Gang Victim Service Program Honored

After seven years of rushing to murder scenes, comforting grieving families, helping gang victims plead their cases in court and even burying the dead, Community Service Programs Inc. has been awarded the nation’s highest honor for service to crime victims.

Margot Carleson, executive director of the Gang Victim Service Program, and program supervisor Christine Lopez will receive a Crime Victim Service Award in Washington on Friday from Atty. Gen. Janet Reno. Fourteen other agencies and individuals also will be honored.

Since the Gang Victim Services Program began its work in 1990, “It’s been seven years of working the field, seven days a week, 24 hours on call with more than 50 or 60 deaths some years,” Lopez said.

Last year, the program’s eight bilingual staff members helped more than 970 people affected by gang violence in Orange County. Counselors worked with victims to assure their safety from additional violence and helped with court proceedings, counseling referrals and support groups.

The award, Carleson said, is validation of the cutting edge nature of the program and its successes.

“The program makes such a difference to those families we work with,” she said. “It not only reduces retaliation [by gang members], but it makes people believe they’re not alienated from society.”

The sense of alienation can be strong because from the time relatives are killed, the families are almost enveloped in fear.

Mortuaries, for example, may be reluctant to hold a service if the victim was a gang member, fearing to attract violence, Lopez said. Everyone that the families come into contact with may view the relatives with apprehension.

Although it focuses on helping a murder victim’s relatives, the agency also works closely with the police departments of Anaheim, Orange and Huntington Beach as well as the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

“What the investigators find helpful is where the victim is frightened of retaliations, and then CSP will work with them, walking them through the system,” said Lt. Dave Severson of Anaheim Police Department’s Gang Unit.

The program’s work has been essential in convincing victims to testify in court, Severson said.

Huntington Beach police, who said the city has not had any gang murders in 18 months, praise CSP’s gang prevention efforts.

“They’re successful because they’ve worked at a community level with parents, schools and other organizations that come in and participate,” said Lt. Luis Ochoa. “Because of constant communication between counselors and officers we know exactly what’s going on with the gangs.”