Gates Seeks Countywide Change on Gang Statistics

A countywide law enforcement task force studying the best ways to uniformly report gang crime will reconvene to consider a Los Angeles Police Department proposal that all local police agencies change the way they report gang violence, officials said Thursday.

The decision to reconvene the county group came at the request of Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, who this week approved a change in emphasis in the way his department keeps track of gang crime.

In the past, the Los Angeles Police Department and other police agencies in the county have counted crimes as “gang related” if either suspect or victim was a gang member. Under the new LAPD system, increased emphasis will be placed on measuring “gang-motivated” crimes in which the motive is directly related to gang membership.

The decision by Gates to ask the county task force to reconvene follows months of meetings that produced a consensus to use the “gang-related” statistical approach in tracking gang crime.

In a letter to LaVerne Police Chief Wes Stearns, president of the Los Angeles County Chiefs of Police Assn., Gates endorsed the “gang-motivated” approach as a more accurate way of measuring the kind of gang crimes that have community impact.

“Although gang-related crime information can be a useful tool to detectives when conducting criminal investigations, I believe that in establishing a countywide reporting system, gang-motivated statistics provide a more accurate assessment,” Gates said.

Using both approaches to counting gang crime, the Los Angeles Police Department has produced two dramatically different sets of statistics so far this year. Under the “gang-related” system, for example, the gang homicide count for the year is 174. But only 93 of those homicides are classified as “gang motivated.”

In an interview Thursday, Gates said he had reservations in approving the change because he does not want to “fall into the trap” of manipulating gang statistics.

“I’m kind of a hard sell on all of this,” he said. “But we are trying very hard to get a measure on the gang problem. I think that the gang-motivated statistics make a difference in giving the public a perception of what they have to fear and the media a perspective on what they have to report.”

The Police Department’s change in emphasis was decided on recently after wide fluctuations in monthly gang statistics, but it was suggested as early as four years ago by Cmdr. Larry Kramer, a department gang expert. The department began using both statistical approaches in January.