City Panel OKs Hiring More Attorneys for Gang Injunction Unit

Aiming to expand the use of a popular new tool in the war on gangs, a key City Council panel Monday approved strengthening the city’s legal staff to draw up and enforce more court injunctions against gang activities.

The Public Safety Committee approved hiring for the city attorney’s office four lawyers and two support workers who will be specifically charged with seeking court orders that forbid specified gang members to perform otherwise legal acts, from keeping company with each other to wearing beepers.

“The general consensus in law enforcement is that injunctions work,” said the proposal’s chief sponsor, Councilman Richard Alarcon, who represents the Blythe Street area in Panorama City where an anti-gang injunction has been in effect since 1993.

The proposal is scheduled to go to the full council after clearing the city’s budget and finance panel, which must find more than $500,000 a year to fund the positions. Officials hope to make the hires soon after the new year to tackle the requests that have poured in from throughout the city for injunctions against local gangs.

Though pleased with the prospect of four new lawyers, both Alarcon and City Atty. James K. Hahn acknowledged that the measure falls short of Alarcon’s original $1.2-million proposal to hire seven attorneys for the gang injunction unit. Hahn, whose office has made expanding the unit its top budget priority for the next fiscal year, said there is no money for that many at present.

“Four won’t be able to handle what’s on the table now” in terms of injunction requests, he said.

But “it’ll go a long way,” Alarcon added.

The injunctions, which typically take about 18 months to draft and implement, have recently become one of law enforcement’s most popular weapons against gangs and drugs. Currently, five anti-gang court orders are in force in the city, with a dozen more around the county.

The city attorney’s office is seeking several others, covering areas such as Orion Street in the east San Fernando Valley and the Oakwood area of Venice, where 11 people were killed in gang violence within just a few months earlier this year.

The injunctions prohibit known gang members from engaging in behavior linked to illegal gang activity, ranging from congregating in public spaces, such as a park, to wearing pagers, often used in making drug deals.

Authorities can resort to the injunctions when regular law enforcement methods have failed. Residents of an area must affirm to the court that gangs are out of control in their neighborhood.

Officials credit the injunctions with significant decreases in crime and heightened feelings of security in the targeted neighborhoods.

“This is our job as lawmakers to know whether our communities feel better or not,” Alarcon said. “There is no doubt that Blythe Street feels better.”

But opponents say the injunctions merely transfer the crime to surrounding areas and fail to address the underlying causes of gang violence.

“It gives [neighbors] a false sense of hope and security when in fact the problem remains,” said Elizabeth Schroeder, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

“The city would be wiser to spend its money on programs that we know work to combat the increase in gangs,” such as job-training programs, she said.