Kids Must Be Kept From Gangs

* Re “On the Right Track With Gang-Violence Prevention,” April 13 editorial:

It’s amazing how much gang violence has increased in our society. It seems more and more teenagers find themselves traveling into the wrong direction of joining gangs.

I think this has to do with the family and the environment in which the child lives. I doubt we can eliminate all this violence completely, but we can minimize it.

I think there should be more programs for teenagers to keep them away from the streets and going in the right direction: things such as sports or clubs that help out the community. Perhaps if these teenagers do need more attention, they can find it in positive groups instead of negative ones.

ANGEL AUYEUNG

Laguna Niguel

* Regarding your editorial: Yes, we are making progress. But don’t lull us back to a passive state by using a number like a 6% drop in gang activity to keep our attention off the hundreds of percent increases this decade in gang violence growth!

Today, 80% of all the crime committed in the United States is committed by persons aged 13 to 22. Victims of crime in California are also young: 12 to 24. Handguns are the No. 1 killer of kids in California.

This year 270,000 guns will be carried to American schools. In the United States today, 1.2 million latchkey kids will come home to a house with a gun but no parent; 5,314 children will be arrested, 30% of them for a violent crime.

The homicide victimization rate for American males 15 to 24 is eight times greater than that in the next highest-ranking country, Italy. The U.S. homicide rate is 10 times higher than the rest of the industrialized world, 40 times more violent than Germany, France, Canada, England and Japan.

In California, we spend more money on corrections than on kindergarten through 12th grade combined. According to the Rand Corp., by the year 2000, 1% of California’s state budget will go for higher education while 18% will go for corrections.

While our population of children under 18 is twice as large as our population of senior citizens, our government spends five times more on seniors than it does on kids. While I am rapidly becoming a card-carrying member of that very “senior” group, and no one can argue with the fact all those who have helped build our nation deserve our continued support, we need balance. We need to wake up to the fact that kids are killing kids, that gang violence will smother our society in the next quarter century.

Whatever future we have lies with our children, all our children. I suggest we all start investing in our future by investing in our children . . . all the children. And, we should start right here, right now.

Programs like DARE, boys and girls clubs, YMCA and community clinics are bright beginnings, but it will take more from all of us if we are to get the crime and the kids off the streets and the rest of us back to parenting.

It is my belief that the most important fact about Tiger Woods, for example, is that this young man has parents that took an active role in his life.

Perhaps that is the lesson to learn before the turn of the century.

DAVID GAROFALO

Huntington Beach City Council

Member, Orange County Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Advisory Committee