Unified Fight on Gangs Urged

A national strategy similar to that used against organized crime and in current counter-terrorism efforts must be created to fight street gangs, federal and local law enforcement officials said Sunday at the start of a two-day conference in Los Angeles.

The conference, sponsored by the Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI, was organized to help change long-standing perceptions as gangs expand beyond their traditional territories. Gangs are growing, becoming more sophisticated and “migrating” into medium- and small-sized cities, officials said, and law enforcement agencies must find a unified approach to combat them.

“It’s like a cancer that has many different smaller cancers, and it’s a growing problem,” LAPD Chief William J. Bratton said in an interview. “There is no municipality in the country that can solve this without help at the federal level. We could do a lot more in cooperation.”

Bratton and other officials drew parallels between fighting gangs and efforts taken against the Mafia in the 1980s and ‘90s and against terrorism today. In such efforts, agencies at all levels pool their resources and strategize together.

“We don’t have time for duplication anymore,” said Grant D. Ashley, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigation Division.

The FBI’s participation underscored the goal to make gang violence a matter of national concern, officials said. The bureau has four anti-gang squads in Los Angeles, the most in any area office, and hopes to increase anti-gang stings across the country, FBI spokesman Matt McLaughlin said.

But officials admitted there are still obstacles to building a unified approach to fighting gangs. States and cities are facing tighter budgets. Terror alerts divert local police resources. Police departments in medium- and small-sized cities lack direct contact with anti-gang efforts in big cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, considered the chief exporters of gang activity nationwide. In addition, the country has no nationally recognized definition of gang crime.

Police departments from 11 cities sent representatives to the conference, as did the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, among other agencies. Most of the conference is closed to the public and press.

Bratton said the LAPD began organizing the event shortly after he arrived in Los Angeles in 2002, and after a meeting with FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III. Two more conferences are planned that will include community leaders and researchers, he said.

Although homicides in the city of Los Angeles dropped by about 20% in 2003, gang activity is not abating, Bratton said.

In Los Angeles County, home to 96,000 suspected gang members, fighting gangs must become a concern for everyone, not just residents in gang-ravaged neighborhoods, Sheriff Lee Baca said.

“The rest of us go on with our daily lives not focusing on the problem of gangs,” he said. “Gangs are a major contributor to educational underachievement.... The poorer neighborhoods are just hanging on.”