County Issue What is the best way to prevent the proliferation of gangs?

Local law enforcement officials worry that gang violence in Los Angeles is spreading to Ventura County. Last week, a 20-year-old Oxnard man was convicted of a gang-related

murder in Oxnard last fall. During the past five months in Ventura, there have been 167 crimes stemming from gang activity, including the city’s first gang-related death.

Lilia Lopez

Coordinator of instructional planning and development for the Los Angeles Unified School District

If students have enough options available, then gangs aren’t so exciting. One of the things we’re working on is developing in students a sense of self-worth, so that they know they are very worthy human beings and they deserve to go after goals. Right now we are pilot-testing a curriculum at the elementary level called Mission SOAR, Set Objectives, Achieve Results. We tell them how to set goals and what to do when they come to obstacles. When the time comes that they might be approached by somebody to join a gang, they’ll know they don’t need to do that because they have other options. Students, I believe, join gangs for a variety of reasons. They need to belong to a group. They need to feel accepted. They need to feel connected. If that’s missing in some part of their life and gangs fill that requirement, then we’re going to find that kids are going to go there. If we can create an environment in our classrooms that is welcoming, nurturing and supportive, and students have the opportunity to develop little support groups within their class, then chances are they might have a system that will be there when they need it. Because sometimes people do weaken. If they’ve got people cheering them on, saying come on, go for it, maybe they’ll start choosing things that will give them positive results. Lots of kids don’t know they have choices.

Deputy Chief Bernard Parks

Commanding officer of operations, which includes the gang unit, Los Angeles Police Department

We need to look at the issues early on when youth are at risk. It’s too late to look at rehabilitation once they’re a hard-core gang member. We need to look at early warning signs in their character and in their performance at school. We have to look at what their values are, what instruction they’re given in school. There has to be some emphasis on alternatives to violence, so youth don’t grow up believing there is only one response to handling a situation. We can’t believe they will get all that automatically by just growing up. There certainly have to be after-school activities, sponsored for clean living and positive goals, so that youth don’t have idle time to look for support groups outside family or school. The Probation Department has to be on the front end of the system and deal with kids when they begin to show tendencies toward running away, antisocial behavior, and truancy. The basic foundation is to deal with them as they are at risk. Later, if a person chooses the lifestyle of a hard-core gang member, the role of the police is to separate them from the community, to prosecute them for whatever crimes they’ve committed to fullest extent of system so that they get the longest term possible. For these people there’s very little hope of rehabilitation, because the support systems that would direct them out of the gang culture aren’t present in the community.

Christine Smith

Director of student services, Oxnard Union High School District

I think we need to take a stand of zero tolerance for any kind of gang activity or symbols of gang participation on school campuses. The message to students upon entry needs to be very clear: gang activity, gang membership is not tolerated on that campus. The student who comes in to a new school wearing any sign or symbol of gang activity immediately has to be given that information. For students already enrolled on campus, the rules need to be very clear about zero tolerance. Any kind of intervention that needs to take place if something should erupt on campus also needs to be consistent with that message of zero tolerance. Even at the high school level, there’s a lot that can be done to build a student’s self-esteem, their feeling of having a future, having control and the ability to set a personal direction for themselves--all ways of preventing them from getting involved in gangs. At the elementary level, we can arm our young people with skills that will prevent them from getting involved in gangs--the ability to make decisions, to choose friends, to say no when the first temptation to join in inappropriate or illegal activities come about. We have a set of expectations, a contract, we ask our parents to support us in. One of the conditions on the contract asks them to monitor their child’s social interaction. On school campuses, there is a youth services officer for the city of Oxnard who helps the district keep those campuses safe and orderly.

Capt. Ken Thompson

Commander of field services, which includes the gang unit, Ventura Police Department

There are a number of tactics that need to be taken. We need to take a zero tolerance approach toward enforcing gang crime. If that means arresting people for violating curfew, then that’s what we need to do. Also, it’s important that we as a community address such things as graffiti, which is very visible in the community and shows there is some kind of gang activity. The city of Ventura has initiated a program of removing graffiti. Third, I believe that through an educational effort we can get kids who are inclined to be gang members to do something else with their lives. I think that needs to start at a very young age. It’s very important for these young children to develop self-esteem and self-respect so they don’t feel the need to associate with gangs. Beyond that, we’ve got some junior high school and high school age kids who we would consider at risk. We’ve lost them as far as education is concerned, and they’re very vulnerable to becoming involved in gangs. I think the city’s effort at trying to create some additional recreational opportunities for the kids, or anything to get the kids to thinking about their future and get them dialed out of thinking about joining gangs is good. We hope to get the kids’ parents involved and get them to realize their kids are at risk. If we don’t do something--the community as well as their parents--six months from now, or a year from now, we’re going to be dealing with them as gang members.

Steve Valdivia

Executive director of Community Youth Gang Services, a Los Angeles outreach organization

If we’re going to stop gangs, we have to look at what’s causing them. The 1980s was the “me generation” when parents forgot about their children and put them in day care. We’re reaping what we sowed. We have to re-examine what our goals are and what we want for our kids. We have to look more closely at what they’re doing with their leisure time and who their friends are. We have to pay attention to children, what they’re saying, what they need, their futures and what they’re faced with. If you’re a kid looking to your future, there is not a lot to be hopeful about. So they need supports more than ever, and yet we’re supporting them less than ever. The quick fixes are law enforcement, stronger laws, longer sentences, earlier incarceration, and more prisons. All those things cost us more money and more in human terms. We have to look at gangs as a disease, a preventable disease. There are ways to inoculate people against the disease with very early education, with an infusion of self-worth and self-esteem. It’s a combination of not having that support and looking ahead to a very dismal future that creates an atmosphere where kids decide to back away from it all go into something easy, that’s accepted, and where everyone is OK no matter where they came from. Also, enclaves have to redevelop their sense of community. They have to say ‘This is my community and there is not going to be a gang takeover here.’ Communities have to decide not to just let law enforcement handle it.