Time to Gang Up on Gangs, Authorities Say : Crime: Law enforcement experts, school officials and politicians discuss unified county strategies to curb the epidemic of organized lawless juveniles.

Noting that juvenile gang prosecutions nearly doubled last year, law enforcement officials said Saturday that county gangs are becoming increasingly diverse, widespread and violent.

“We are in mid-war,” Assistant Dist. Atty. John Conley said at an Irvine conference on crime that for the first time brought together law enforcement experts, representatives of local school districts and elected officials to discuss countywide strategies on gangs and drugs.

“Right now we cannot be complacent,” Conley said. “If we continue to only tackle the problem with what we’ve been doing, victory is uncertain.”

The changing face of county gangs, coupled with a dramatic increase in gang crimes, will probably emerge as a major problem facing law enforcement throughout the county, the officials predicted.

Sponsored by the county and the Orange County League of California Cities, the daylong conference focused on developing greater coordination between county and city agencies to counter problems that nearly everyone agrees are reaching epidemic proportions.

“We recognize that there isn’t one all-encompassing formula, but we hope that people will hear ideas and take them back to their communities,” said Gaddi H. Vasquez, chairman of the Board of Supervisors and an organizer of the conference.

Among the concrete proposals are establishing an anti-gang police unit in every county city and expanding the county’s gang member database--which contains the names of 7,000 active county gang members--to operate round the clock. Information from the database is now available only on weekdays and cannot be obtained after normal business hours.

Several speakers also urged that the county develop a regional gang task force modeled on the county’s drug suppression program, which has proven effective in recovering millions of dollars in illegal drugs.

Fullerton Police Chief Phil Goehring told the conference that the Orange County Police Chiefs Assn. has endorsed establishment of a countywide gang task force.

Although the number of gangs and incidence of violence remain far below that of Los Angeles County, local gangs are becoming increasingly disruptive:

* In 1990, more than 2,285 gang-related cases were filed against juveniles in the county, county prosecutors said; there were 1,268 cases in 1989.

* The number of gang homicides more than doubled in the last three years, from 12 in 1988 to 28 in 1990.

* The current gang population numbers about 12,000 and represents 130 different gangs from every corner of the county. There are an estimated 100,000 gang members in Los Angeles County.

Law enforcement officials are particularly concerned with Orange County’s increasing number of multiethnic gangs. About 24% of the cases prosecuted by the district attorney’s gang unit involved gangs that include white, black, Latino and Asian members, Conley said.

“Three years ago, we weren’t even aware of multiethnic gangs, they just seemed to come out of nowhere,” he said.

Many of these multiethnic gangs were established in predominantly white South County communities but quickly adopted characteristics of traditional Latino and black gangs, officials said.

Conley said other county gang trends that will need to be monitored include an increasing connection between drugs and gangs, increased activity of Los Angeles and prison gangs in Orange County and greater participation of girls in gangs.