Council Committee to Explore Creating Anti-Gang Agency
With Los Angeles spending $82 million this year on anti-gang programs and getting unknown results, a City Council committee voted Monday to explore creating an agency to better coordinate such efforts.
The agency, which probably would be called the Department of Gang Violence and Youth Development, still must be approved by another committee and the full council.
“The question is, ‘Who is in charge of this?’ ” Councilman Martin Ludlow said. “I want someone walking the halls here [in City Hall] who we can ask, ‘How many kids did we get out of gangs this week?’ ”
The city’s anti-gang money is spread among several intervention and education programs. Millions of dollars also go to the Los Angeles Police Department.
The vote culminated two months of hearings by the city’s ad hoc committee on gang issues. Ludlow heads the panel, which has often heard emotional testimony over the cost of gang-related crime in Los Angeles.
On Monday, both Police Chief William Bratton and Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca appeared before the committee to urge the council to better coordinate its programs.
“You can’t arrest your way out of” gang problems, Bratton said.
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