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Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention O F OJJ D P
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G ang Suppression

and Intervention:
Community Models
Research Summary

A Publication of the
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
 Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) was established by the President and Con-
gress through the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act of 1974, Public Law 93–415, as
amended. Located within the Office of Justice Programs of the U.S. Department of Justice, OJJDP’s goal is to
provide national leadership in addressing the issues of juvenile delinquency and improving juvenile justice.

OJJDP sponsors a broad array of research, program, and training initiatives to improve the juvenile justice
system as a whole, as well as to benefit individual youth-serving agencies. These initiatives are carried out by
seven components within OJJDP, described below.

Research and Program Development Division Information Dissemination and Planning Unit
develops knowledge on national trends in juvenile informs individuals and organizations of OJJDP
delinquency; supports a program for data collection initiatives; disseminates information on juvenile jus-
and information sharing that incorporates elements tice, delinquency prevention, and missing children;
of statistical and systems development; identifies and coordinates program planning efforts within
how delinquency develops and the best methods OJJDP. The unit’s activities include publishing re-
for its prevention, intervention, and treatment; and search and statistical reports, bulletins, and other
analyzes practices and trends in the juvenile justice documents, as well as overseeing the operations of
system. the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse.

Training and Technical Assistance Division pro- Concentration of Federal Efforts Program pro-
vides juvenile justice training and technical assist- motes interagency cooperation and coordination
ance to Federal, State, and local governments; law among Federal agencies with responsibilities in the
enforcement, judiciary, and corrections personnel; area of juvenile justice. The program primarily carries
and private agencies, educational institutions, and out this responsibility through the Coordinating Coun-
community organizations. cil on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, an
independent body within the executive branch that
Special Emphasis Division provides discretionary was established by Congress through the JJDP Act.
funds to public and private agencies, organizations,
and individuals to replicate tested approaches to Missing and Exploited Children Program seeks to
delinquency prevention, treatment, and control in promote effective policies and procedures for address-
such pertinent areas as chronic juvenile offenders, ing the problem of missing and exploited children.
community-based sanctions, and the disproportionate Established by the Missing Children’s Assistance Act
representation of minorities in the juvenile justice of 1984, the program provides funds for a variety of
system. activities to support and coordinate a network of re-
sources such as the National Center for Missing and
State Relations and Assistance Division supports Exploited Children; training and technical assistance
collaborative efforts by States to carry out the man- to a network of 43 State clearinghouses, nonprofit
dates of the JJDP Act by providing formula grant organizations, law enforcement personnel, and attor-
funds to States; furnishing technical assistance to neys; and research and demonstration programs.
States, local governments, and private agencies;
and monitoring State compliance with the JJDP Act.

OJJDP provides leadership, direction, and resources to the juvenile justice community to help prevent and
control delinquency throughout the country.
Gang Suppression and Intervention:
Community Models

Research Summary
Irving Spergel
Ron Chance
Kenneth Ehrensaft
Thomas Regulus
Candice Kane
Robert Laseter
Alba Alexander
Sandra Oh

National Youth Gang Suppression and Intervention

Research and Development Program
School of Social Service Administration
University of Chicago

John J. Wilson, Acting Administrator

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

October 1994
This document was prepared under grant number 90–JD–CX–K001 from the Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), U.S. Department of Justice.
Points of view or opinions expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent
the official position or policies of OJJDP or the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is a component of the Office of Justice
Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the
National Institute of Justice, and the Office for Victims of Crime.
Foreword
Youth gangs and the problems associated with them were once thought to
concern a relatively small number of major metropolitan areas whose gang
troubles go back to the days of West Side Story.

No longer. As the challenge posed by gangs extends to a greater number of

cities and to communities of more modest proportions, the need for compre-
hensive community efforts to address emerging and chronic gang problems
intensifies.
Dr. Irving Spergel and his colleagues at the University of Chicago have con-
ducted the first comprehensive national survey of organized agency and com-
munity group responses to gang problems in the United States. Their study is
the only national assessment of efforts to combat gangs.
Dr. Spergel and his study team developed a comprehensive gang prevention and
intervention model based on their national assessment. Its components are
presented in this Summary. Implementation manuals were also developed.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is funding
a multi-site demonstration of the Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach
to Gang Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Program. The program uses
the model developed by Dr. Spergel and his colleagues. An independent
evaluation will also be funded. OJJDP’s National Youth Gang Suppression and
Intervention Program is establishing a National Gang Assessment Resource
Center and will provide technical assistance and training services to program
sites across the country.
These models are recommended as effective policies, practices, and strategies
for communities to combat gangs. We believe you will find them useful in your
efforts to address the youth gang problem.

John J. Wilson
Acting Administrator
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

iii
Table of Contents
Foreword␣ ␣ ....................................................................................................... iii
Introduction␣ ␣ ................................................................................................. 1
General community design␣ ␣ ................................................................... 2
Assessing the problem ................................................................................... 2
Organization and policy development .......................................................... 2
Managing the collaborative process .............................................................. 3
Goals and objectives ..................................................................................... 3
Relevant programming .................................................................................. 3
Coordination and community participation .................................................. 4
Youth accountability ..................................................................................... 4
Staffing .......................................................................................................... 4
Staff training .................................................................................................. 4
Research and evaluation ................................................................................ 5
Funding priorities .......................................................................................... 5

Community mobilization␣ ␣ ........................................................................ 5

Police␣ ␣ ............................................................................................................... 6
Prosecution␣ ␣ .................................................................................................. 8
Courts␣ ␣ ............................................................................................................. 9
Probation␣ ␣ ..................................................................................................... 11
Corrections␣ ␣ ................................................................................................. 13
Parole␣ ␣ ............................................................................................................ 15
Schools␣ ␣ ......................................................................................................... 17
Youth employment␣ ␣ ................................................................................. 19
Community-based youth agency␣ ␣ ...................................................... 22
Socialization ................................................................................................. 22
Education ...................................................................................................... 22
Family support ............................................................................................. 23
Training and employment ............................................................................ 23
Social control ............................................................................................... 23
Community mobilization and agency coordination ..................................... 23

Grassroots organizations␣ ␣ .................................................................... 24

v
Introduction
In its model development stage, the National Youth Gang Suppression and In-
tervention Program prepared a set of policies and practices for the design and
mobilization of community efforts by police, prosecutors, judges, probation and
parole officers, corrections officers, schools, employers, community-based
E ach model
addresses the gang
agencies, and a range of grassroots organizations. Prototype development is the
second of four stages (Assessment, Prototype Development, Technical Assist- problem in its
ance, and Testing) of a research and development process conducted in coop-
eration with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S.
community context.
Department of Justice, to create promising approaches for the reduction of the
youth gang problem.
The framework for the policies and procedures recommended in each of the 12
models is based upon 2 types of gang problems: chronic and emerging. Differ-
ential strategies of suppression and intervention consist of suppression, commu-
nity mobilization, social intervention, social opportunities, organization change
and development, and distinctive institutional missions. Issues of primary pre-
vention are not addressed in these documents, which emphasize secondary pre-
vention. A forthcoming report, Preventing Involvement in Youth Gang Crime,
more fully addresses prevention issues.
A community with a chronic gang problem is characterized by a persistent,
often acute pattern of gang violence and crime (including drug trafficking) be-
ginning before the 1980’s. A community with an emerging gang problem is
associated with a pattern of gang crime that is less organized or virulent and
more recent. The models focus on youth gang members ages 12 to 24. The
models are concerned with policies and programs that address primarily gang-
motivated crime in terms of juvenile and young adult commitment to gang vio-
lence, status, and turf and, secondarily, evolving gang-related problems of drug
trafficking and more organized crime.
The authors propose that the lack of social opportunities available to a popula-
tion and the degree of social disorganization present in a community largely
account for its youth gang problem. Other contributing factors include institu-
tional racism and deficiencies in social policy. The authors believe that the na-
ture of a particular population’s exposure to these structural conditions at the
community level determines the character and prevalence of its youth gang
problem.
Each model addresses the youth gang problem in terms of its community con-
text and distinctive organizational missions. These become the basis for assess-
ment of the youth gang problem, for selection of appropriate combinations of
strategies and programs targeted to particular categories of youth gang mem-
bers. In each model, the authors recommend an approach that mobilizes com-
munity interest and concern. The approach should:
■ Neither exaggerate nor deny the problem’s scope and seriousness.
■ Develop consensus among key figures in the approach.
■ Target both younger and older gang members who may be ready to give up
gang crime activities.

1
 However, no one can be sure that the policies and practices proposed to reduce
the youth gang crime problem are effective until they are tested.

A gang problem
must be recognized
General community design
These general and specific models for youth gang suppression and intervention
before it can be assume that the problem of youth gangs and related criminal behavior, includ-
ing extreme violence and drug trafficking, is mainly a function of two interact-
addressed. ing conditions: poverty and social disorganization. Other significant or
contributing factors include institutional racism, cultural misadaptation, defi-
ciencies in social policy, and the availability of criminal opportunities. While
many causes of the problem are generated by forces outside communities expe-
riencing gang crime, much can be done to reduce the problem through mobiliza-
tion of a network of local organizations and citizens and of resources at the city,
State, and national levels. While we know a great deal about the problem, we
have no sure-fire policies and programs, and our models need to be rigorously
tested.

Specific policies and procedures must be designed to achieve the intermediate

goals of suppression and intervention and the ultimate goal of reducing youth
gang problem. Certain action areas must be addressed in implementing the key
operational strategies of community mobilization, provision of opportunities,
social intervention, suppression, and organizational change and development.
These areas are problem assessment, development of youth gang policy, manag-
ing the collaborative process, creation of program goals and objectives, pro-
gramming, coordination and community participation, youth accountability,
staffing, training, research evaluation, and funding priorities.

Assessing the problem. The presence of a youth gang problem must be recog-
nized before anything meaningful can be done to address it. Identification of
manifest and underlying factors contributing to the problem is also important.
Those with responsibility for addressing the problem—representatives of crimi-
nal justice and community agencies, grassroots organizations, schools,
churches, local businesses, even gangs—should participate in describing its
nature and causes and recommending appropriate solutions. Consensus must be
developed on the definition of the youth gang problem—particularly by
decisionmakers of key agencies, community organizations, and government
units.

Organization and policy development. Communities must effectively orga-

nize to combat the youth gang problem. In cities with chronic youth gang activ-
ity, this means establishing local councils or statutory commissions (possibly
by State statute) to set policy, and to coordinate programs resulting from such
policy. Each council or commission should establish special committees on
law enforcement, education, employment, and rehabilitation. A full range of
strategies—prevention, intervention, and suppression—must be planned, but
they must be appropriately ordered and prioritized. In cities with an emerging
problem, less formal or inclusive structural arrangements may be required, but
special emphasis must be given to efforts by schools and youth agencies to

2
reach out to certain high-risk youth and their families through a variety of pre-
vention and early intervention programs.

Policies of deterrence, prevention, or rehabilitation in themselves are insuffi-

cient to confront youth gang problems. Operational strategies and methods of
carrying them out must be systematically integrated, inasmuch as the youth
gang problem has different but interrelated elements. The gang problem is or-
T he gang
problem affects
ganic, particularly in communities with chronic gang activities. It affects differ- different sectors
ent sectors of a population, such as older and younger gang members, their
families, victims, and innocent bystanders in different but reciprocal and inter- in reciprocal terms.
related or systemic terms. It may not be realistic to deal only with preadoles-
cents if adolescent and young adult gang members exercise great influence. It
may be necessary not only to protect normal, conforming youth but to socialize
disruptive youth gang members.
Managing the collaborative process. The community process for dealing with
the gang problem goes through various stages before sustained program devel-
opment and positive impact can occur. The first stage includes denial, initial
organizing, and policymaking and the second stage, goal and problem displace-
ment, and sometimes community conflict. The further community mobilization
proceeds, the more likely there will be a positive outcome. In the critical third
stage, charges of ineffective programs, institutional racism, and corruption may
be made. Moral leadership must arise and agency programs develop account-
ability to make sure the right programs are launched and the right youth are
targeted for suppression, opportunities, and services.
Goals and objectives. Longer term comprehensive strategies, including reme-
dial education, training, and jobs as well as short-term suppression and outreach
services for targeted youth, must be provided. A balance should be established
between strategies that focus on individual or family change and those that em-
phasize system change and development or the provision of additional re-
sources, such as the creation of a local youth conservation corps. Long-term
sustained efforts that target the most vulnerable and hardcore youth gang mem-
bers are required.
Relevant programming. Rationales for services, tactics, or procedures have to
be systematically articulated and implemented. At present, we possess only
rudimentary knowledge about programs or activities deemed to be effective.
Some of these promising approaches include:
■ Targeting, arresting, and incarcerating gang leaders and repeat violent gang
offenders.
■ Referring fringe members and their parents to youth services for counseling
and guidance.
■ Providing preventive services for youth who are clearly at risk.
■ Crisis intervention or mediation of gang fights.
■ Patrols of community “hot spots.”

3
 ■ Close supervision of gang offenders by criminal justice and community-
based agencies.
■ Remedial education for targeted youth gang members, especially in middle
T he less
internal control
school. Job orientation, training, placement, and mentoring for older youth
gang members.
■ Safe zones around schools.
a youth exercises ■ Vertical prosecution, close supervision, and enhanced sentences for
over his behavior, the hardcore youth gang members. (Vertical or “hardcore” prosecution puts
more social control the same prosecutor in charge of all aspects of a case from charging to
sentencing.)
must be exerted.
Coordination and community participation. A mobilized community is the
most promising way to deal with the gang problem. The development of in-
formed, consistent relations and procedures among and within organizations
results in greater social control and social support and more effective targeting
of the problem. Criminal justice agencies, community-based agencies, and local
grassroots organizations must be involved in policy development and program
implementation. Involvement of diverse neighborhood groups in gang neighbor-
hoods is essential to a viable approach. Local leadership must be recruited and
developed if later racial and class conflicts are to be avoided or minimized in the
programs that are launched.

Youth accountability. Youth gang members must be held accountable for their
criminal acts, but they also must be provided with opportunities to change or
control this behavior. The less internal control a youth exercises over his own
behavior, the more social control must be exerted to demonstrate that some be-
haviors are not acceptable. For some gang members, secure confinement will be
necessary. For others, graduated degrees of community-based supervision, rang-
ing from continuous sight or electronic supervision to total self-supervision, will
be appropriate. It is important that youth understand that they will face conse-
quences if they do not follow program rules or reasonable expectations.

Staffing. Youth gang suppression and intervention efforts require a thorough

understanding of the complexity of gang activity in the context of local commu-
nity life. The policymaker, administrator, or street-level worker should avoid
recognizing or using the gang or gang processes as primary instruments or
mechanisms for controlling or resolving a gang problem because that approach
can contribute to gang cohesion and strengthen gang influence. The gang
worker must clearly articulate values and practices that demonstrate that gang
recruitment, intergroup conflict, and other forms of criminal behavior are unac-
ceptable and will be punished. With those values expressed and operative, it is
still possible for the agency or community worker to collaborate with youth
gang members, neighbors, parents, and criminal justice and community-based
agency representatives to deal effectively with gang crises and control various
kinds of criminal behavior. This approach recognizes the existence of youth
gangs, but rejects their legitimacy.

Staff training. Training should focus on the development of improved strate-

gies of suppression and intervention in emerging and chronic gang problems.

4
In emerging gang problem situations, greater attention to the specifics of gang
identification and understanding the basis for gang dynamics is required. The
limits of a simple, exclusive suppression strategy must be recognized. In cities
with chronic problems, greater attention to cross-agency and community group
collaboration is necessary, with special concern for developing remedial educa-
tion, training, job development, and support services for youth gang members.
B road-scale
approaches to
Research and evaluation. Relatively little policy- or program-relevant research prevention are less
is available to determine which strategies and practices lower crime rates among
youth gang members. This study has hypothesized that the interrelated applica- effective than targeting
tion of strategies of community mobilization and provision for social opportuni- high-risk youth.
ties, combined to a lesser degree with suppression, organizational development,
and social intervention, will lead to such a reduction, particularly of violence.
One might further hypothesize that a complex, innovative, and interrelated
agency and grassroots approach that gives due attention to policies and practices
of rehabilitation and suppression will be more effective than a simple, specific
agency-oriented approach, such as social intervention, that focuses either on
suppression or rehabilitation. Furthermore, one could anticipate that broad-scale
preventive approaches, such as exposing all youth in a gang milieu to anti-gang
programs, will be less effective than defining and targeting a high-risk youth
population and applying appropriate deterrent and rehabilitative procedures.
Funding priorities. While there is no clear way to determine which policies
and procedures will work, we do know something about strategies and pro-
grams that do not work. Therefore, it is incumbent on funding agencies con-
cerned with the reduction of gang delinquency and crime to avoid simple or
isolated programs of recreation, nondirective counseling, street work, or mas-
sive arrest and incarceration. Based on available research, theory, and experi-
ence, community mobilization strategies and programs should be accorded the
highest funding priority.

Community mobilization
Success in the implementation of the prototype depends primarily on the effec-
tiveness of community mobilization. Community mobilization is a process of
consciousness raising that addresses the concerns and long-term interests of
those most affected by the youth gang problem. It calls for objective identifica-
tion of the problem’s dimensions and the will and commitment of the commu-
nity to act. The process depends on cooperation and collaboration of key groups
and activists as well as appropriate use of gang crises by community and agency
leaders to generate pressures that can enhance awareness of and improve respon-
siveness to the gang problem.

Failures or delays in community mobilization occur primarily because agencies

and local community organizations seek to protect or enhance their particular
agency or group interests, which may or may not be directly related to the gang
problem. Issues of organizational turf and interpersonal or interagency rivalry
and conflict may prevent discussion of common goals and objectives and the
means for collaborative endeavors. Failures of community mobilization may
also occur because of insensitivity to distinctive community racial, ethnic, or

5
 class interests. Leaders of the mobilization process may insufficiently recognize
and understand distinctive African-American, Latino, or Asian local community
concerns and interests about gangs in the particular communities.

G ang members
often fall between the
The community mobilization process can move forward only when a group
of leaders committed to the resolution of the problems, develops a set of close
relationships, relevant goals, and action plans based on mutual trust and agree-
cracks of social service ment on the definition of the problem and what needs to be done. The plan that
evolves must not only be supported by key political and economic forces in the
programs and police local and broader community, but also meet at least partially the survival and
sweeps. developmental needs of existing and evolving agency programs and community
groups.

The essence of the community mobilization process is to reinvigorate or reorga-

nize community structures so that community energies and resources are devel-
oped to address the youth gang problem, and these resources are integrated and
targeted on the gang problem. Youth gang members often fall between the
cracks of social services, social opportunity programs, and police sweeps. Not
only do criminal acts of individuals and groups add to the problems of youth
gangs, but inappropriate responses by agencies and community groups fuel
them.

Police
The fundamental purpose of law enforcement is protecting the community from
criminal activities. Protection is achieved through a combination of suppression
and preventive activities. The police need to address emerging and chronic
youth gang problems distinctively. Police organizational arrangements to deal
with the youth gang problem should vary depending on the scope and serious-
ness of the problem and available departmental resources.

In communities confronted by emerging youth gangs, the police department

may not necessarily organize a specialized gang unit but instead establish a
gang detail or designate one or more officers as gang specialists. Other possi-
bilities include assigning a crime analysis officer to identify chronic or serious
juvenile gang offenders and requiring patrol officers in areas of high gang activ-
ity to focus their attention on these youth.
In some jurisdictions, community relations, narcotics, and juvenile divisions
may take on specialized functions to deal with gangs. Generally, in larger com-
munities where the gang problem is more serious and sophisticated, a special-
ized gang unit should be established. In some very large cities, specialized gang
units may also be decentralized and placed in areas of need. In all cases, com-
mon definitions of the youth gang problem and ways to deal with it should char-
acterize police policy and procedures.

Common definitions should be used as a basis for targeting selected gangs and
gang members and for systematic measurement of the scope and seriousness of
the problem. A youth gang (as a segment of a street gang) should be defined as
a group ranging in age from 12 to 24, of variable size and organization, engaged

6
in violent behavior, and characterized by communal or symbolic and often
economic considerations, such as drug trafficking, burglary, robbery, and auto
theft. A targeted gang member should be any youth who has a prior gang arrest.
Special attention should be paid to leaders and to hardcore, repeat, and violent
gang offenders. A gang incident or event should be an illegal act, especially a
violent act, that arises out of gang motivation, interest, or circumstances, as
T he police should
combine suppression
distinct from an act committed by a youth who is a member of a gang.
of gang crime
The police department should adopt an approach that combines suppression of
youth gang criminal acts through aggressive enforcement of laws, with commu- with community
nity mobilization involving a broad cross-section of the community in combat- mobilization.
ing the problem. Development of social intervention activities, while secondary,
should be pursued. Useful interventions might include referring juveniles prone
to gangs to youth service agencies, counseling such youth in collaboration with
school guidance programs, and assisting community-based agencies in targeting
youth gang members for job development.

The role of the police department in controlling and reducing gang crime should
include investigation, intelligence, suppression, community relations, and train-
ing. Of special importance is investigation of gang crimes to obtain information
and evidence useful in the prosecution of youth involved in gang crimes; main-
taining standardized, updated information on gangs, gang members, and gang
incidents; concentrating surveillance on gang leaders and other hardcore mem-
bers; targeting special locations, particularly selected schools, for special patrol;
prevention and control of those circumstances in which youth gang crises are
likely to arise; training criminal justice and community-based agency staff and
local citizens in gang recognition and appropriate intervention procedures; and
assessment of the effectiveness of police policies and procedures in relation to
youth gang crime.

The top administrator of the police department must be involved in determin-

ing gang policy and should insist on the officers’ consistent and complete
implementation of orders and procedures. The exercise of community leader-
ship and a recognition of the scope of the gang problem will help elected lead-
ers, agencies, and groups in the community deal with it openly and adequately.
Where gang problems are emerging, administrators should not minimize the
scope of the problem to protect the good name of the community but should
call attention to incidents of gang crime. In contexts where gang problems have
become chronic, the administrator should withstand pressures to simply in-
crease the level of suppression and support the development of a comprehen-
sive community approach targeted both to youth prone to gangs as well as
other gang members.

Finally, special training is necessary for police officers assigned to deal with
gang crimes. Knowledge from diverse fields must be integrated into the law
enforcement mission. General information is required regarding such topics as
the causes of gangs, their identification and nature, and the roles police should
play with each type of agency or community group in addressing the problem.
Police strategies and programs should be evaluated on a regular basis. Assess-
ments should use measures of law enforcement outcome, internal organization,
and community relations.

7
 Prosecution
The prosecutor has a key responsibility to bring serious juvenile gang offen-

P rosecutors
should pinpoint
ders to justice, protect the community, and serve the community’s best interests.
Jurisdictions with serious or chronic gang crime should develop a vertical pros-
ecution approach to gangs in which a prosecutor follows a case from start to
finish. This ensures that gang offenders or suspects will be targeted for investi-
serious gang cases gation and prosecution to the fullest extent of the law. Although the prosecutor
should focus on suppression, attention must be given to other strategies such as
immediately after the community mobilization and improved coordination of agency services to youth
police make arrests. gang members.

In jurisdictions with emerging or chronic gang-related problems, the prosecutor

should concentrate on case selection and data management; collection and pre-
sentation of evidence; development of appropriate testimony; victim/witness
protection; bail and detention recommendations; appropriate court disposition
and sentencing decisions; and interagency collaboration and community mobili-
zation with respect to gang crime control and prevention activities.

Prosecutors should pinpoint and control serious gang cases immediately after
the police make arrests. Close working relationships between prosecutors and
police and probation or parole are required. A screening process based on spe-
cific criteria and on an adequate information system to track cases is essential.
Hardcore juvenile gang offenders should be targeted, tracked from juvenile to
adult court, and appropriately prosecuted.

Prosecutors, usually with the aid of special gang investigators, should collect
proper evidence to develop a viable gang case. Decisions on the correct charge
and, if necessary, the collection of additional evidence, will reinforce the case.
Guidelines should be developed that are acceptable to prosecutors and police
regarding the selection of cases and determination of charges. Such policy
and procedures should be made public.

The following procedures are recommended in preparing testimony and pro-

tecting victims and witnesses. Pretrial testimony should be videotaped when
appropriate to avoid the problem of the victim or witness recanting or forget-
ting various aspects of past testimony at trial. A program should be developed
to protect victims or witnesses at their residences; help can be provided in relo-
cating them to a safe place. The prosecutor should take action as necessary,
through use of police surveillance to prevent intimidation of witnesses before
or during trial and inside or outside the courtroom, and by prosecuting gang
intimidators, particularly those already on probation or parole. Testimony by a
gang member, whether a witness for the prosecution or defense, should be care-
fully scrutinized for reliability. This is to counter manipulation of the justice
system by gang members who may seek to avoid legal processes and settle gang
conflicts on the street. The prosecutor should encourage use of witnesses such
as police qualified by formal training or advanced education.
The prosecutor may serve the best interests of society through various bail, trial,
and sentencing procedures. For example, the community, the gang offender, and
the witness can be protected by convincing the court of the necessity of high

8
bail for the adult gang offender or suspect and detention for the juvenile gang
offender, especially when there is strong evidence of the likelihood of witness
intimidation or retaliatory acts of violence. Nevertheless, it is important, par-
ticularly during trial proceedings, to clearly determine, based on adequate evi-
dence, that the suspect is indeed a gang member and that the offense was gang
motivated. The prosecutor should be cautious when making reference to a
S trict supervision
may have longer term
defendant’s gang membership since such reference will prejudice the jury.
social benefits than a
When defendants are found guilty, it may not always be in society’s interest to
incarcerate them for a very long period. The prosecutor’s sentencing recommen- prison sentence.
dation to the court should be based on the probation officer’s presentence inves-
tigation as well as the possibility that strict supervision in the community and
appropriate programming through remedial education and job placement may
have longer term social benefits for both the community and the youthful of-
fender than a prison sentence.
The prosecutor, particularly in chronic problem contexts, should become a key
organizer and administrator of an interagency justice system or communitywide
task force established to deal with the gang problem swiftly and forcefully. He
should understand the scope and seriousness of the problem in the jurisdiction’s
communities and also encourage development of a variety of community-based
strategies, including counseling, education, job training, youth employment, and
citizen partnership in community gang prevention and control programs. Sensi-
tivity to the need for a balanced approach in addressing the youth gang problem
should be kept in mind in formulating legislation.
It is essential that the gang prosecutor receive specialized gang training which
provides a thorough understanding of the nature and scope of the gang problem
in different types of local communities, the genesis and control of the problem,
and the application of relevant laws and prosecutorial procedures. A variety of
experienced and knowledgeable teachers should be used, including police, aca-
demics, and community agency personnel. It is important to assess systemati-
cally the role of specialized or vertical gang prosecution and determine whether
it is more cost effective than ordinary prosecution in reducing gang crime.

Courts
The goals of the court should be first, that youth gang members receive a fair
hearing; second, in the event a court petition is sustained, that court orders cre-
ate conditions to rehabilitate the youth gang members, whether they are sent to
a correctional institution or remain in the community; and third, that both the
community and the offenders be protected from further violence and crime. The
court should ordinarily incarcerate convicted or adjudicated, serious delinquent
youth gang offenders, particularly gang leaders and hardcore members who
engage in such violent gang activity as drive-by shootings and significant drug
trafficking. However, peripheral or younger gang members who are adjudicated
for minor gang-motivated crimes should receive short sentences, preferably
supervision in the community with a community service requirement. More-
over, the judges’ decisions should be conditioned by their understanding of the
scope and seriousness of the gang problem in various communities in the court

9
 district, whether the problem is emerging or chronic, and the community re-
sources available to deal with individual gang problems.

J udges should
weigh the evidence that
A key problem the court faces is the lack of resources to carry out its varied
justice system functions. The court needs to improve its capacity to access and
provide gang-related information, for example, through a computerized data
system containing gang-related data. This would facilitate judicial decision-
identifies the youth making and transmittal of court information such as probation stipulations to
police. The courts may require additional probation and service staff to super-
as a gang member vise youth gang members adequately and to help them make social adjustments
and the crime as gang in the community. The court should provide probation officers with sanction
authority that allows them to place youth gang members in detention for short
motivated. periods under specified conditions.

Of special concern is the need of the juvenile court to understand the scope and
seriousness of the youth gang problem and to deal with juvenile gang offenders
in the juvenile court rather than transferring them to adult court. The juvenile
court judge should observe rigid standards in making a transfer decision since
such a decision signifies a loss of status for a class of youth that should be spe-
cially protected and deemed amenable to juvenile rehabilitation.

Adult and juvenile court judges should be especially concerned about the qual-
ity of evidence that identifies the youth before the court as a gang member and
the crime as gang motivated. The judge needs to be knowledgeable about the
different levels of proof required to establish the validity of these terms and to
be careful not to accept hearsay evidence. The judge should make sure that the
jury understands that the offense has clearly grown out of gang motivation or
specific gang-related circumstances. The conspiratorial actions of the suspect
must also be carefully assessed, even if the suspect was not present or directly
involved in the gang crime.

In sentencing a gang member, the judge should consider, in addition to social

and criminal history, the youth’s position in the gang, record of gang member-
ship and criminality, and the history and reputation of the gang itself, particu-
larly the degree of its involvement in emerging or chronic gang problems. Gang
membership and gang offenses tend to be limited in duration. Most youth gang
members are committed to gangs for a relatively short period of time, usually
between the ages of 14 and 18 years. Of primary importance in the judge’s sen-
tencing decision is the weight given to specific factors that can help the youth
develop social competence and at the same time protect the community from
further depredations.

If the judge places the youth gang member on probation, special arrangements
should exist that guarantee an appropriate level of supervision, community res-
titution on behalf of the victim, and the delivery of appropriate services. Regu-
lar court review, whereby juvenile gang members appear in court and their
compliance with court orders is reviewed, is desirable, usually monthly or bi-
monthly. This review might involve checks on school attendance, grades, and
conduct. If the judge decides to sentence a youth gang member to a correctional
institution, the judge must take care that the youth is placed in a protected and
secure environment, reducing gang-related opportunities and providing viable

10
competency-building activities as an alternative to the gang lifestyle. Gang
members who do not receive appropriate remedial education, vocational train-
ing, and social skill development services, whether in the institution or in the
community, are likely to return to gang affiliation and related criminal behavior.
Judges should be visible members of community and interagency gang task
forces. They can facilitate interagency communication, assist in resolving inter-
J udges should
be advocates for the
agency differences, and provide guidance on constitutional issues in regard to suppression and
measures proposed by criminal justice and community-based agencies. Judges
should be advocates in the community and the legislature for meaningful mea- rehabilitation of gang
sures for suppression and rehabilitation of gang members. On the other hand, members.
given the limited knowledge of many judges about the nature, scope, and com-
plexity of youth gang activities in particular communities in their jurisdictions,
it is imperative that judges undertake field observation and training, especially
in respect to the bases for community programs for gang members and differen-
tial sentencing approaches.

The development of juvenile court codes and policies may demand legislative
attention. Because of the distinctive nature of the gang problem, the juvenile
gang offender possibly should constitute a special category in juvenile law
such as that of a minor requiring close supervision. The court should determine
whether a processing decision, such as automatically waiving juvenile suspects
who are gang members to adult court, is constitutional. Finally, differential
sentencing decisions for youth gang members of similar backgrounds should
be evaluated as to their effectiveness in reducing recidivism.

Probation
Oversized caseloads, sometimes in excess of 200 per officer, seriously limit the
probation department’s ability to carry out its primary goals of protecting the
community and diverting youth gang members from further crime. Moreover,
a lack of resources has forced many probation departments to focus on surveil-
lance of dangerous felony youth gang offenders. This prevents the court and
probation from carrying out their rehabilitative function and contributes to the
neglect of less delinquent youth gang members. While a few probation depart-
ments have established special units and programs to deal with gang offenders,
most departments, even in jurisdictions with chronic gang problems, have as yet
no special approaches or services for gang probationers.

The objectives of probation should be first, to assist the court in its sentencing
decision (that is, to provide detailed information on the youth gang member,
along with recommendations on possible sanctions and rehabilitative options);
second, to enforce effectively the orders of the court and the laws of the State
with special regard for limiting the criminal activity of youth gang members;
third, to help criminal justice and community agencies as well as grassroots
groups coordinate information and develop efforts to control and prevent gang
behavior; and fourth, to broker and create special school and employment op-
portunities for youth gang probationers to meet their social development needs.

11
 In areas with emerging or chronic gang problems, probation officers should
give primary consideration to the risks of controlling probationers’ behavior, if
they remain in the community. A risk/needs assessment should be conducted for

S pecial preventive,
early intervention, and
youth gang probationers in terms of their social and especially gang circum-
stances to construe the level of supervision and the intensity of services neces-
sary for probationers and their families. The range of supervisory possibilities
for youth include regular field supervision, intensive supervision, house arrest,
intensive supervision curfew, electronic monitoring, and mandatory substance abuse testing.
programs need to be In contexts with emerging problems, gang-affiliated probationers are likely to
established for different range from 11 to 17 and should probably be supervised as part of the regular
types of gang offenders. juvenile probation caseload. Probation officers should use a service brokerage
approach heavily dependent on local community resources and assistance. A
local community-based youth-serving agency or a school can be enlisted to help
with these functions and activities. Probation officers should also emphasize
close supervision, particularly for leaders and relatively hardcore or committed
youth gang members.

The probation approach should be more complex in cities with chronic gang
problems. Special preventive, early intervention, and intensive supervision
programs need to be established for different types of gang offenders. The
probation officer should help organize and participate in programs at schools
where youth who may have been arrested are beginning to participate in gangs.
Early intervention programs should be directed to first- or second-time, court-
adjudicated gang offenders, mainly those ages 12 to 15. Again, minor gang-
affiliated offenders, from 11 to 17 years old, should probably be supervised on
the regular probation caseload. An intensive probation gang program should be
directed to the more serious gang offender primarily between 15 and 24 years of
age with a history of high levels of gang-related criminality and violence. To
maintain the integrity of intensive supervision, caseloads should be limited to
between 30 and 40 probationers.
A variety of strategies in addition to suppression needs to be implemented by
the probation department. Probation officers should provide youth gang proba-
tioners and their parents with social assistance in crisis situations, making sure
that counseling services are accessible to both. Probation assistance needs to
focus on task-centered objectives for the probationer, such as improving school
performance, procuring employment, and avoiding criminal gang situations.
Of particular importance also are community mobilization efforts to motivate
community-based agencies and grassroots organizations to provide more atten-
tion and services to youth gang members as well as to better coordinate pro-
grams for these youth across agencies. New organizational arrangements may
be required to carry out the above strategies, including vertical case manage-
ment, flexible work shifts, contacts with probationers on the streets and in their
homes, decentralized probation offices, and outreach suppression efforts such as
ride-alongs with the police.
Where chronic gang problems exist, consideration should be given to the devel-
opment of special alternative schools for juveniles on probation in cooperation
with the school system and community-based youth agencies. These alternative
schools could serve as bases for a comprehensive case management approach in

12
which probationers receive intensive remedial education under close supervi-
sion. Cooperation will be necessary with agencies that provide mental health,
drug treatment, parent counseling, and apprenticeship civilian conservation
corps type programs. In order to minimize stigmatization, youth should be
transferred back to regular school programs after 6 to 12 months. T he correctional
institution is
The chief probation officer needs to pay attention to training of officers, espe-
cially in areas with an emerging gang problem where resources are limited and especially vulnerable
special units are not likely to be established. Outside expertise should be
brought in to educate personnel in such gang-related topics as gang-member to internal disruption
drug use and trafficking, the influence of street and prison gangs, search and by gang members.
seizure procedures, gang-related social investigation and supervision skills,
effective case planning, crisis intervention and mediation skills, handling gang-
related information in court, and community mobilization techniques.
Finally, gang probation processes and outcomes need to be evaluated. The con-
tent of probation officer case reports, especially presentence investigations,
should be analyzed on a regular basis. The extent to which probation officers
are enforcing special conditions ordered for gang probationers should be as-
sessed. The effectiveness of services for different types of youth gang members
should be evaluated. Long-term outcomes should be determined including re-
cidivism rates, particularly for different types of probation and for the more
serious youth gang offenders.

Corrections
Youth gang problems have grown more serious in correctional settings, includ-
ing detention centers, jails, correctional institutions, and prisons. In some insti-
tutions, gang problems are just emerging. In chronic problem settings, youth
gangs are responsible for high levels of contraband activity, including drug
distribution, violence against staff and inmates, and the regulation of crime
between the correctional setting and the community.

The correctional institution is especially vulnerable to internal disruption by

gang members, who make heavy demands on the resources of the facilities to
which they are confined. Because of serious crowding in prisons, the lack of
organizational resources, and the use of a limited number of strategies, the gang
problem in institutions has intensified in recent years.
Four conflicting goals of the correctional mission as they pertain to youth gang
inmates must be resolved:
■ Stable control of institutional operations.
■ Separation of gang offenders from the community.
■ Care and development of the physical, social, and mental well-being of
inmates during their stay in the institution.
■ Preparation of gang inmates for noncriminal behavior upon their reentry
into the community.

13
 Stable control of operations requires preventing and controlling youth gang vio-
lence; weakening gang organization and solidarity; reducing the ability of youth
gangs to participate in crimes that transcend the boundaries of the institution into

T he more serious
the problem, the more
the community; and helping gang-member inmates learn correctional social val-
ues and behaviors as they prepare for their return to the community. Essential
to achieving these goals are an accurate assessment of the gang problem in the
institutional setting, particularly whether it is emerging or chronic, and the devel-
formal the policies opment of an intelligence system to identify ongoing gang activities. This knowl-
should be. edge should enhance the institution’s ability to anticipate, prevent, and control
problems proactively rather than rely on defensive or reactive modes of suppres-
sion and intervention.
Of special importance is the development of gang policies that differentiate gang
and nongang behaviors and their seriousness for particular correctional programs.
The more serious the problem, the more formal and specific the policies should
be. Policies should define those gang behaviors that are inappropriate for work,
educational, and training programs, and visitation and communication privileges.
Furthermore, policies that specify distinctions between gang and nongang behav-
ior must be fair. They should meet legal requirements for nondiscriminatory and
humane treatment of inmates.
A community mobilization strategy requires that a network of program rela-
tionships be established with outside organizations and groups to support and
reinforce the work of the institution as well as that of community agencies and
groups in the control and rehabilitation of youth gang members.
The correctional institution and the community should be viewed as a contigu-
ous environment. A key function of community networking, especially with
the police, should be to share intelligence on a continuing basis about related
and sometimes interdependent gang problems in the correctional facility and the
community. This could include collaborative case assessment and planning by
correctional and police officers. To the extent possible, in particular institutions,
inmates should participate in the legitimate development of a productive correc-
tions environment.
The correctional authority’s opportunities provision and social intervention
strategies should emphasize programs and services of remedial education, train-
ing, and jobs, both during the gang member’s incarceration and subsequent tran-
sition back to the community. Differential programming for gang members will
be required, depending on age, capacity, interest, and nature of commitment to
gang values. Crisis intervention, counseling, values reeducation, and other ser-
vices should also be available to assist gang inmates with a range of personal,
social, and correctional adaptation problems, including housing, medical, legal,
school, and work, as well as relationships with other gang and nongang peers.
Preventive suppression and intervention that anticipates problems should be
given priority. This may include frequent and irregularly scheduled inspections
of gang member living areas or cells; enhanced supervision of places with high
potential for gang problems; housing gang members separately from nongang
inmates; dispersal of problem gang members among several correctional facili-
ties; and isolating or transferring gang leaders to other facilities.

14
Gang suppression in correctional settings should encourage the creation of a
social climate conducive to conventional behaviors, values, and patterns of
thinking. The acceptance by inmates of the moral legitimacy of suppression
procedures can be fostered through a comprehensive, well-articulated set of
policies based on an appropriate mix of opportunities provision, organizational
development, social intervention, and community mobilization strategies. In
P arole supervision
of youth gang members
other words, measures of suppression should not only be fair but part of a com-
prehensive program that contributes to normative and conventional learning by is more complicated
gang members. than supervision of
Corrections staff should be provided with training that enables them to recog- nongang youth.
nize gang patterns and understand and develop skills in suppression and inter-
vention methods, including how to deal with gang crises. Staff, including
security, administration, treatment, and other personnel should receive gang
awareness and crisis simulated practice training. Staff need to become knowl-
edgeable of and sensitive to the variety of cultural differences among gang
inmates. Recruitment of a racially and ethnically diverse staff is essential. Ex-
tensive research should be conducted into the nature of the gang problem in
particular correctional institutions. This requires an evaluation of different ap-
proaches and of those conditions of correctional housing, staffing, and specific
programming that produce effective results in contexts where gang problems
are chronic or emerging.

Parole
Parole supervision of youth gang members is more complicated than supervi-
sion of nongang youth because of the pressures of gang solidarity and coercion
exerted on the youth. Paroled youth gang members may come under severe
pressure to become reinvolved with gangs. Youth gangs provide support for and
access to criminal means that gang parolees need to survive, inasmuch as most
are resource poor upon release from the correctional institution. The pressures
to return to gang violence and criminal behavior are particularly strong in com-
munities with chronic gang problems.

Parole agencies have two interrelated responsibilities in the supervision of

youth paroled from correctional institutions. The primary one is to monitor the
behavior of paroled youth to ensure that they meet conditions of their parole.
The other is to assist in the development of access to a set of community-based
opportunities and services to meet the educational, occupational, social, and
residential needs of gang parolees. They require a high degree of surveillance or
restriction but also support, since they may naturally tend to reassociate with
former criminal gang peers.

Parole agencies usually have to depend on the assistance of community agen-

cies and groups for education, employment, job development, and surveillance
to carry out its suppression and intervention mission. It is therefore important
that parole officers establish collaborative relationships with appropriate per-
sonnel in the justice system, community-based agencies, and grassroots organi-
zations in their particular jurisdictions. Regular as well as crisis meetings with

15
 police should be required to examine the progress of youth gang members and
collectively deal with the gang-related problems they create.

M entors can enhance

the self-esteem of
Many communities lack the rehabilitative resources needed by parolees, such
as educational, job training, and placement opportunities, mental health and
drug treatment, and community residential facilities. A resource provision strat-
egy may be necessary to mitigate some of these deficits in local community
parolees. resources. They include provision of departmental funds to community agencies
to establish specialized programs for parolees, such as residential placements
and group homes; or contracting with private homes on behalf of youth gang
parolees.

The community must mobilize community-based agencies and businesses to

obtain meaningful jobs for youth gang members. Cities with chronic gang prob-
lems should use community job development agencies or create a job resource
unit within parole that focuses on the needs of youth gang parolees. Coopera-
tively funded initiatives with certain businesses or industries to train and em-
ploy gang parolees should also be established.
A combined social opportunities and social intervention strategy should make
use of volunteer mentors who can assist as tutors or supportive mentors to re-
mind youth gang members of what they are supposed to do. Neighborhood
mentors can offer one-on-one technical assistance to youth. Through personal-
ized involvement, mentors can enhance the self-esteem of parolees and exert
pressure on them to pursue learning, job training, work objectives, and parole
obligations.

Nevertheless, suppression must be the key underlying strategy of the parole

officer. The degree of supervision should depend on the level of risk the youth
gang parolee represents to the safety of the community. The risk assessment
will be conditioned by the orders of the parole authority, including the length of
time the youth is to remain in parole status and the restrictive conditions man-
dated. Of special use may be gradual release programs in which furloughs are
arranged under supervision of the parole officer prior to official release from the
correctional institution. During such release, prospective parolees should be
expected to locate housing, interview for jobs, and seek admission to special
training and educational programs. Reorientation to family and community
responsibilities should also be facilitated.
Some gang members from communities with chronic gang problems may ben-
efit by moving to other communities. This is useful for those who wish to avoid
reinvolvement in the gang or who would experience intense pressures from their
old gang peers or problems from opposing gang members. These youth require
special residential placement, supervision, and support. However, placement in
a new community may be a problematic solution if gang problems are present.
In this situation, the parole officer should be prepared to help community agen-
cies recognize the problem and react appropriately to it.

A step-down program may be useful in providing gang parolees with supervised

group-home or community residential facilities and a continuum of program
services and constraints, ranging from around-the-clock institutional to self-

16
supervision. Initially, the program should provide program youth with structure
and controls for as much of their day as possible to prevent them from becoming
reacquainted with former criminal gang associates and engaging in criminal
gang activity. The program should involve serious gang offenders in intensive
socialization and skill development activities. S tudents who
are gang members
Training for the parole officer with youth gang members should involve the de-
velopment of information about gang behavior and community resources, and claim the school as
also understanding about how to work in gang neighborhoods. Staff have to
learn how to recognize and deal with a variety of problems, including lack of
their turf.
agency program resources, community agency hostility, institutional racism,
and the politics of the gang-related problems. Joint training with other justice
system and community-based agency personnel should be developed to foster
mutual understanding and interagency relationships.
Systematic and regular evaluation of parole programs is required to determine
whether youth gang members continue to commit offenses, especially gang-
related offenses, after release from corrections. Such evaluation should be
useful in identifying the successful elements of a parole program directed to
gang members. Adequate information about special gang parolee programs and
their results can also be used to maintain political support and defend gang pa-
role programs against attack when some parolees get into serious trouble.

Schools
Gang problems in schools often originate in the streets. Students who are gang
members bring with them destructive gang attitudes and behaviors. They claim
the school as their turf; they deface the school with graffiti; and they exert con-
trol through intimidation and assault on other students. The school, however,
may bear some responsibility. Most gang members are bored with and feel inad-
equate in class. Consequently, they drop of school out as soon as possible. They
develop poor learning skills and experience academic and social failure at
school from an early age. They have little identification with teachers or staff,
whom they may distrust and dislike intensely.
The school’s approach to addressing gang-related problems requires recogni-
tion of this existence. Its extent and seriousness must be openly and systemati-
cally assessed. If the disruptive behavior is gang motivated, the school needs
to identify the youth and gangs involved, and if they hang out in or outside the
school, the school staff, parents, the community, and the justice system need
to reach a consensus about the nature and scope of the problem that affects
the school. The problem can be assessed as emerging when a few youth are in-
volved and only minor gang-related activities occur within the school or imme-
diately outside. The problem should be regarded as chronic when gang violence
and gang-motivated crime are serious and sustained and affect classroom
activities.

While there are limits to what the schools can do in regard to basic family and
community factors that significantly contribute to the youth gang problem, there
is much that schools can do in conjunction with community agencies and

17
 groups. A special school community council should be formed to focus on the
problem. A team of local school administrators and agency personnel should
create a pattern of coordinated security, learning opportunities, and service ar-

G ang-prone
youth should be
rangements directed to gang members and youth prone to gangs. In communi-
ties and schools with chronic gang problems, the school should form a broad
coalition with criminal justice and community-based agencies, grassroots orga-
nizations, churches, business, and citizen groups. Hardcore gang members and
introduced at an youth less involved in gangs should be identified and appropriately targeted for
early age to the world special remedial education, support services, and supervision.

of work, education, The objectives of the school’s approach to the problem should be delivery of a
and responsibility. flexible curriculum targeted to youth gang members who are not doing well in
their classes. Such youth should receive enriched programs so that they are pro-
vided with basic academic and work-related problem-solving tools. Gang-prone
and gang-member youth should be introduced at an early age to the world of
work, education, and community responsibility. For older youth gang members,
job apprentice and remedial educational objectives have to be adequately linked
to career development.

In their efforts to enhance the academic and vocational achievement of youth

gang members, teachers should not emphasize performance standards to the
exclusion of the nature and quality of the learning process. The gang member’s
achievement in class or on a work project should be advertised and rewarded.
The teacher’s positive, personalized relationship with youth gang members is
important and can serve to reduce violence and disruptive acts. Support staff,
including social workers, coaches, tutors, psychologists, security personnel,
community agency professionals, parents, and even community residents can
supplement the teacher’s efforts. The school principal’s leadership is critical to
the development of a school-community support system that combines extra
social support with social controls for members of youth gangs while protecting
nongang youth and maintaining the academic integrity of the school’s program.
There are at least three components to a school’s effective control or suppres-
sion strategy:
■ The development of a school gang code, with guidelines specifying an
appropriate response by teachers and staff to different kinds of gang
behavior, including a mechanism for dealing with serious gang
delinquency.
■ The application of these rules and regulations within a context of positive
relationships and open communication by school personnel with parents,
community agencies, and students.
■ A clear distinction between gang- and nongang-related activity so as not to
exaggerate the scope of the problem.
The school needs to involve parents of gang and nongang youth in the school’s
concerns and activities in respect to the gang problem. As many parents as pos-
sible should be engaged in parent-group meetings, street patrols, monitoring
student activities in and out of school to detect and prevent gang activities, and
assisting teachers and staff to carry out class and field trip activities. The school

18
should develop parenting and gang awareness classes. Parents who have suc-
cessfully dealt with children who have become involved in gangs may be espe-
cially useful in various gang-prevention and control activities, including visiting
and counseling parents whose children are currently causing gang problems in
school.
The school should establish close relationships with outside organizations and
A key concern
of training should
agencies that have knowledge about the problem and can provide services to be the development
deal with it. Police, probation, and youth agencies have valuable information
about youth gangs and how to deal with them. The school can be used as a com- of ways to enhance the
munity base or center for a whole range of protective, preventive, and remedial self-esteem and self-
health, education, training, and employment services for students and their par-
ents, including focus on the needs of youth gang members. In any case, the
discipline of youth
school must not simply act as a host to other organizations. It must exercise gang members.
leadership in rearranging its own structure and providing activities to address
the youth gang problem.

Special training opportunities should be provided to school administrators,

teachers, and staff to increase their knowledge of gangs and community re-
sources in regard to the problem. Individual and group counseling skills, espe-
cially for handling gang crisis situations, should be developed. A key concern of
training should be the development of ways to enhance both self-esteem and
self-discipline of youth gang members. Gathering and sharing information on
gangs are extremely important tasks in the development of an information sys-
tem to identify, track, investigate, suppress, and assist gang members. Neverthe-
less, these records can be abused if they serve to exclude gang members from
school, subject them to harassment, or violate student rights and privileges.
Appropriate procedures for sharing school information with other agencies
should be carefully worked out.

School officials should conduct periodic evaluation to determine who is being

classified as a gang member and for what behaviors; what services or special
treatment such students receive; and what benefits and costs result from the
special programs established. Benefits should include improvement in academic
achievement by youth gang members and nonmembers, reduction of gang and
nongang delinquent behavior, and success in keeping students, especially those
who belong to gangs, in school.

Youth employment
No significant national policies or programs have been established to deal spe-
cifically with the employment problems of inner-city gang or gang-prone youth.
Available reports suggest these youth have the highest rates for dropping out of
or failing school and the least appropriate employment skills and work attitudes.
They are responsible for the highest rates of serious criminal and violent behav-
ior. They have not only resisted training and rehabilitation, but have also been
consistently ignored or excluded from available special education, training, and
work programs. Much street activity, including an increasing proportion of gang
activity, may serve as a form of self-employment that fills part of the vacuum

19
 created by depressed levels of unemployment and underemployment, particu-
larly among African-American and Latino youth.

T he goal of an
employment program
Social, economic, job development, and training programs for low-income and
socially marginal youth, including youth gang members, need to be developed
and expanded. Employment, education, criminal justice, and community-based
youth agencies must become interrelated components of an approach that at-
for gang members must tempts to integrate gang members into society, particularly in communities with
chronic gang problems. The goal of an employment program for gang members
be the development that results in a reduction of gang crime must be the development of entry-level
of entry-level jobs jobs that lead to career development. There are two critical points in the youth
that lead to career gang member’s development that should be addressed: (1) during the early teen
years just prior to the time when the youth develops a serious commitment to
development. gang life; and (2) during the late adolescent period, when the youth no longer
sees the benefits of hanging out with the gang and recognizes the related risks of
long-term imprisonment, injury, and death.

A new employment or related social service institution is required, especially in

communities with chronic gang problems, to provide adequate links between
schools and jobs and to establish specific steps by which marginal youth, espe-
cially those from gangs, can enter the legitimate job market. This institution
should target gang members through a program that incorporates job opportuni-
ties, social control, and support. The program would require not only job devel-
opment, remedial education, social services, and supervision, including the
involvement of criminal justice agencies, but also monitoring of gang members
by community-based groups to ensure their social development and rehabilita-
tion, and to protect the community.

The new institution should have three components: (1) a program for older drop-
outs and other socially disadvantaged youth ages 16 to 24, (2) a program for
marginal gang members ages 15 to 18 who are still at school, and (3) a program
for hardcore gang members 14 to 16 years old who are early dropouts. Referrals
would come primarily from criminal justice authorities, particularly probation
and parole. The priority program in communities with chronic gang problems
should focus on dropouts ages 16 to 24 and include remedial education, training,
job placement, or employment and career development in close cooperation with
business and industry. The priority program in communities in which gang prob-
lems are emerging should focus on marginal gang members ages 15 to 18 and
would require a less complex set of component programs. In any case, each pro-
gram should be of sufficient length and focus to meet the interests and needs of
the particular category of youth.
A major concern of the new program should be the creation of a job bank. A job
development specialist should be hired to obtain commitments from both private
and public employers to employ graduates and others who have gone through the
program. A key proposition to be tested should be that youth gang members can
relinquish their roles in gangs to become hard-working, loyal, and productive
workers. A job bank should draw from a variety of occupations. Success will be
largely dependent on placing the youth in the “right” job at the right point in his
development of appropriate work attitudes and skills. Appropriate work shifts
and transportation arrangements should be developed.

20
An important consideration in preparing the gang member for entry into a job
is work acclimation. The youth gang members may like the idea of a job but not
necessarily understand what holding a job means. The youth must learn not to
take on the job inappropriate attitudes and skills learned on the streets and in
correctional institutions. He or she needs to develop a belief that a legitimate
job can be rewarding. After the gang member develops an interest and attitudi-
T he youth must
be persuaded that jobs
nal readiness for a job through both observation and didactic experiences, he or
she needs to develop academic and vocational problem-solving skills. Assess- and training will result
ment of the educational needs of each youth is important for the creation of in employment that is
appropriate group and individualized remedial skills programs. Each youth
must also learn to fill out application forms and interview properly for a job. more rewarding than
The youth needs to enter the job market and establish a work record. Many
life with a street gang.
youth gang members in their first legitimate job experience create problems, are
fired, or quit at the slightest pretext. It is at this time that followup and support-
ive services may be especially important. The youth must be persuaded that a
career ladder exists and that it is possible to move through a series of legitimate
jobs and training experiences which will ultimately result in successful employ-
ment that is more rewarding than life with a street gang.

A series of social supports and controls should be established for the youth gang
member in this career development process, particularly in the community with
chronic gang-related problems. Employers and supervisory personnel should
be oriented to the needs of the youth. Mentors, whether volunteer or paid, rela-
tives, close friends, and neighbors should be involved in the training and work-
support process. Probation and parole officers should be continually engaged in
close supervision of the gang member as he or she faces obstacles to adapting to
the work situation. Only under the most extreme circumstances, such as com-
mission of a felony, should the youth be considered for termination from the
program.
Employment services for serious gang offenders, as part of a comprehensive
suppression and intervention program, will be very costly, particularly in terms
of the variety of skilled staff and the intensity of services required. Teachers or
remedial education specialists, job trainers, employment placement specialists,
and advocates will need to have advanced training in their own specialties and
an ability to relate to and understand how to provide services to aggressive,
easily frustrated gang members. The roles of professionals and paraprofession-
als, including those who come from the neighborhood and even former gang
members, will have to be carefully developed and their interrelationships speci-
fied. Different kinds of organizations, including schools, employers, criminal
justice and community-based agencies, community groups, and residents, must
assume varying and complementary responsibilities depending on local commu-
nity resources, the nature of the gang program, and the purpose and scope of the
particular program component.

Of special importance should be a formative evaluation during the initial phase

of the development of these innovative gang-oriented employment programs.
Evaluators must help administrators of the programs articulate objectives
and assess the relationship of specific program activities and processes to pro-
gram purposes. From the start, careful documentation should be required for

21
 organizational and interorganizational procedures, program problems and
changes, and whether youth continue in their criminal gang patterns. Long-term
evaluation of program processes and gang-member employment and recidivism

Y outh on
the street not yet
patterns should be considered.

involved in existing Community-based youth agency

An essential component of a broad-scale approach to the youth gang problem is
agency programs a local community-based youth agency (CBYA) to provide a continuum of ser-
often constitute a vices to gang and gang-prone youth. Proposed is a six-fold mission for those
recruiting pool for youth agencies intending to serve youth gang members: socialization, educa-
tion, family support, training and employment, social control, and community
gang membership. mobilization and agency coordination. This mission must target and serve dif-
ferent types of youth gang members, their families, and their communities in
different ways. This variation is largely related to degrees of poverty and social
and personal disorganization, particularly as represented in communities with
emerging and chronic gang problems.

The CBYA program should target a different mix of youth in these communi-
ties. Relatively more youth prone to gangs should be targeted in communities
with emerging problems; relatively more committed and adjudicated gang
members should be targeted in localities with chronic gang problems to reflect
the wider scope and more serious nature of the problem. The CBYA needs to
assist and supplement services and approaches of key institutions, such as fam-
ily, school, employment, and criminal justice agencies. To achieve a reduction
in the gang problem, the CBYA must therefore not only work directly with
gang members but assist in strengthening primary social institutions and in-
crease local community capacity to address its youth gang problem.

Socialization. Of primary importance in contexts with emerging gang problems

is the ability of the CBYA worker to reach out to youth on the street not yet
involved in existing agency programs. Such youth often constitute a recruiting
pool for gang membership. Special efforts should also be made to change the
style and content of existing programs to meet the interests and needs of ethnic,
racial, and cultural groups new to the community. In the course of many of
these activities, it is important for the CBYA worker not to become an inadvert-
ent focus for binding a loosely knit youth group into a cohesive criminal gang.
The CBYA worker should be skilled in helping gang-prone youth or youth gang
members learn conflict resolution skills, especially those that contribute to a
reduction of intergroup conflict. Team sports and social activities may be im-
portant, especially when they involve parents and local residents as role models
and agents of social control, but also when they facilitate relationships that al-
low the CBYA worker to address gang members’ more difficult problems of
social development and control.

Education. The major networking and social intervention objectives of admin-

istrators and teachers working with gang-prone youth ages 12 to 16 should be
to meet the educational and social needs of these vulnerable yet troublesome
youth. Their primary task should be to help youth improve their performance
at school and at the same time curb or limit their actual or potentially disruptive

22
gang-related behavior. The CBYA worker should join the school team, supple-
menting the teachers’ activities both in and outside the school. If older youth
gang members are quitting school, the CBYA should work directly with school
administrators to establish alternative school programs and special skill and
general equivalency diploma (GED) centers. CBYA workers should collabo-
rate with teachers, parents, and community volunteers teaching and supervising
P arents of gang
members are often
these youth.
burdened with their
Family support. Parents of youth gang members are often burdened with their
own personal, social, and economic problems. These parents are often very own problems.
difficult to reach and counsel effectively. A persistent long-term outreach sup-
port effort by the CBYA in cooperation with other agencies must be initiated
when appropriate. The CBYA worker can aid parents of gang members by hav-
ing them meet together to share problems of parenting and supervising their
gang offspring. These groups can also become mutual-aid or crisis-intervention
groups when gang conflict threatens or flares up. Youth gang members must be
assisted if they need to leave, at least temporarily, disorganized family situa-
tions. The CBYA worker should work closely with the child welfare agency and
the court as well as the youth and his family when this process is undertaken.

Training and employment. The CBYA worker can assist schools, community
organizations, and employers to prepare youth for employment at the CBYA
facility. The CBYA should help with referral and support services if programs
such as introduction to the world of work and training programs already exist
in the community. In some cases, the CBYA can develop small entrepreneurial
operations, employing gang members, preferably in collaboration with estab-
lished businesses. Collaboration with schools in the development of job banks
and apprenticeship opportunities may also be necessary. Of special importance
is the focus on those gang members in greatest need of basic academic and vo-
cational problem-solving skills and job development services.
Social control. The CBYA must learn to accept and take on new roles of deter-
rence, supervision, and suppression in helping youth gang members and those
prone to gangs. In this process, key links with police, probation and parole, and
the courts must be developed. Youth gang members and their families should
come to view the CBYA worker not only as a helping agent but as a possible
link to authoritative or criminal justice agencies that will not hesitate to report
gang-related behavior and help with certain activities such as surveillance or
patrol. The agency’s supervisory or deterrent role should be based on the tradi-
tional socialization function of the CBYA to help the individual mature and
develop socially within the framework of the conventional values of the neigh-
borhood and a democratic society.

Community mobilization and agency coordination. The CBYA in some

communities may be ideally situated to observe and articulate the problems
and needs of the community, especially those of its youth gang members.
The CBYA should then attempt to rally other agencies and community groups
to action, especially if the agency has a track record of working with youth
gangs and can demonstrate credibility with diverse parts of the community. It
may act as a moderating force where others might be inclined to overreact to
gang members and their crimes of violence. In communities in which gang

23
 problems are emerging, CBYA’s should attempt, particularly in conjunction
with schools, to mobilize community efforts to deal with the problem. In com-
munities with chronic gang problems, the role of the CBYA should probably

G rassroots
organizations should
be relatively more closely linked to criminal justice agencies, particularly
probation.
CBYA’s should be staffed by mature individuals—professionals and neighbor-
be concerned with hood residents—who are strongly motivated to serve and have the capacity and
skills to work with gang members and with community group and organiza-
the gang problem. tional representatives. Training efforts should focus not only on work with
youth gang members but on the integration of CBYA services with those of
other agencies, especially criminal justice and grassroots organizations. The
broad-scale approach of the CBYA to the youth gang problem should be tested
in two stages: in the earlier period to ensure that specific objectives, services,
and processes are properly developed; and in the later outcome stage to deter-
mine whether specific strategies and programs do indeed lead to a lowering of
the gang crime rate.

Grassroots organizations
The grassroots organization is a traditional American response to a range of
problems that affect the local community’s welfare and development. Such
associations or organizations are based on citizen concern and can be used not
only to mobilize local energy and resources but to compel outside interest and
concern, usually by government. In most cases these organizations closely
identify with a specific population. They emphasize local citizen participation.
Grassroots organizations can play a significant role in the control of gang
crime. These organizations include block clubs, neighborhood improvement
associations, tenant organizations, parents or mothers groups, citizen patrols,
local business, fraternal and other civic organizations, churches and church-
sponsored groups, social agencies, political organizations and activists, and
multifunctional community organizations.

Grassroots organizations should be concerned, directly or indirectly, with the

gang problem in their communities, often the tip of a more complex set of seri-
ous local concerns. The local organization serves to connect the individual citi-
zen, family, and even gang members with the norms, values, and resources of
the larger society. The grassroots organization should pursue a variety of strate-
gies toward stimulating and integrating citizen and community efforts to resolve
the gang problem. Specifically, the key strategies should be a mix of commu-
nity mobilization, organizational development, and suppression.

Community mobilization may be viewed as a strategy uniquely fitted to the

interests and capacities of the grassroots organization. A key objective should
be to develop clear and reliable information about the gang problem. The orga-
nization has to be aggressive in its efforts to gather data, interpret the problem,
and determine what should be done. While the organization should conduct
or participate in a series of community meetings to assess and plan programs
to deal with the problem in collaborative interagency terms, it must also take

24
proactive leadership in influencing certain key authorities to see the moral and
political necessity of addressing the problem with meaningful and program-
matic policy.

While the grassroots organization may contribute to collaborative programs, it

may also need to challenge public and nonprofit agencies over issues of racism,
agency corruption, staff incompetence, and lack of resources, which contribute
A n important
consequence of
to the failure to resolve the gang problem. Some of the tactics of these organiza- community mobilization
tions can arouse citizen and agency feelings and reactions. They may cut
through citizen apathy and agency routine. Most important they can be useful in is the development of
stimulating community participation and the development of constructive poli- local leadership.
cies and programs to deal with specific gang situations.

A variety of mechanisms, techniques, and direct actions are available to the

grassroots organization to affect change in established organizational policy
and programs, and to hold the organization accountable for performance of
mandated or agreed-upon functions. The community organization should facili-
tate the development of interagency task forces, coordinating councils, and ad-
visory committees containing a range of criminal justice and community-based
agencies as well as citizen groups. The special mission of the grassroots organi-
zation should be to use these broader community councils to educate and per-
suade agencies to actively, intelligently, and beneficially resolve the problem on
behalf of the local community. The grassroots organization will need to monitor
and test continually the value of agency programs that result from these
communitywide, interagency associations.
One important consequence of community mobilization and special local orga-
nizational arrangements to address the youth gang problem should be the devel-
opment of local citizen leadership. A variety of organizing and management
skills can be learned, such as how to efficiently marshal pickets or persuade lo-
cal legislators to vote for or against a particular gang-related measure, how to
conduct meetings or interagency negotiations, and how to develop cooperative
community group and agency agreements in regard to gang programs.

The neighborhood organization is in a uniquely advantageous position to mobi-

lize formal authority as well as direct local citizen or street-level controls over
youth gang members. Because of its contacts with official agents of control,
particularly police and other justice system representatives, and its knowledge
of community, the neighborhood or local grassroots organization should be
especially effective in targeting and controlling particular gangs and youth gang
members. While local citizens should sometimes be mobilized for direct defen-
sive and offensive activities against gangs, these efforts should be planned and
carried out in cooperation with established or official authorities; for example,
in collaboration with the local police, probation, or community-based youth
agencies. Local parents, residents, and former youth gang members, collectively
or individually, are useful in persuading and counseling gang members to cease
their violent activities.

The needs for training of staff and volunteers in grassroots, gang-related

projects can be extensive depending on the particular tasks required. Special
workshop and short-term training conferences should be directed to such issues

25
 as the genesis of specific community gang problems and the extent to which
particular community conditions contribute to the problem. Techniques for
working with gang members, their parents, and community agencies addressing

A primary
research consideration
the problem should be developed.
To determine the effectiveness of grassroots projects dealing with the youth
gang problem, the numbers of people who participate in such projects and the
is the measurement extent to which community actions are associated with a decline or change in
the character of the problem need to be assessed. Although a full-scale evalua-
of the community’s tion of the grassroots organization’s contribution to the control of gang crime is
capacity to mobilize. probably not possible without a variety of community comparisons and careful
research controls, valuable insights for planning future community gang-control
programs can be obtained by documenting their organization and effectiveness
in reducing gang crime. A primary research consideration is the measurement
of the community’s capacity to mobilize itself and construct a mechanism to
address the problem.

26
 Researchers
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Research Summary
NCJ 148202