agency leaders indicate that Stoner groups were
largely overlooked in recent years as the
community focused on controlling and preventing
youth gang violence, and to some extent drug use
and trafficking. Perhaps, the lessons to be
learned are that gang violence control and
emphasis on stopping gang recruitment or any
deviant act are insufficient per se, unless
accompanied by a sustained effort to develop
social opportunities for growth and achievement by
all youth who are at risk or vulnerable to various
forms of deviance at different stages of their
social development. 

Conclusion

While there seems to have been no progress in the
elimination of gangs or gang activity in East Los
Angeles, a remarkable reduction in homicides, the
most serious form of violent gang crime, occurred
between the late 1970's and the summer of 1989,
about a ten-year period. This is still a
noteworthy achievement in light of the fact that
gang violence generally escalated in other parts
of Los Angeles city and county since at least
1980. The factors accounting for the changes in
the community's gang patterns, however, are not
entirely clear, nor do we know with much
confidence, why the problem of severe gang
violence has again arisen in East Los Angeles.

It is possible that the mobilization of community
leadership, the coordinated involvement of public,
nonprofit, and sectarian agencies, as well as the
participation of gang youth in the development of
common gang control objectives have been
effective. These long-term collaborative efforts
of various elements of the community over a ten-
year period appear to differ sharply from the more
fragmented efforts of other communities in the Los
Angeles County area and the country in general.
The efforts of task forces, public and nonprofit
agencies, joined with those of grassroots groups
in East Los Angeles apparently made a significant
difference.

Part of the remarkable mobilization and
coordination of long-term efforts was the concern
of community agency and grassroots supported and
respected in their positive activities as well as
supervised closely and punished for their criminal
activities. Community response and strategy were
consistent. There was no major division of view as
to what to do or how to deal with gang youth.
There appeared to be a minimum of competition
among agencies and community groups for resources.
In part, this may have been due to the high degree
of common participation by staff and community
members in a great many programs and activities
over time and the development of proactive,
sensitive, and sustained leadership at gang, local
community, agency, and county policy levels. A
cohesive, caring and well-structured community was
created and effectively minimized the youth gang
problem for the period of time when
characteristics of a mobilized community were
present.

References

Los Angeles County-Wide Criminal Justice
Coordination Committee. Interagency Gang Task
Force. "L.A. Street Gangs: Report and
Recommendations." 1989. Los Angeles County
Prosecutor's Office. Hard-core Gang Unit. March.

Torres Dorothy M. 1980. "Gang Violence Reduction
Project Evaluation Report. Sacramento, California:
California Youth Authority.

__________________  1985. "Gang Violence Reduction
Project Update. Sacramento, California: California
Department of the Youth Authority, Program
Research and Review Division. June.

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

SUMMARY

Our analysis has provided us with overviews of
organizational and community responses to youth
gang activity in six sites located throughout the
country. The responses reflect a complex and
dynamic process of interaction among policymakers
and practitioners with key elements of the
community within the context of economic and
social change as well as changing gang patterns.
Nevertheless, common as well as distinctive themes
emerge which may be viewed as associated with
promise of success in reduction of the problem.
This summary highlights and interprets findings
derived from the case studies based mainly on
brief field visits and use of additional
materials. We attempt to identify those principles
which may be useful in the development of an
effective approach.

The Youth Gang Problem

Similarities may be observed in the emergence of
youth gang activity in some of our sites, at least
in the cities where the youth gang problem has
emerged since the beginning of 1980, e.g.
Evanston, IL; Fort Wayne, IN; Columbus, OH. The
beginning of the problem is characterized by youth
congregating or "hanging out" at certain locations
within low-income communities. These groups are
small and amorphous; lines of membership are
unclear; distinctive features of the traditional
youth gang -- gang names, colors, signs, symbols,
graffiti, turf, and particular criminal patterns,
e.g. intimidation, gang assaults, drive-by
shootings -- are not well developed. The
distinction between an ad hoc delinquent group and
a relatively better organized gang is not easily
made at this time.

With the passage of time, sometimes a relatively
brief period, characteristic youth gang behavior
more clearly occurs. This behavior includes
clashes between groups of youth, and property
crime, especially vandalism and graffiti, both in
and around schools and at "hang-outs." Certain
types of crime, e.g. burglary, car theft,
narcotics use, become more clearly associated with
particular individuals or cliques. Tensions
between youth groups result in increased
recruitment of members. Assaults are more frequent
at popular youth spots, including shopping and
recreation centers, and sporting events. Some of
the violence assumes serious proportions:
stabbings, shootings, and homicides. Fear and
concern permeate certain sectors of the community
and are reflected in an increase in media
attention. The youth gang problem assumes crisis
proportions and responsive action by police,
politicians, schools and other agencies and groups
is called for and usually taken.

The causes cited by informants for emergence of
the problem are varied. In general, they center on
population movements and changes, a failure of
basic institutions, such as family and school to
properly do their jobs, or system/structural
factors, such as poverty and unemployment which
make it very difficult for youth, especially
males, to meet basic needs for personal and social
development by conventional standards of the
larger society.

A number of respondents at the sites assert that
the youth gang problem was "imported" from
"outside," from other specific chronic gang
problem communities or cities. This importation of
the problem, however, usually resulted from the
movement families searching for improved housing
or employment opportunities and a better way of
life for their children. Youth in these families
may have been gang members or at least prone to
gang membership. Seeking status and sometimes
protection in the new community and often at
school, they introduce or stimulate the
development of youth gang problems.

Other respondents comment that local youth, with
or without the presence of "outsiders," were ready
to form or participate in gangs. They were from
homes with little parental supervision; they were
failing at school; and they had nothing to do but
"hangout" on the streets because employment and
recreational opportunities or alternative
activities were not available. A final, or at
least most recent stage of the development of the
youth gang problem in these emerging problem
cities was the arrival of a serious drug trade,
usually involving "crack." The participation of
gang youth in more organized narcotic trafficking
and other criminal activities is less clear and
more difficult to detect, control, or prevent.

The situation is more complex in the chronic youth
gang problem cities, e.g., El Monte and East Los
Angeles. Problems of youth gang violence, turf
protection, gang signs, symbols, recruitment, and
gang organization have been well established over
decades. However, cycles of organized gang
activity, particularly violence, including
retaliatory killings, are followed by periods of
relative tranquility as the older, more serious
offenders are imprisoned. In time they return to
their gang communities and some resume patterns of
gang violence or stimulate gang organization and
the development of these patterns among younger
elements. Different generations of youth may be
attuned to different patterns of deviance. Stoner
activity, e.g., drug use, vandalism, and satanism,
may be popular, but in due course may be
transformed into traditional forms of gang
violence. Drug trafficking and other criminal
adult groups develop in these chronic poverty
areas and indirectly reinforce established youth
gang patterns, which serve as a base for
recruitment of new personnel for their criminal
enterprises.

The causes of the chronic youth gang problem are
largely the same as those in the emerging problem
areas. However the problems of deficient social
and economic opportunities, the lack of strong
institutions and concerned local community
organizations are more serious and pervasive. The
youth gang culture has been institutionalized.
It's difficult, if not impossible, to deal with
issues of prevention and early intervention
without control and attention to the influence of
older youth and criminal systems in these
communities. The cumulative failure of such
institutions as family, schools, and neighborhood
organizations and the lack of jobs create a deep
sense of alienation, isolation, and despair among
almost all segments of the communities.

Community Response

In some of our emerging gang problem cities,
organizational and community denial of the
presence of a youth gang problem hinders or
prevents the development of an appropriate
response. Reasons for the "denial syndrome" that
are cited include political interests of
government officials, desires by certain
institutional representatives to save face and
avoid responsibility, commercial concerns to
protect city reputations and property values, and
simply lack of resources by certain community
agencies to do anything about the problem. Also
reported was initial hesitation by police and
media to avoid public alarm and generate greater
youth interest in gangs or strengthen existing
gang identities. Noted was the weakness of
community organizations and the inability of poor
communities to influence central city interest in
their gang problem and to allocate more resources
to deal with it. A simplistic or singular
strategy, e.g., suppression by a law enforcement
agency, also at times impeded the development of
community-wide broad scale strategies to confront
the youth gang problem.

Crisis events of serious youth gang violence often
played a major precipitating role in the
mobilization of a significant community response
and the development of a well-articulated plan for
dealing with the problem: the shooting death of a
recreation leader and a gang-related slaying in
Evanston; separate instances of gang assault on
the mayor's son and the governor's daughter in
Columbus; a mounting death toll and a failure of a
unilateral suppression strategy in El Monte and
East Los Angeles.

A central element of a "promising" system-wide
response to the youth gang issue was proactive and
sustained leadership by one or several agency
representatives. The superintendent at the Ethan
Allen school for Boys in Wales, Wisconsin, was the
primary force in a pioneering effort to create a
special youth gang cottage program. Hard-core gang
youth were targeted to receive close supervision,
remedial education and therapeutic (cognitive)
interventions in order to change gang member
attitudes, thinking, and behaviors. The executive
director of the local Boys Club and a community
relations police officer in El Monte developed a
sustained comprehensive community approach to
gang-affiliated and gang-prone youth that
emphasized the mobilization of employment
opportunities as well as remedial education,
crisis intervention, mediation of gang disputes,
social services, and other special programs,
including a city-wide graffiti-expunging campaign.
The local police chief in Evanston directed his
department to make gang-busting and support for
community grassroots efforts to monitor and
control gang youth in their neighborhoods a top
priority. A broad-based coalition of community
actors in East Los Angeles lead by key people from
police, church, and probation met on a regular
basis for years to develop and maintain a variety
Of gang control and prevention efforts. Key police
and youth agency officials, and also probation and
the school representatives, in Columbus and Fort
Wayne were important in the creation of a multi-
disciplinary, coordinated approach for dealing
with the problem.

Integral to effective collaboration by key
community actors was mutual trust, similar
perceptions about the nature and definition of the
youth gang problem, and a common philosophy about
the importance of complimentary agency strategies.
In Fort Wayne, similar perspectives coupled with
mutual trust and commitment allowed
representatives of key institutions to share
information quickly in order to prevent and
mediate outbreaks of gang violence. In Evanston,
the police and neighborhood groups joined together
initially to target and monitor hard-core gang
members for suppression and then to provide youth-
at-risk with social development opportunities. In
East Los Angeles, representatives of criminal
justice, community-based organizations, and parent
groups joined together with youth gang and former
youth gang leaders in crisis intervention,
mediation, and community development activities.

The mix of strategies to address a youth gang
problem seemed to vary by whether a city or area
had an emerging or chronic youth gang problem.
While strategies of suppression were common in all
of our case examples, emerging gang problem
cities, such as Evanston, Fort Wayne, and Columbus
were more likely to emphasize suppression along
with community organization and social
intervention approaches. Chronic youth gang
problem cities, such as El Monte and East Los
Angeles emphasized social opportunities and
community mobilization, along with suppression and
social intervention.

Finally, we observed that in a number of cities,
the perceived and actual reduction of youth gang
activities was confounded by the emergence of a
drug trafficking problem, mainly "crack" in which
at least some youth gang members and older,
usually former, gang members were involved. In
both Fort Wayne and Columbus, the burgeoning
"crack" trade seemed to be accompanied by a
decline in gang violence, but a rise in other
criminal activities. In Evanston, the police
observed that drug trafficking and other gang-
connected criminal activities are now more covert
and sophisticated, possibly because of a strong
suppression approach in which the more usual
traditional forms of gang activity, especially
violence, were sharply reduced. Former rival gang
leaders were viewed as cooperating in the drug
trade and sometimes recruiting youths for low-
level tasks, although these recruits were not
necessarily younger gang members.

These findings suggest certain promising
directions that policy and strategy should take in
dealing with the youth gang problem. The following
advice is offered to policymakers and
practitioners:

- clear and forthright, if not early, recognition
of a youth gang problem;

- proactive leadership by representatives of
significant criminal justice and community-based
agencies in the mobilization of political and
community interests and resources to confront the
problem;

- formation of a sustaining formal and informal
network of criminal justice and non-criminal
justice actors operationally involved with the
problem;

- consensus by the principal actors on a
definition of the problem, specific targets of
agency and interagency effort, and on the
reciprocal strategies to be employed;

- development of a multi-disciplinary approach
which involves strategies of suppression, social
intervention, and organizational development, but
which particularly emphasizes social opportunities
and community mobilization;

- finally, the approach to the youth gang problem
should be guided, not only by a concern for
protecting and safeguarding the community against
youth gang depredations but by providing support
to as well as supervision of potential and actual
gang members in a manner which contributes to
their personal and social development.