Report criticizes mayor’s gang plan

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s anti-gang plan contains flaws that may jeopardize its ability to keep young people out of trouble, a consultant hired by the city warned Wednesday.

The critical comments were made by Connie Rice, director of Advancement Project Los Angeles.

The organization, which was paid $593,000 to study the city’s gang prevention and intervention programs, found in a recent report that they were ineffective, lacking focus and badly coordinated.

“We are about to make the same mistakes we identified in our report -- inadequate funding, unstable funding,” Rice told the City Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Gang Violence and Youth Development.

Although the mayor’s plan was presented as a new $168-million program for gang prevention, intervention and suppression, all but about $15 million constitutes money already being spent on such programs. And of the new money, only a small part is for non-police intervention and prevention services that Rice considers essential.

“We think the mayor’s plan is a very solid foundation for the comprehensive footprint, but it isn’t going to work if you don’t fill in these gaps,” Rice said.

Deputy Mayor Arif Alikhan disputed Rice’s criticism, saying that efforts are underway to flesh out the proposal and fill in any gaps.

“This is the first step in what is a comprehensive strategy to address gang violence in the city,” he said.

“It’s the first time that there’s been the leadership from the mayor and City Council to address this problem in a comprehensive manner and put resources toward prevention, intervention and reentry programs,” he said.

Councilman Tony Cardenas, the committee chairman, said he appreciated Rice’s input.

“It definitely is something we are taking into consideration,” Cardenas said. “It adds to the understanding of how we can shape it better as we move forward.”

In a memo to the council, the Advancement Project said the mayor’s plan had no definition of success for gang programs so that they could be evaluated, lacked clear benchmarks or performance standards and had “inadequate funds,” 40% of which go to suppression programs.

“Of the $15 million of ‘new’ money, $6 million goes for LAPD overtime. This is a portion of an overtime cost that LAPD normally incurs every fiscal year and therefore does not constitute ‘new’ investment,” the consultant’s memo says.

Alikhan said that a task force of scholars and others was developing performance standards, and that the mayor believes that a reduction in gang violence and gang membership would be among the ways to define the program’s success.

The mayor’s plan, which he proposed to address an increase in gang crime last year, also has no clear mechanism to ensure that programs are coordinated, the memo said.

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patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com