How to Gang Up on Trouble : Communities’ involvement as well as police can help rout toughs

Gang-related crime statistics, including homicides, are on the rise throughout much of Los Angeles. But, there is welcome relief in an area that last year accounted for 50% of the city’s gang problems. The carnage is declining in the heart of South-Central Los Angeles.

Police attribute the fall to Operation Hammer, the controversial crackdown that has swept thousands of young men off the streets and into jail. But gangs are more than a law-enforcement problem.

In fact, the dramatic decline in the number of such crimes in the LAPD’s South Bureau--a drop of more than a third--occurred only after a coordinated counterattack by community and church groups.

For example, the Brotherhood Crusade, an African-American philanthropic group, went hands-on last August. Assisted by churches, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Community Youth Gang Services, the crusade organized a volunteer street patrol campaign called “Taking Our Community Back.”

For 45 days--and, more significantly, nights--small groups of black men walked some tough streets. Additional volunteers organized or rejuvenated 25 block clubs and neighborhood watch groups; they cleaned up alleys, sidewalks, basketball courts and they planted flowers; organized job fairs, cultural events and field trips and tutored youngsters. They encouraged neighbors to help each other, and themselves. It worked.

The dramatic drop in gang-related crime in South Los Angeles proves the situation there, though dire, is not hopeless. That’s a beginning worth building on.

START OF A TREND? Gang-related crimes declined in four Los Angeles Police divisions.

Division 1989 1990 77th 263 136 Harbor 134 111 Southeast 207 109 Southwest 122 106

Los Angeles Police Dept.