Professor Calls Gangs a Mental Health Problem : Conference: At an Anaheim seminar, he says law enforcement approach to the problem hasn’t worked, and that a public health model is needed.

Tackling gang crime through law enforcement has not worked and it is time to consider another tactic--giving youths mental health treatment, a university professor said Friday.

“Unless we truly understand the reality or the true nature of gangs, the problem will continue,” Jose Lopez, who teaches Chicano and Latino studies at Cal State Long Beach, said during a health conference in Anaheim. “What we’re looking for is to move away from the police model to more of a public health model.”

He spoke to more than 50 people in a seminar titled “Homicide, Violence and Gangs Epidemic” during the last of the two-day Latino Health Conference 2000.

So far, Lopez said, everything dealing with street gangs has been police-oriented and the community has emphasized law enforcement in trying to solve the gang problem. When school officials began to see gang problems on campuses, they immediately called the police to help develop ways to rid schools of gangs.

“It was not educational,” said Lopez, 52, who was born in Fullerton and as a teen-ager served time in Juvenile Hall for his gang activity. By calling the police, school officials were telling youths to not become involved in gangs and that they would go to prison if they committed crimes, he said.

“But once you have to tell kids not to be a gang member, you’ve lost,” he said. “As soon as you tell someone not to do something, they go and do it.”

Lopez suggested that gangs exist in part because many of the members suffer from stress disorders. He said he wants to document that in a study.

The home may be one source of stress, he said, adding that parents dictate to children rather than talking or listening to them. The youths then attempt to communicate in their own way--such as tagging, the spreading of graffiti, he said.

“It won’t go away if no one is listening,” Lopez said.

After his speech, he said the data in his proposed study will help “develop a whole slew of treatments.”

A 12-step program can be developed to identify and treat a gang member’s mental illness, he said.

Organizers of the convention, held at Disneyland Hotel, said they realized gang problems usually are discussed at law enforcement gatherings.

“In planning for this workshop, we had a different idea,” said Irene Martinez, executive director of the Delhi Community Center, which sponsored the conference. “We wanted to give gangs and their violence a different kind of perspective.”