Simi Task Force Drafts Plan to Help Deter Gangs

If hiring more police would keep kids out of gangs in America’s third-safest city, many here say Simi Valley would have done it already.

But new ideas are being called for.

And on Tuesday night, the Community Gang Task Force hammered some of those out on paper, drafting a multi-pronged plan its members want the City Council to consider using to attack Simi Valley’s persistent gang problem.

“If we can accomplish most or a lot of what the recommendations are, this community will go a long ways toward having a very positive impact on the gang problem,” said Simi Valley Police Lt. Dick Thomas, who sits on the task force and commands the city’s anti-gang unit.

“It might be the real solution,” he added, “not just a Band-Aid.”

Simi Valley has no accurate count of how many active gang members live here. Police say there are two established Latino gangs--Varrio Simi Valley and Westside Locos--with a combined active membership of approximately 150.

And two Filipino gangs still persist here--Bahala Na Gang and Ta Gamma Pinoy--although in much lesser and harder to discern numbers, and mostly in the form of graffiti tags.

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But police and City Council members became alarmed late last year and reestablished the dormant task force after violence flared up following an influx of gang members from the San Fernando Valley and renewed tension among locals.

Nearly four months after it was formed, this panel of cops and prosecutors, probation officers and teachers, park officials and citizens came up with draft recommendations such as these:

* Strictly enforcing the 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew. That means ticketing kids who are out after hours without good reason, and possibly fining parents for the cost of arresting their children.

* Teaching anti-gang classes in Simi Valley schools and adding more anti-gang police officers to the two who already patrol the city’s campuses.

* Holding more frequent anti-gang strategy meetings with officials from the police and probation departments, the park and school districts. The goal is to solidify lines of communication--which are sometimes tenuous at best--between agencies that work with kids in gangs or at risk of joining.

* Sending some of Simi Valley’s more hard-core gang members to a boot camp in Santa Barbara County under the tutelage of Ventura County probation officers.

* Developing school programs for conflict resolution and cultural diversity awareness, and enforcing school dress codes more severely.

* Building a network of volunteers to work with youths.

* Expanding Youth Council programs to include anti-gang commercials, better Friday night activities for youths and a hotline for reporting gang problems and counseling teens in crisis.

* And expanding programs for skating, hockey and boxing in the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District.

Councilwoman Barbara Williamson said that stiff enforcement of the curfew and truancy laws--including fines against the parents of wayward teens--may be one of the strongest tools the city can use to clamp down on gangs.

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“I don’t want anything on the books that doesn’t have any teeth in it,” she said. “If a kid’s out after 10 o’clock, we can not only pop him with a fine, but we can get their parents. The whole thing comes down to the parents.

“With a kid you’ve got to knock them in the head sometimes to get their attention,” she said. “And this is what we have to do with the parents, too.”

Councilman Paul Miller, also serves on the task force.

Miller said that better coordination among law enforcement, probation, park and schools officials also can help keep a lid on gang membership, without the extra expense demanded by new classes, better programs or more cops.

The City Council is scheduled to review the task force report on May 6.