ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Teaming Up Against Gang Crime

Westminster has registered remarkable success with an innovative program, described as the first of its kind in California, that concentrates resources from three agencies against gangs. Now, in a welcome development, Orange County Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi is pushing county officials to expand the program.

The Tri-Agency Resource Gang Enforcement Team (TARGET) groups police detectives, a deputy district attorney, a probation officer and an investigator, plus support staff members, to identify leaders of key gangs, prosecute them for crimes and win stiffer prison terms. TARGET has removed scores of violent gang members from Westminster’s streets.

The cost of expanding the program is estimated at $2 million, with much of that going to Santa Ana, which has the most gangs in the county and has suffered 41 gang-related shootings this year. Other teams would be set up in Anaheim, Garden Grove, Orange, Costa Mesa and an as-yet-undetermined south Orange County city. This reflects the sad reality that gangs have spread across the county; what were once thought of as city problems have reached the suburbs.

In economic hard times, of course, the question is how to pay for the expansion. Although there is no doubt that Westminster’s expenditure was amply justified, the cost to the city was several hundred thousand dollars.

The Orange County budget office estimated in November that extension of the half-cent sales tax as provided for in Proposition 172 would preserve $144 million a year earmarked for law enforcement in the county. That includes $109 million for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, $27.5 million for the district attorney’s office and $7.1 million for city police forces. True, that’s not new money, just the retention of funds that would have been lost had Proposition 172 been defeated. However, the TARGET expansion could be funded by reallocating some of those funds, even though the recipients surely would have to make some sacrifices to make that possible.

County supervisors also may want to reconsider a question that comes up often: Should the Sheriff’s Department continue to spend $1 million a year for two helicopters when the population of unincorporated county territory keeps dropping?

Various surveys show the fear of crime has spread across Orange County, much of it because of gangs with more and more guns. TARGET is a program that has proved its worth and should be expanded. It would be money well spent.