Task Force Emphasizes Drug, Gang Problems : Crime: Anaheim report recommends spending nearly $6 million to improve law enforcement and youth programs.

Emphasizing that the city’s problems with drugs and gangs need immediate attention, a volunteer task force’s much-anticipated report has recommended that the city spend almost $6 million to improve law enforcement and youth programs in Anaheim.

Released Tuesday, the report finds drug-related crime on the increase. City police have made almost twice as many drug-related arrests in the first four months of this year as in all of 1991, as well as 466 arrests related to gang activity, the report says.

The report, written by the city’s Gang/Drug Citizens Task Force, says the problems can be corrected primarily by improving law enforcement’s ability to arrest and punish drug dealers and gang members involved in crimes. This would be partly accomplished by hiring more police, as well as redeploying officers and staff in the city attorney’s office. The task force also calls for an increase in programs that will steer children away from drugs and gangs.

The report is the first comprehensive report on gangs and drugs done by an Orange County city, according to city officials. The council accepted the report without taking action.

“It is time for the council to look at this and see in which way we can implement this,” Mayor Fred Hunter said.

The task force, composed of 20 community leaders and city staff members, recommends that the city spend $5.8 million annually to fight drug abuse and gangs and hire an administrator to coordinate the effort. About $1.2 million would come from federal grants and cash seized from drug dealers, with the rest coming from the city’s general fund.

The task force examined the city’s gang and drug problems for four months and held four public hearings, which were attended by 600 residents, to learn the community’s concerns. The task force, which met 54 times since it started work late last year, presented the report Tuesday to the City Council, which would have to approve any programs suggested by the report.

“This is a quality report,” said task force chairman Keith Olesen, a central city community activist. “(The council) had better address and act on these problems.”

According to the report, there were 2,053 drug-related arrests from Jan. 1 through April 30, compared to 1,168 during all of 1991. The report does not compare the number of gang-related arrests over the last two years. It says that 73 weapons, including guns, have been seized from gang members this year.

The task force--which was made up of volunteers, many of whom have been critical of the city’s anti-gang efforts--drew all of its statistics from Police Department data.

Police Chief Joseph T. Molloy said the increase in drug arrests resulted from increased police attention to the problem. He said more patrol officers are told to spend more energy on apprehending low-level drug dealers. “They are being trapped in a bigger net,” Molloy said.

There are now 35 gangs with a total of 700 members in the city, according to the report, compared to five gangs with about 100 total members in 1980.

The report says the city attorney’s office and the Police Department need to make several changes to combat drugs and gangs. Of the $5.8 million that the task force recommends spending, it wants $4.2 million spent on beefed-up law enforcement.

Olesen said that while the long-range gang and drug problems of the city can be addressed only through prevention programs, in the short term it is the police who must control the problem.

The city attorney’s office, which prosecutes misdemeanor crimes in the city, should assign a prosecutor to become the city’s legal expert on drug enforcement to advise the Police Department on what steps it can take against dealers, the report says. Also, the office should work with the police on seizing buildings used in narcotics activity, the report says.

The police need to expand its gang and narcotics units, the report says, and add a second community-based policing team. Those teams of five officers are assigned to patrol troubled neighborhoods, especially in the central Anaheim/downtown area.

On the prevention side, the report calls for expanding recreation programs, including the opening of six “Homework Centers,” where children of elementary school age could receive after-school tutorial help.

The report also calls for the hiring of two additional code-enforcement officers, who would concentrate on eliminating graffiti and other blight caused by gangs.