An anti-gang mystery

The whole point of establishing a new anti-gang program in Los Angeles two years ago was to finally be able to identify which strategies worked and which didn’t. The longstanding L.A. Bridges and the newer Bridges II programs were jettisoned precisely because no one had any way to determine whether they, and the millions of dollars paid to their gang-diversion and intervention contractors, were doing any good. The centerpiece of the new Gang Reduction and Youth Development program was to be a commitment to rigorous, transparent, scientific and verifiable evaluation.

So City Controller Wendy Greuel’s report, released Tuesday, is troubling. The new program has established a good foundation, the controller reported, but has failed so far to produce the kind of evaluation that was initially promised. Without evaluation, City Hall has little to show for its new approach to youth seduced or threatened by the gang lifestyle.

This is serious. Los Angeles is the nation’s gang capital, and services for at-risk youth have been reduced over the years by budget cuts and neglect. It is no longer possible to simply throw money at city programs and hope that enough of it lands in the right places to keep kids safe. Voters narrowly defeated a 2008 parcel tax designed to fund youth programs, and many of those who said “no” no doubt believed, as did this page, that new money was desperately needed but would be premature — precisely because City Hall had just begun gearing up to be able to evaluate the impact of each dollar spent.

Yet here we are in July 2010, and we still haven’t evaluated the effectiveness of GRYD. It’s impossible to know whether the reduction in violence in targeted zones throughout the city is a result of the excellent Summer Night Lights portion of the program — which provides activities for youth during hours that gang violence is most prevalent — or if it’s because the city has simply caught a break the last couple of summers. That’s no knock on Summer Night Lights; Los Angeles and other cities have long seen the benefit of spending money to keep youth productively occupied. But is the entire GRYD program effective? Would the money be even more effective were it spent instead to restore recently cut library hours? Is it reaching those youth most directly at risk of gang violence? Without transparent data and evaluation, we don’t know.

The success of GRYD is crucial, and not merely because the fate of thousands of Los Angeles’ children, and the safety and quality of life of the city’s entire population, are at stake. The city has begun a season of program cuts; cuts based not on any data on the programs’ effectiveness but on their popularity with recipients, political supporters, contractors and labor. That’s the world we’re trying to leave behind. The new world is one in which elected officials, program managers and the public become accustomed to constant program evaluation, elimination of programs that can’t demonstrate success and funding of programs that are effective. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and GRYD must step up their efforts on evaluation, not merely for the good of the city’s youth but for the future of all city services in an era of shrinking revenue and a skeptical electorate.