Progress on Gang Front

The latest annual report from the Orange County district attorney’s office contains more encouraging news about gangs in Orange County. The number of violent crimes, including murders, declined last year.

A computer problem made information about the number of gangs and their membership in the county unreliable. If there was an increase, it appears to have been small.

Orange County has suffered from gang problems over the years. But agencies such as the Probation Department, the district attorney’s office and individual police departments deserve credit for looking for solutions.

Dist. Atty. Anthony J. Rackauckas, who took office last January, has promised to expand anti-gang measures. That would be wise. Rackauckas was properly restrained in saying that while the fight against crime has registered success, “we still have a way to go.”

Law enforcement officials believe that one reason gang crime has dropped is the crackdown on gang leaders. Identifying and prosecuting the leaders disrupts operations. Some members form new gangs and recruit new members, but the violence diminishes at least temporarily.

The capacity of gangs for wreaking mayhem on their foes and terrorizing neighborhoods should not be discounted.

A Costa Mesa neighborhood was stunned six weeks ago when an alleged gang member, who was arrested last week, walked up to a garage-turned-apartment and fired blindly through the door. Police said the gunman intended to kill alleged members of a rival gang. Instead, he killed a 15-year-old and her 7-month-old fetus.

The July 4 weekend witnessed a spate of shootings that left four dead, all believed gang-related. Three youths, two in Stanton and one in Westminster, were Vietnamese.

Last year a survey of Vietnamese Americans in Westminster, the center of Little Saigon, found that youngsters joined gangs because their friends did and because the gang life seemed glamorous. Tensions stemming from a clash between the culture of Vietnam-born parents and America-born children were not as important.

Westminster authorities said nearly half the delinquency among Asian youths in the city could be traced to Vietnamese gang members. The increase in violence among the gangs was especially worrisome.

However, the district attorney’s report notes that Asians were involved in less than 9% of the gang cases filed by prosecutors in 1998; Latino gangs accounted for about 68% of the filings.

Gang homicides numbered 74 in 1993, but since have declined sharply, totaling 32 last year. A troubling statistic was that only 10 of the 32 cases were solved, in part because of a reluctance of witnesses to testify.

The district attorney’s office established a gang unit more than a decade ago. It now includes 10 investigators and 10 lawyers specializing in prosecuting gang cases. Last year the county joined local law enforcement agencies across the state and the California Department of Justice in a system known as CalGangs.

The statewide computer system lists gangs, members and convictions for crimes. Law enforcement officials say they have rigid guidelines about who can be included in the database; most who are listed admit to being gang members. That’s important. Wrongly identifying someone as a gang member can haunt the victim for years.

The district attorney’s report says the system also is designed to purge information on individuals with no gang activity for five years. But computer problems caused the purging to be suspended last year. That led to an apparent increase in the number of gang members.

Even with a decline in robberies and killings, violent crime remains a major public concern in Orange County. Police and prosecutors need to be aware of public perceptions as well as reality. That is one reason community policing has been a success in many parts of the county; seeing police officers on patrol raises the comfort level in a neighborhood.

The Target program, grouping police, prosecutors and probation officers for a coordinated attack on gang members committing crimes, has had good results since it was established five years ago. Now there are 12 Target teams in the county. That’s a realistic acknowledgment that although violent crime may be waning, gangs still need to be a top priority of law enforcement officials.