Getting the Gangs to Cool Down : Strong anti-gang programs, like the Community Youth Gang Services project, work

Some appalling numbers have confirmed what many Los Angeles area residents suspected: It’s been a long, hot summer of gang violence.

Last week Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department statistics for the first eight months of 1990 revealed that gang killings in unincorporated portions of the county had soared from 61 in 1989 to 103. At this rate, gang killings in neighborhoods patrolled by Sheriff’s deputies will surpass the 116 murders recorded in all of 1989.

Even street-hardened cops say the biggest reason is poverty. “To find the hot spots for gang activity,” says Sheriff’s Sgt. Wes McBride, “all you do is lay a poverty map over Los Angeles County.”

At first glance, that’s not very encouraging. Let’s face it: We’re not about to rid American society of poverty any time soon. But there are things that can be done, in the short term, to control the violence that gangs spawn.

For, as gang killings were spiraling upwards in some parts of southern Los Angeles County, there was a statistical island of hope in the Los Angeles Police Department’s South Bureau, once notorious for gang violence. Killings there have declined to the point that not one gang homicide was recorded in July. The LAPD and community activists attribute the encouraging trend to a combination of tough policing and close monitoring of the gangs by street workers affiliated with the Community Youth Gang Services project.

That’s been the pattern since the CYGS was founded in the early 1980s. When enough gang workers hit the streets, the number of killings and other gang-related crimes goes down. But CYGS and other anti-gang programs have never been given enough support by local government to concentrate on more than two or three places at any one time. Where they focus their efforts, gangs can be controlled, though not eliminated. But when they pull out to work somewhere else, the gangs reemerge.

Until we find the resources to keep enough gang workers on the streets to help the police, the periodic upsurges in gang killings--not just in Los Angeles County but everywhere that gangs are found--will reoccur like long, hot summers.

MORE GANG KILLINGS The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept. reports a 69% increase in gang homicides in unincorporated areas for the first eight months of the year. 1990 (First eight months): 103 1989: 116 1988: 96 1987: 79