Hahn seeks to bar new anti-gang tactic

A new policy of submitting the names of gang injunction violators in Los Angeles for possible immigration enforcement is drawing protests from some community leaders who say the injunction process is flawed because it lacks an easy way out for people who mend their ways.

Councilwoman Janice Hahn and several civil rights leaders said Friday that the city attorney’s new policy should be suspended until major changes are made in the way that young people are included and removed from gang injunctions.

“I’d like to see them overhaul this thing,” Hahn said. “Some people who are on the list aren’t gang members anymore.”

Activists have been calling on the city attorney for more than a year to revise the injunction program so that it focuses only on active gang members.

“The gang injunctions are highly problematic,” said Nora Preciado, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California who also supports a suspension of the new policy. “A lot of times, they label young people as gang members who are not really affiliated with a gang.”

City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo said changes are coming in the program that involves 33 court injunctions limiting the activities of 50 gangs.

But in the meantime, Delgadillo said, his new policy of submitting the names of people convicted of violating gang injunctions to the U.S. attorney’s office for possible immigration enforcement will include safeguards to make sure only criminals are subject to deportation.

“We know that many gang members are undocumented immigrants, and we believe it is incumbent upon us to share with federal authorities the names of those gang members convicted of gang injunction violations,” Delgadillo said.

Last year, the city attorney’s office won convictions against 350 people for violating city gang injunctions prohibiting them from congregating with other gang members and engaging in gang activity.

Injunctions generally prohibit identified individuals from loitering in public with other members; harassing residents and intimidating witnesses; possessing or using weapons, alcohol or illegal narcotics; disobeying gang-imposed curfews; and trespassing.

The city attorney predicts that many of those convicted will probably be deportable.

“Some of these convicted gang members have entered the country illegally,” he said. “While we don’t know the exact numbers, we believe the number is substantial.”

In a city with 700 gangs and about 39,000 members, the injunctions covering more than 3,500 people are credited with helping to reduce gang membership by 33% since 2001.

Although gang crime increased 15.7% citywide last year, studies indicate that areas subject to gang injunctions tend to see serious crime decline.

University of Chicago professor Jeffrey Grogger, formerly of UCLA, issued a study in the 1990s that looked at 14 gang injunctions, including some in Los Angeles, and found that violent crime in the targeted areas dropped 5% to 10% in the year after they took effect.

More recently, UC Irvine criminologist Cheryl Maxson issued a study confirming that injunctions have a modest effect on crime.

Nick Velasquez, a spokesman for the city attorney, said there are no plans to delay the new policy on reporting convicted injunction violators. A report addressing some of the concerns about the injunction program is expected to be released next month, he said.

“We are not revamping the injunction program,” Velasquez said. “Instead, the city attorney is producing a report to explain the injunction process and a set of internal guidelines for the city attorney’s office to codify existing practices and new safeguards.”

Preciado said young people should not face deportation just because they were caught with a can of spray paint or were hanging out with friends.

“This is not going after the violent gang members who are terrorizing the community, as the city attorney claims,” she said.

In March 2006, Hahn won an agreement from Delgadillo that he would review the program to address complaints that it is easy for people to be brought under an injunction but hard to be removed.

Hahn began pressing the issue after she learned last year that no one had ever gotten out of an injunction. She complained that the system was making it hard for people who had turned their lives around to get jobs because the injunctions show up in background checks. Hahn said Friday that there have been meetings and suggestions but no changes.

City officials said gang members can get off the list by renouncing their membership in a gang, but Hahn said people can be killed for such a renunciation, especially if they live in a housing project dominated by a gang.

She is seeking to have gang intervention workers or some other third party certify that someone named in an injunction is no longer active in a gang and should be removed.

However, Delgadillo said his new policy includes safeguards.

Before a name is turned over to the U.S. attorney for a determination of whether the person is in the country legally, the person must be convicted of violating the gang injunction, the city attorney said.

“We prove beyond a reasonable doubt that, one, this individual is a member of a violent street gang. Two, they knew they were subject to a gang injunction. And three, they intentionally violated that injunction,” Delgadillo said.

Carol Sobel, a defense attorney and president of the National Lawyers Guild, said violating a gang injunction is a misdemeanor, not a felony, so it is not by itself a deportable offense, although immigration officials could still deport people determined to be in the country illegally even if they have committed no other crime.

Sobel said she knows of men in their 40s who have been arrested for violating the gang injunction even though they are not gang members. In some cases, the courts have tossed out the charges, she said.

“It is a serious issue,” Sobel said. “It is not accurate to say that everybody caught up in a gang injunction is a gang member.”

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patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com