Seymour Offers Wide-Ranging Anti-Gang Bill

Declaring that street gangs are a national problem, U.S. Sen. John Seymour (R-Calif.) on Monday unveiled a sweeping anti-gang bill that would stiffen penalties, allow confiscation of personal property and earmark $42 million for prevention and enforcement programs.

“Just ask the normal citizen on the street what the main concern is,” Seymour said after announcing his bill to a group of high-ranking local law enforcement officials here. “The average citizen is going to talk about drugs and gang violence.”

The Anti-Gang Violence Act of 1991 is co-sponsored by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) The bill could be ready for a hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee next month, Seymour said.

Seymour said California ranks first in the nation in both gang membership and gang-related violence, and that many California gang members have in recent years moved to other states, spreading violence.

Specifically, the anti-gang bill would:

* Provide $36 million for a federal anti-gang unit. The unit would consist of 280 federal agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and 40 prosecutors assigned to the U.S. attorney’s office. The unit would work with local law enforcement agencies and use an asset forfeiture law--similar to the drug money forfeiture law--to help pay for anti-gang law enforcement efforts.

* Make theft of guns from a federally licensed gun dealer a federal crime. At present, such a crime falls under state law.

* Toughen sentences for drug dealers who use or arm juveniles in drug-trafficking crimes. In addition, an adult drug dealer convicted of using juveniles to carry drugs across state lines would face an automatic $100,000 fine. The fine money would then be turned over to existing juvenile drug rehabilitation programs.

* Authorize $5 million for use by state and local anti-gang educational programs. The programs are aimed at youngsters in danger of becoming gang members.

* Earmark $1 million for state prison officials to start anti-gang programs behind bars.

Seymour said the anti-gang effort would be patterned after the countywide anti-drug program, which links enforcement with education. The Sheriff’s Department’s “Drug Use Is Life Abuse” program, for instance, aims its message at children in elementary school and junior high.

“It appears to me you are working in the right direction,” Seymour told the Orange County officials. “It is my personal assessment, having been briefed (elsewhere), that Orange County is probably better organized than other areas in the state that I have visited.”

Nevertheless, Seymour said that many parts of Orange County, including the affluent South County, are witnessing a dramatic rise in gang membership.

Officials say that gangs armed with such high-powered weaponry as AK-47s and Uzi assault rifles have taken over some neighborhoods in Santa Ana, Anaheim and other parts of the county.

Anaheim Police Chief Joseph T. Molloy said that in 1979, police had identified 24 street gangs with about 2,000 members in Orange County. Today, Molloy said, the estimate is 12,000 hard-core gang members.

“There is a high degree of gang involvement in this county, and there is a high degree of violence,” said Santa Ana Police Chief Paul M. Walters, whose city leads the county in numbers of gangs and violent incidents.