TV REVIEW : ‘The Man’ Helps Gangbangers Change Course of Their Lives

The California Youth Authority has a gang hit man, and his name is David Newman. At the Whittier-based, high-security Fred C. Nelles School for Boys, he is trying to remold bad boys into good ones, gang members into productive citizens.

For the profile “Newman’s the Man,” KCET’s “Life & Times” (as part of the weeklong National Campaign to Reduce Youth Violence) has lavished twice its usual time--one hour--on this cool, calm look at one government official helping to change lives. Newman is equal parts modesty and brashness (“I say, give me the worst (gangbangers), and we’ll deal with them in six weeks”); producer Nancy Salter’s program has some of Newman’s modesty but none of his brashness.

As the CYA’s gang information coordinator, Newman gathers data on current gang activities from newly arrived wards and then starts in on them with tough, man-to-man lectures. His approach is to convince, not preach, and to this end he employs several techniques.

The most intensive may be role-playing sessions that wards enact with visiting mothers of gang victims. Salter haplessly tries to blur the wards’ faces at first, presumably to protect their identities; then, her camera gives way to these faces as their tough exteriors emotionally melt as they’re confronted with victims’ pain.

Salter tracks three of Newman’s prized pupils, former hardened gangbangers and now model wards, but never gets to the heart of what made them change course.

* “Newman’s the Man” airs at 8 tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28.