No ‘Quick Fix’ Seen for Gang Problems

Gang violence is not going to be reduced by building more jails, imposing tougher sentences or erasing graffiti, experts told a conference of Pomona Valley church and community leaders.

“We’re attracted to the quick fix,” Father Gregory Boyle, who has built a national reputation for his work with gang youngsters in East Los Angeles, told the gathering last week.

But the easy answers, such as banning gang members from parks and harassing them, Boyle said, ignore the root causes of gang violence which include joblessness, inadequate schools and dysfunctional families.

“Were we to address the root causes,” the Roman Catholic priest said, “this stuff would go away.”

Brother Modesto Leon, who has been working on gang problems for 20 years, said the city of Pomona spends $200,000 a year to remove graffiti but gives only $15,000 a year to his community program that tries to lead youngsters away from gang life.

“We keep talking about graffiti,” Leon said. “Lets talk about blood in the streets.”

More than 2,000 people have died in gang violence in Los Angeles County in the last three years.

Boyle said that gang members are being portrayed as “monsters” but that those he knows are human beings “who have been dealt a bad hand.” Economic conditions are getting worse and “the despair is getting deeper than it ever has before,” he said.

Boyle and Leon were among the participants in a conference sponsored by the Pomona Valley Council of Churches.

The conference at the Claremont Church of Christ, Congregational, attracted about 150 people, including police officers, educators and church leaders.

Frank Rogers, head of the council’s Christian education department, said the conference was intended as a first step to promote community involvement in the gang issue.

The conference also attracted two young men, Manuel Lares, 19, of Santa Monica and Frank Beltran, 22, of La Verne, who described themselves as “inactive gang members.”

Lares attributed part of the problem to a society that has denigrated Latinos and other minorities and has put gang members in jail, where they gain nothing but tips on how to commit crime.

Beltran said he was harassed by police while growing up in La Verne.

“The police made me like this,” he said, pointing to his black gang attire.

But Pomona Police Detective Dexter Cole said gang members have to take responsibility for themselves. “I hear it’s a police thing, a race thing; kids commit violence because they don’t have any fathers to watch after them. . . . But no one is putting any responsibility on the person who commits the acts,” he said.