U.S. Rewards Anti-Gang Efforts With $1 Million

The U.S. Department of Justice handed a $1-million grant Wednesday to the Orange County Police Chiefs and Sheriff’s Assn. as part of $11 million awarded nationwide to innovative anti-gang programs.

President Clinton was scheduled to personally launch the anti-gang initiative at a noon news conference in Washington, but the event was canceled after a plane carrying Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown and business leaders crashed in Croatia.

Orange County’s coalition received the grant along with 14 other jurisdictions across the country--including a Los Angeles-area consortium. Department of Justice spokesman Charles Miller said Orange County law enforcement officials were included because of their effective programs to battle street violence and help prevent youths from joining gangs.

Part of the Orange County money will go to expanding the Gang Incident Racking System run by the chiefs’ association and UC Irvine researchers, who are analyzing gang activity and the effectiveness of policing programs across the county.

The grant will also be used to bolster Orange County’s Tri-Agency Resource Gang Enforcement Teams, known as TARGET, a multi-agency pioneered by the Westminster Police Department in 1992. TARGET teams focus on removing gang leaders from the community for as long as possible.

The grant is also expected to reinstate Project: No Gangs, develop programs for the 8% of youths identified by the county Probation Department as repeat offenders, and help launch the Probation Department’s Youth and Family Resource Center.

Miller said the Clinton administration wants to hone programs aimed at youth crime so they can be replicated in other areas.

“What we want to do is take these programs and exchange them with other communities around the country that may be starting to feel the first traces, or even well advanced, gang problems,” he said.

Westminster Police Chief James Cook, who flew to Washington to accept the grant along with Westminster Mayor Charles V. Smith, Irvine Police Chief Charles Brobeck and Irvine Mayor Mike Ward, said the Department of Justice is anxious to get the expanded programs going.

“It’s supposed to be operational in six weeks,” Cook said. “They want it on the streets right now.”