MENU TITLE: COMMUNITY-BASED YOUTH AGENCY MODEL.
Series: OJJDP
Published: DRAFT 9/90
24 pages
53934 bytes
Irving Spergel and Candice Kane

National Youth Gang Suppression and Intervention
Program
School of Social Service Administration
University of Chicago

Distributed by:
Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse
Box 6000
Rockville, MD 20850
1-800-638-8736

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

A COMMUNITY-BASED YOUTH AGENCY (CBYA) APPROACH

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

ORGANIZATIONAL AND PROGRAM STRUCTURE

EMERGING GANG-PROBLEM CITIES

SOCIALIZATION

EDUCATION

FAMILY SUPPORT

TRAINING AND EMPLOYMENT

SOCIAL CONTROL

COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION AND AGENCY COORDINATION

CHRONIC GANG-PROBLEM CITIES

RESEARCH AND EVALUATION

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

There has been a long tradition of interest and
concern among youth agencies, settlement houses,
and community centers with the socialization of
youth, particularly in low-income, newcomer, or
transitional communities. Services and activities,
usually of a recreational, informal educational,
and social developmental nature, have been offered
to youth and sometimes their families to
acculturate them to the norms and values of
American, especially middle class, society. Despite
the long history of youth work, services have
generally been directed at younger children,
particularly between the ages of 6 and 14 years.
Historically, most community-based youth programs
have been directed at the conforming or "normal"
children and youth in a particular area of the
city.

At various times and places, youth agencies such as
YMCAs, Boys Clubs, and Settlement Houses have
developed programs for delinquent or predelinquent
youth. While many youth service programs have
attempted to prevent delinquency, very few have
tried to deal with or reach out to older delinquent
youth, particularly those who as a rule do not
frequent youth agencies. Some special outreach
programs have been established to deal with
delinquent groups and youth gangs. However,
evaluative research of some of these programs,
which have generally emphasized recreation,
individual counseling, group work, or case
management, have reported either no effects or, in
a few instances, increased levels of delinquency
for program youth. Delinquent groups inadvertently
may have been made more cohesive by youth outreach
or gang workers.

A few exceptional examples of youth work of a broad
community character have shown some promise. They
include the Chicago Area Projects in the 1930's and
1940's and the Philadelphia Crisis Intervention
Network in the 1970's, a coalition of East Los
Angeles public and private agencies, and a combined
Boys Club and police department program in El
Monte, California during the 1970's and 1980's.
Each of these projects was associated with a
reported reduction in delinquency or gang violence
rates. The distinctive character of these promising
and apparently successful programs -- none of which
was subjected to a rigorous evaluation -- was the
combination of strategies employed: community
resident mobilization, youth agency social
intervention, social opportunities or the provision
of jobs to targeted youth, and the integral
involvement of criminal justice system units,
particularly police, probation, and parole.

Despite such evidence, many youth agencies and
community leaders continue to insist that all that
is required to deal with group delinquency,
particularly the youth gang problem, is a little
counseling or constructive activity "to keep idle
hands busy." The historical record, however,
indicates quite clearly that a youth agency program
that emphasizes only a social intervention or
recreational approach does not work. Often,
delinquent or gang youth are not adequately
targeted, and the results are poor.

Despite the record, youth agencies can provide a
meaningful and possibly effective service to gang
youth. But this requires that 1) youth agencies
make a commitment to serving gang youth, including
older adolescents and even young adults; 2)
community-based youth agencies adopt a combined
social intervention and deterrence or suppression
strategy; 3) youth agencies engage local citizens
or influential leaders to help deal with the
problem (This means resurrecting an older tradition
of social advocacy, community organization, and
local leadership development.); and 4) adequate
public funding be provided under conditions of
strict accountability. Youth services and
community-based agency programs often "skim" or
"cream" more promising or conforming youth and fail
to target more difficult youth. 

In the past two decades, community-based youth
agencies may have decreasingly served gang youth
because youth gangs have grown increasingly more
violent and criminal. They are more difficult to
deal with. Some older gang youth are now heavily
engaged in drug trafficking. On the other hand,
youth agencies with the aid of Federal and State
funds, in recent years, have focused on runaway,
status offender, mental health, and alternative
educational and training programs.

A COMMUNITY-BASED YOUTH AGENCY (CBYA) APPROACH

No agency or organization alone can deal
appropriately with the problem of youth gang crime.
Only a comprehensive community-based approach
involving other community-based, criminal justice,
and grassroots organizations interested in both
preventing and controlling youth gang crime,
including gang-related violence, holds promise of
effectiveness. An essential component of a broad-
scale approach is a local community-based youth
agency (CBYA) that provides a continuum of services
to gang and gang-prone youth as well as to other
youth, family, and community residents. The agency
must have a board containing local residents and
representing the expressed needs and interests of
its community.

Furthermore, a CBYA must closely coordinate its
services with criminal justice system units
including police, court, probation, detention,
parole, and correction institutions as well as with
local schools, business and industry. The CBYA may
have to engage in advocacy on behalf of gang youth,
both individually and in general, especially in
chronic gang-problem communities where youth have
been underserved. This social advocacy should be
directed toward the development of a whole range of
essential opportunities, especially improved
educational training, and job programs that
categorically target gang youth.

A CBYA should engage in a variety of youth outreach
service and grassroots mobilization efforts. It
should attempt directly to mediate differences
among warring gang groups. At the same time, it
should assist local community resident groups and
agencies in the area to support the positive
efforts of gang and gang-prone youth while
deterring their criminal activities, including drug
trafficking. In other words a highly complex,
proactive, and generalist role is envisioned for
the CBYA interested in developing its capacity to
deal with the youth gang crime problem.

Proposed is a six-fold mission for those youth
agencies intending to serve gang youth: 1)
socialization, 2) education, 3) family support, 4)
training and employment, 5) social control, and 6)
community mobilization and agency coordination.
This mission must target and serve different types
of gang youths, problem families, and communities
in different ways. This variation is largely
related to degrees of poverty and social and
personal disorganization, particularly as
represented in emerging and chronic gang-problem
communities. 

We have identified emerging gang-problem com-
munities or cities generally as those with a
changing population where low-income minority
groups -- usually African-American and Latino --
have become somewhat socially isolated and bereft
of social resources. Youth gang problems, sometimes
of a serious nature, have emerged in these changing
or increasingly economically depressed, low-income
communities, particularly under the tutelage of a
few older gang-wise youth who may have moved in. In
general, such areas have relatively adequate access
to educational, employment, and recreational
resources.

The chronic gang-problem city or community has been
identified as an inner-city, highly impoverished
and/or disorganized community. The relative numbers
and severity of gang-problem youth and families are
much greater in comparison to emerging problem
communities. Gang crime and criminality are well
established and have been endemic, with acute
phases, for decades. Many in the community are
discouraged, hopeless, and resigned to a fate of
victimization, violence, drug trafficking, illness,
poor housing, and unemployment. Membership in gangs
is often generational, although there are many
families whose children lead conventional lives and
become successful working-class and middle-class
citizens.

This approach assumes that the CBYA will serve a
range of children, youth, and families in a given
community who represent various social, economic,
and racial or ethnic groups. Even in relatively
segregated communities, it is expected that the
CBYA will serve residents of diverse class and
status to meet a broad range of interests and
needs. To the fullest extent possible the agency
must represent and cater to a complex community.
The CBYA, however, which proposes to serve gang and
gang-prone youth, must identify them in specific
terms and provide them with appropriate and
distinctive programs.

The types of gang youth and their families will
vary among emerging or chronic problem communities.
Priority services should be provided to those
younger youth who are designated at-risk according
to specific criteria and to those older youth who
have already been adjudicated for gang-related
crimes. More specifically, gang-prone or high-risk
youth admitted to the special youth gang program
should be between the ages of 12 to 16 years and
meet at least four of the following criteria: 1)
associate regularly with acknowledged gang youth;
2) have family members who are or were gang
members; 3) occasionally wear gang colors, use gang
symbols, or flash gang signs; 4) are performing
poorly in school or if out of school are
unemployed; 5) have one or more arrests; or 6) use
drugs. Adjudicated or convicted gang youth, ages 12
to 21, include those who are on probation, who have
served time in detention or in a correctional
setting, and/or who have been on parole for a
felony gang-related offense. At least 70 percent of
gang-prone or gang member youth to be targeted
should probably be males. (Available statistics
indicate that at least 80 or 90 percent of youth
arrested for gang offenses are male, although
recent sources indicate that the number of females
in gangs is increasing.)

The CBYA program should target a different mix of
youth in emerging and chronic problem communities.
Relatively more gang-prone youth should be targeted
in emerging gang communities; relatively more
committed and adjudicated gang members should be
targeted in chronic gang localities to reflect the
varying scope and nature of the problem. The
greater cohesion of youth gangs in chronic problem
communities would probably require relatively
greater attention to older gang youths than in an
emerging problem community. The specific
proportions of each type of youth in the special
CBYA youth gang program should also vary with
specific neighborhood and agency resource factors,
for example, types of facilities available, quality
of staff, and their experience with gang youth.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

The key goal of the program is the reduction of the
incidence and prevalence of youth gang crimes. This
would include a reduction in the number of violent
and serious youth gang crimes, particularly
homicides, assaults, and drug trafficking as well
as a reduction in the number and size of gangs. To
avoid excessive labelling of youth, the gang-
related incident should be defined in narrow group
interest or motivational terms. The focus of the
CBYA gang program should not be on the wide range
of criminal activities committed by the youth gang
member, but mainly (not exclusively) on those that
grow specifically out of gang structure and
process.

The primary strategies of the special CBYA youth
gang program should be intervention and suppression
at various levels. The emphasis of the U.S.
Department of Justice mission should not be on a
prevention strategy that targets youth who are not
at high risk of gang membership or gang crime,
i.e., who do not meet the gang-prone risk criteria
identified above. Neither should they serve serious
offenders who are not gang members but who may be
members of criminal organizations. 

Special attention in the formulation of objectives
should be given to redirecting the interests and
capacities of gang members and gang-prone youth
toward improved performance at school, in training,
and on the job. Development is required of
attitudes and social skills that assist youth in
avoiding gang membership or participating in gang-
related conflict or criminal activities. A key
objective should be to help youth understand the
meaning and value of social controls as well as to
directly implement such controls as appropriate.
Close relationships and coordination must be
established with the families of gang-prone and
youth gang members as well as with schools, police,
probation, parole, and other justice system
representatives.

Program objectives should vary depending on whether
the focus is on older, hardened gang youth or
younger "wannabes" and fringe members. Closer
supervision and coordination with justice system
units, training, and employment settings will be
required for older youth. Relatively more home and
school contact will be required for younger youth,
with special attention to the development of those
social and athletic activities that emphasize
social control and conflict resolution skills.

ORGANIZATIONAL AND PROGRAM STRUCTURE

Both the strength and the weakness of the
community-based youth services approach is its
broad-scale yet residual character. The community-
based agency responds to the basic and often
changing interests, needs, and problems of the
local population. The CBYA must be able to adapt
quickly and sensitively to both individual and
social problems as they evolve, usually before
other established institutions have been able to
readjust their strategies and programs. In the face
of traditional organizational lag, the CBYA should
and often does attempt to fill in the gaps of other
institutional programs. At the same time, it should
assist the established institution, e.g., family,
school, employment, or criminal justice agency, to
modify its own approach. In this context, the CBYA
is temporarily required to perform certain
functions that should in the long term be better
accomplished by these other institutions.

Therefore, CBYA structures and programs for dealing
with gang-prone youth and gang members should be
closely linked to an established institution. It
should operate as a partner and enabler to the
school in the emerging youth gang-problem
community, and as partner and enabler to some
public authority, probably a justice system unit,
in the chronic gang-problem community. In both
cases, a special collaborative or team arrangement
between organizations should be established. The
program structure created in each of these problem
contexts should require the participation of local
residents in decisionmaking, program development,
and operations. The programs should result in the
achievement of three goals: 1) reduction of the
gang problem; 2) strengthening of primary
institutions, particularly the family, school, and
employers in their efforts to deal with gang prone
and gang member youth; and 3) increased local
community capacity to address its youth gang
problem.

A continuum of services that focus on six
programmatic areas should characterize the CBYA's
effort: 1) socialization, 2) education, 3) family
support, 4) training and employment, 5) social
control, and 6) community mobilization and agency
coordination. In both emerging and chronic gang-
problem cities, the CBYA should play a special case
management role. In the emerging problem context,
the CBYA should contribute primarily to the
school's institutional mission of academic and
social development of youth. In the chronic problem
context, the CBYA should contribute significantly
to the justice system's mission of social control
of gang youth and protection of the community.

Case Management Role. The CBYA can assume case
management responsibility for each youth in the
program. This should be done in conjunction with
the schools in an emerging gang-problem context and
with probation in a chronic gang-problem context.
Variations in structure will be required where both
gang-prone and gang member youth are served by the
same program. The CBYA should receive referrals of
youth identified as gang-prone from sources such as
schools, police, court diversion units, other human
service agencies, community organizations,
families, self-referrals, and the outreach agency
worker. Referrals to the CBYA's adjudicated gang
member program should be restricted to court,
probation, parole, corrections, and the
prosecutor's office.

The CBYA should directly supply or broker a variety
or services including the following: 1) intake
screening; 2) crisis intervention; 3)
advocacy/mentoring; 4) short-term out-of-home
placement (court determined); 5) educational
remedial classes and activities; 6) vocational
training; 7) job apprenticeships; 8) part- and
full-time employment; 9) drug/alcohol assessment
and treatment; 10) individual/group/family
counseling; 11) medical assessment and treatment;
12) parent/guardian training; 13) a full range of
community center social and recreational
activities; 14) educational and employment referral
services for family members of gang and gang-prone
youth; 15) community service activities that can be
utilized by the gang member and gang-prone youth
for repayment of debts to society; 16) in-home
detention programming; 17) special gang patrol
services; and 18) monitoring and other community
support services.

The special coordinative interagency unit (CBYA and
school; CBYA and probation) or community committee
should meet at regular intervals with the case
manager for the purpose of 1) clarifying case plan
responsibilities; 2) reviewing the youth's
progress; 3) recommending a change in the plan of
services, e.g., increase or decrease the level of
restriction for the youth; 4) resolving problems of
interagency coordination and resource development;
5) engaging in community service planning and
policy advocacy; and 6) promoting resident
involvement and community development issues
related to the gang problem.

EMERGING GANG-PROBLEM CITIES

In emerging gang-problem cities, the six core
categories of services are intended to address the
gang-prone youth's special needs for status, his
lack of academic skills, his difficulty in relating
to others in positive ways, his lack of an adequate
support system, and his need for supervision. It is
also important to address the community's inability
to recognize the gang problem, to structure
programs adequately to deal with it, and to
determine what services and activities would most
benefit the particular youth and target population.
In due course, each program youth should
participate directly or indirectly in an intake
assessment interview. Often, this assessment will
come after the youth worker has contacted the gang
member and his group on the streets and established
a positive preliminary relationship with them.
Follow-up information would be supplied by the
school on performance, attendance, and social
adjustment or behavior problems as well as by the
police, court, family, peers, and other
organizations in the community. In the development
of a service and community action plan, it is
assumed that the youth and his family will be
voluntarily involved and, in some cases, that
participation in the program may be mandated by the
court, probation, or the school.

SOCIALIZATION

Of primary importance in emerging gang-problem
contexts is the ability of the CBYA worker to reach
out to youth on the street who are not yet involved
in existing agency programs. These youth constitute
a recruiting pool for gang membership. They may
also comprise a new membership pool for agencies in
those communities where the established population
has aged or changed and no longer uses the
facility. The agency may need to reach out to a
group of youth new to the community to fulfill its
socialization mission.

Special efforts may be required, however, to change
the style and content of existing programs to meet
the interests and needs of newcomer ethnic, racial,
and cultural groups. Citizen leaders of the local
community and even former gang members may need to
be brought into the agency as staff or even board
members to assist in the development of appropriate
programs and agency practices. Special linkages
will need to be developed in conjunction with
schools to provide recreational, social, and
afterschool activities for those youth who are
particularly vulnerable to gang membership and
crime. Simple introduction or modification of
existing programs for younger youth is possible,
either through special arrangements for
transporting youth from school to the agency or
transfer of CBYA activities to school facilities.

More complex socialization efforts will be required
for the small group of older, committed gang youth
who may be present in the emerging gang-problem
community, particularly those who are unemployed
and no longer attending school. Since they are
likely to be present on the streets, CBYA workers
again must reach out to them to establish contact
and, if possible, assist them in joining and
becoming integrated in existing agency programs.
The CBYA may be required to establish new program
outposts, or simply develop a variety of non-
facility-based recreational, athletic, and informal
educational programs. Field trips, camping, and
other programs that bring gang youth into contact
with other physical and social environments are
also advisable.

In the course of many of these activities, the CBYA
worker must guard against inadvertently becoming a
focus for organizing or cohering a loose knit youth
group into a gang. The CBYA worker should use a
variety of devices to insure that the delinquent
group or gang is diffused and that influential or
leadership youth are helped to leave the "scene"
through jobs, referral to special educational or
training programs, or even removal to correction
institutions.

The CBYA worker should be skilled in helping gang-
prone and gang member youth to learn conflict
resolution skills and avoid violence in settling
interpersonal arguments and intragroup or intergang
conflicts. Individual group counseling as well as
structured courses at the CBYA facility or school
may be used to instruct targeted youth in how to
handle personal value conflicts, resolve potential
gang fights, avoid gang membership, and leave
gangs. Team sports and social affairs such as
dances and camping trips can be vehicles for mixing
youth from different neighborhoods and gang
factions; but extreme caution needs to be exercised
in structuring such experiences to avoid increasing
interpersonal and intergroup tension and conflict,
gang intimidation, and recruitment. On the other
hand, there are limits to the value of social and
athletic activities. Often the most needy,
frustrated, and violent youth do not participate in
these experiences.

Finally, it is especially important to involve
parents, neighborhood residents, and even former
gang members or leaders in the supervision of these
social and athletic events. Sensitive and trained
volunteer or paraprofessional staff can quickly
identify potential trouble spots and troublemakers
and neutralize them through use of their
interpersonal skills, often based on personal and
neighborhood status and prestige. They can also
serve as role models, and teach and demonstrate
social skills essential to the development of
mature and socially conventional behavior by youth.

EDUCATION

With gang-prone 12-to-16-year-olds, major emphasis
should be on assisting school administrators and
teachers to appropriately meet the educational and
social needs of these vulnerable yet troublesome
youth. A primary task will be to assist such youth
to improve their performance at school and at the
same time curb or limit their actual or potentially
disruptive gang-related behavior. Additional
resources may be required to provide extra school
time teaching or tutoring, during and after regular
school hours to upgrade the youth's reading,
writing, mathematic, and general problem-solving
skills. In this process, teachers, tutors, or
mentors must be assisted, presumably by streetwise
and experienced CBYA staff, to understand gang
culture and identify gang-related behaviors that
may be disruptive of the school learning process,
e.g., signing, wearing colors, intimidating other
youth, and recruiting members. The CBYA worker will
have to work closely with teachers and
administrators in the development of specific means
to prevent and control those problems. The teacher
will need special help in recognizing and
controlling the efforts of core gang members or
leaders and in advising gang-prone youth on how to
stay out of gangs, avoid gang crises and attacks,
and other gang-related criminal behaviors.

The CBYA worker is expected to be part of the
school team, coaching, supplementing, and joining
with teachers in a variety of activities, both
inside and outside of school, to deal with gang-
prone youth and current gang members. The CBYA
worker should be able to establish credibility with
school administrators and teachers based on his
understanding of gangs and prior experience in the
school system or as a parent of a school-age child.
The teacher and the CBYA worker should present a
unified front to students and family as regards the
youth's problems and the need to improve his
performance and behavior both at school and in the
community.

The CBYA worker should take special responsibility
for assisting and controlling the youth with
respect to his afterschool behavior, e.g.,
providing constructive activities that substitute
for gang activity. He should be able to involve
parents in special gang informational evening
activities as well as programs that enable parents
of gang-affiliated youth to make better use of
school educational resources for themselves. The
CBYA worker may be able to assist parent and
community groups to organize patrols in
collaboration with the police to protect children
on their way to and from school and home. The
worker should also be helpful in recruiting
community volunteers to participate in a range of
school-based activities that would enhance the
social and cultural life of gang-prone students and
their parents both during and after school.

The activities of the CBYA workers with older gang
youth still at school may have a somewhat different
emphasis. These youth may not only be failing, but
on the verge of dropping out. The CBYA worker
should encourage the school to keep these youth in
regular school programs and provide additional
tutorial and afterschool support or perhaps arrange
special remedial classes or school transfers for
them, if appropriate. Program changes for youth
that involve vocational training and cooperative
school and work experiences should be encouraged.

If these youth have quit school, CBYA staff should
work with school administrators to establish
alternative school programs and remedial evening
programs, and special skill or GED centers. CBYA
workers should collaborate with teachers, parents,
and community volunteers to teach and supervise
these youth. CBYA staff could be especially helpful
by counseling parents who unknowingly reinforce
their children's participation in gangs. They
should also facilitate communication between court
and probation officers and employers and teachers,
to create a consistent set of expectations and
community controls.

FAMILY SUPPORT

Families in low-income, newcomer communities are
often characterized by personal and social
disorganization, and lack of stability and self-
respect. They may be socially isolated from the
opportunities, values, and norms of the larger
society. A few of the newcomer families may have a
history of gang affiliation. Fathers, uncles,
cousins, and friends may be current or former gang
members. Some families from inner-city areas move
to the new neighborhoods or smaller cities and
bring the gang subculture with them.

Many of these parents, burdened with their own
problems, are often ineffective parents in dealing
with their children. They are not consistent in
their guidance, control, or support of particularly
headstrong or impulsive youth. They may have
difficulty in setting limits or communicating
behavioral expectations. They may not support the
youth in his school efforts. They may pay little
attention to peers whom he hangs out with. They
fail to notice or understand the sudden appearance
of gang signs and symbols in the home. A few of
these parents will look away when the young
adolescent male begins to drink hard liquor and
smoke marijuana. And they may avoid asking
questions of the youth who provides the occasional
extra money for food or household expenses,
although the parent knows that such funds come from
street drug sales or other criminal, sometimes
gang-related, activity.

These parents are extremely difficult to reach and
counsel effectively. They are often known to many
agencies, but do not respond to school, agency, or
community efforts to control and socialize their
children. A persistent long-term outreach effort by
the CBYA in cooperation with other agencies must be
initiated. Usually, these parents will not appear
for counseling sessions with the school, family, or
mental health social worker. The CBYA staff person
will need to visit the family in the home on a
regular, informal, yet purposeful basis. A positive
helping relationship must be established. The
worker may possess certain family treatment skills,
provide home care assistance, help the family with
access to new resources, or simply be available to
participate in a variety of social, family, and
cultural affairs as a family associate or friend.
Over time, the worker should become an advocate,
helper, teacher, referral agent, mental health
worker, and friend. In all cases the focus should
be on assisting the family unit to function in a
more socially productive way, particularly as it
contributes to improved social behavior of the
gang-prone or gang member youth.

There will be occasions when the family is so
disorganized and the influence of the parent(s) so
negative that a gang-prone or gang member youth
must be assisted to leave the particular family
situation. In conjunction with the child welfare
agency, the court, or probation officer, the CBYA
worker may assist with temporary shelter or foster
care for the youth or recommend transfer of
parental responsibilities to another relative such
as a grandparent, uncle, or aunt. Residential care
out of the community can be a useful last resort.

When appropriate, the CBYA worker can attempt to
aid parents of gang members by having them meet
together to share problems of parenting and
supervising their gang offspring. These groups can
become mutual aid or support groups during times of
gang crises. Some of the groups may assist in
efforts at community control of the gang problem
through crisis intervention and mediation efforts
as well as school patrol and afterschool volunteer
activities. These activities may require the
guidance of school and police authorities as well
as that of the CBYA. Some of these support groups
or concerned parent groups may develop leadership
capable not only of counseling other parents but
advocating for more and improved agency services
and community opportunities for gang-prone and gang
member youth.

TRAINING AND EMPLOYMENT

The CBYA can play a multitude of roles in the
training and employment of older gang youth and in
preparing younger youth who are still at school for
the world of work. Gang members and gang-prone
youth tend not to have the academic or vocational
preparation, let alone specific job skills or
experience, necessary for the work place. Most
important, they simply do not understand the
meaning of work, holding a job, and earning a
regular wage. Often, there have often been few
adults available at home or in the neighborhood
with regular full-time jobs to provide models of
attitudes and behaviors necessary for success at
work.

The CBYA can help schools, community organizations,
and employers to prepare youth for employment with
job readiness programs at their facility.
Introductions to the world of work may already
exist in a more fully developed form, however, at a
variety of other agencies or training centers. The
CBYA should set a high priority in referring gang
youth to these programs and helping them to make
the best use of these opportunities. Filling out
forms, role playing, and developing techniques for
getting a job, particularly for older youth, is
only one, and not necessarily the most important,
component in preparing the gang youth for work.

A job that has some status and provides self-
respect for the gang youth is almost a sine qua non
for his breaking or significantly reducing contact
with the youth gang and settling down. It offers
him the sense of manhood, identity, and loyalty he
obtained as a gang member and gang fighter. There
is much that a job can teach a youth about
conventional behavior and productive ways to
interact with peers and authority. On the other
hand, sufficient, meaningful jobs or connections to
them may not be readily available. It is incumbent
upon the CBYA, therefore, not to engage in
superficial or ineffective job referral, but in
substantial job development efforts on behalf of
gang youth in cooperation with business and
industry, other CBYAs, and public agencies.

A variety of innovative arrangements have begun to
develop in which CBYAs provide training for
specific job openings in particular industries.
Instructors and stipends for trainees are offered
by the particular business or corporation, and the
youth is assured a job at the termination of
training. The CBYA can also provide a variety of
services to support him during training and the
initial job adjustment period, including remedial
education, drug treatment referral and counseling.
In some cases, the CBYA can develop small
entrepreneurial operations, sometimes in
collaboration with other established businesses,
that employ gang youth. Examples include graffiti
removal, building contract work including carpentry
and painting, and food preparation services.

Of special importance are cooperative job
development and job readiness programs with the
schools. CBYAs can take some responsibility for the
creation of job banks to provide part-time
employment for youth after school and during the
summer period. They can assist schools with special
support services for youth in apprenticeship
positions. In all cases, the focus must be on gang
members and gang-prone youth who have the greatest
need to develop problem-solving skills. The
temptation to deal with lower risk or less
intractable youth has to be avoided.

SOCIAL CONTROL

The CBYA must learn to accept and take on new roles
of deterrence, supervision, or suppression in
dealing with gang-prone and gang member youth. In
this process, key links with police, probation,
parole, and the courts must be developed. Gang
youth 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 assist with certain activities
such as surveillance or patrol.

The agency's supervisory or deterrent role takes
many forms. It is based on the traditional
socialization function of the CBYA to assist the
individual to mature and socially develop within
the framework of the conventional values of the
neighborhood and a democratic society. Because of
family and community breakdown, the CBYA must not
only take on a greater responsibility for social
support and remediation of problem behavior, but
also for control of deviant and anti-social
behavior. The challenge is difficult since gang
members and gang-prone youth often have very weak
identification with conventional authority.

The CBYA worker must clearly demonstrate and
articulate his identification with legitimate
authority. His exercise of rules, regulations, and
decisionmaking must be eminently fair, patient, and
consistent. At the same time, he must clearly
associate his role of authority with that of
protecting and safeguarding the youth from physical
harm. Protection of other people and community
property should be viewed as affecting, ultimately
and directly, the welfare of the gang youth
himself.

The authority role of the CBYA worker is
particularly difficult to carry out when he is on
youth gang turf or surrounded at the agency or
elsewhere by a solid phalanx of gang members
displaying gang-oriented norms and values. The
development and expression of the worker's
deterrent role is an evolving one that must be
connected to the worker's support role. It must be
exercised judiciously, in part depending on the
strength of his relationship with gang members or
gang-prone youth and their common experiences
together. At no point, however, should there be any
doubt by gang youth as to where the worker and his
agency stand on issues of gang criminal behavior,
particularly violence and drug trafficking.

Gang-prone and gang member youth should recognize
that the worker and his agency are closely
affiliated with criminal justice agencies and will
support all legitimate investigation, surveillance,
and suppression activities, if not assist in
carrying them out through crisis intervention,
school patrol, and criminal justice information-
sharing. The CBYA should also participate in a
variety of joint probation and parole activities to
facilitate the implementation of court or
correctional orders, particularly with respect to
avoiding participation in gang-related delinquent
or criminal behavior. CBYA rules and regulations
must be kept to a minimum but vigorously enforced.

On the other hand, the CBYA worker should not come
to be viewed as simply a policeman or probation
officer. He is largely an authoritative
intermediary. He must express acceptance of and
identification with gang youth and local
neighborhoods norms and values that are non-
criminal. He must demonstrate his concern for
social justice when the gang youth receives unfair
or unjust treatment at school, in court, on the
job, or elsewhere. This means that there will be
occasions when he will advocate for just and fair
treatment for the gang youth both through informal,
formal, and public channels.

COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION AND AGENCY COORDINATION

Community-based youth agencies also have a
responsibility to mobilize local community groups
and other agencies to develop collective community
or citywide anti-gang crime efforts. These include
not only advocacy and development of more effective
means to protect the local community from youth
gang crime, including drug trafficking, but the
development of more resources and opportunities for
education, training, and jobs targeted to gang
members and gang-prone youth.

As a member of the community system of agencies,
the CBYA may be ideally positioned to observe and
articulate the needs and problems of the community
and its youth. The CBYA may be able to rally others
to action, especially if the agency has a track
record of working with gangs and can demonstrate
credibility with diverse organizations and
community groups. It may also act as a moderating
force where others might be inclined to overreact
to gang youth and their crimes of violence.

The CBYA is integral to the success of local
efforts to reduce gang activity. It can be either
an initiator of action in the development of local
anti-gang strategy or a key partner with other
organizations, especially the schools in emerging
gang-problem contexts. The community-based youth
agency can therefore assume either a leadership
role or that of team member as a long-term plan for
reducing gang violence and working with gang youth
is developed. 

Consistency within the Agency: Essential to a
community mobilization and coordination effort is a
consistent agency response and strategy. The CBYA
director must develop a vision that is shared by
and communicated to all staff. He must have a
commitment to assisting youth to meet their social
needs through positive means, yet holding them
accountable for their actions. He must also work on
their behalf so that appropriate community systems
are established to benefit them. Necessary to this
commitment is a common set of agency rules and
expectations subscribed to by board members,
program staff, and volunteers in their concerns and
interactions with gang youth.

Coordination Among Organizations: In conjunction
with the schools, agency executives and program
directors should participate in whatever local or
citywide group is formed to ensure coordination
with representatives of police, prosecutors,
probation/parole, other direct service providers,
the mayor's office, community groups, and local
businesses. Since this task force may be large, it
is anticipated that work on certain issues may be
assigned to committees. Staff, other than the
agency and program directors, may find it valuable
to serve on committees, as appropriate, to learn
and draw on expertise of committee members as well
as to build relationships with them that are useful
in the development of services for gang youth.
Reporting to youth agency program and school staffs
on these meetings should be a standing item on
staff agendas to ensure CBYA and school staff are
kept abreast of important issues and decisions.
Regular meetings could also be held with probation
and parole to discuss the progress of youth in the
program.

CHRONIC GANG-PROBLEM CITIES

The same type of CBYA core services and approaches
are required in chronic gang problem cities as in
emerging gang problem cities. The differences lie
mainly in the elaboration and intensity of services
and emphases in approaches provided. The residents
of the chronic gang-problem community will have
suffered greater relative deprivation and
consequently will need greater resources. The
problem of gangs and gang crime will be more
entrenched and complex. Service and program
patterns will already have been established, but
more formal arrangements will be required within
and across a greater variety of agencies and
community groups. The role of the CBYA will have to
be more closely linked with that of a public
authority or criminal justice agency, particularly
a probation department. Some of the key differences
or elaborations of services and approach in chronic
problem contexts are the following.

Socialization: The intransigence of gang violence
and gang crime in chronic problem settings will
require a more formal and comprehensive arrangement
by the CBYA to reach established gangs and gang
members on the street. Crisis intervention teams
will be needed to visit "hot spots" to reduce gang
tensions and mediate conflicts. A special 24-hour
emergency communications system may have to be
established in cooperation with the police
department's gang unit. Special procedures will be
necessary to distinguish between the conflict
resolution purposes of the CBYA worker and the
suppression purpose of the police. Greater
attention to the social needs of older gang youth
and their families will be required. The CBYA
worker will also have to be in touch with a greater
range of agencies to integrate gang youth into
mainstream conventional activities.

Education: More youth will have dropped out of
school. Since they are older, they will require
special school arrangements, probably in
alternative or special adult education skill
centers. A greater range of remedial educational,
vocational training, and apprentice arrangements
with business and industry, and supportive
counseling programs will be required. Ideally, such
adult skill and educational centers should be an
integral part of the existing educational system,
preparing a range of newcomer adults and dropout
youth -- some delinquent for a variety of
legitimate careers. These programs should be
flexible in format and permit entry and exit at
different points. Parents and community groups
should play an integral role in the program's
development. While special attention should be paid
to the interests, needs, and problems of gang youth
and their families, it should be within the context
of a mainstream school and training environment.

Family Support: The tradition of youth gangs is
expected to be extremely strong in the chronic
gang-problem community. Two- and three-generation
gang families will be common, particularly in
ghettoized public housing. The massive social and
economic problems of these families will of course
not be overcome simply through a variety of
outreach and support efforts by CBYA workers.
Therefore, it is advisable that relatively greater
concentration be focussed on guidance to families
with younger gang-prone youth. Older gang youth are
more likely to be on their own and not amenable to
family-based interventions. Probation, parole, and
corrections, along with parent and community
groups, should be used more often by CBYA workers
to bring pressures to bear on committed gang youths
to change their values and behaviors. Parent groups
may be useful in persuading other parents to more
frequently communicate and cooperate with police
and probation around problems of serious gang
violence and drug trafficking. This can be done to
protect their own active gang member youth as well
as other members of the community. In other words,
distinctions among socialization, family support,
and control strategies become particularly
difficult to make in chronic gang-problem
communities, since problems seem to be more tightly
interlinked.

Employment: While a variety of training and
employment programs directed at low-income and
sometimes offender youth exist, very few, if any
will target the needs of gang youth. More formal
and intensive efforts will be required in
cooperation with public authorities, businesses,
and industries. Governmental tax incentives will be
necessary to facilitate the training and employment
of gang youth. A series of arrangements with
probation and parole should allow CBYAs to supply
various support and even some supervisory services
to gang youth in these training and employment
settings. CBYAs can also be contracted to provide
special training in business and industry in how to
deal with gang and gang-prone youth. 

Social Control: Because of the intensity and
greater severity of the gang problem in chronic
problem contexts, close community-based supervision
and short-term incarceration may be more likely
options than traditional counseling service by CBYA
workers. The CBYA worker will have to share
information more regularly and quickly with police,
probation, community influentials, schools , and
even correctional authorities to prevent and
control sudden gang outbreaks. Considerable
personal risk for the worker may be incurred in
this effort. The CBYA worker will require greater
agency support. Also important in chronic gang-
problem contexts is for the CBYA worker to maintain
contact with the youth during his stays in
probation camps, detention, correctional
institutions, and prisons. The gang youth usually
does not remain in jail for long. Appropriate
services for him in the institution and his
positive integration back in the community should
be primary objectives. Regular visits to the youth
in jail and sustained relationship with him are
critical as the CBYA worker attempts to influence
the core gang member not to return to gang activity
in the community.

Community Mobilization and Agency Coordination: The
chronic gang-problem community is characterized by
fragmentation of services and a lack of resources
to deal with problems of extreme violence and gang-
related drug trafficking. Only a massive and
persistent community and interagency mobilization
effort through formal and informal structures will
contribute to a significant reduction in the
problem. The CBYA can be a lead agency in a
mobilization process of which criminal justice
agencies, community groups (including parent
groups), businesses, and schools are important
components. The CBYA executive and staff must be
particularly skilled in interagency and
intercommunity group conflict resolution. Not only
youth gangs but agencies and community groups
appear to be in a perpetual war of competition for
scarce resources.

External resources should be provided to local
agencies on condition that gang youth are
adequately targeted for service and that such
services are highly coordinated and integrated.
Consensus on the nature of the gang problem and
what to do about it is critical to efforts within
and across agencies and communities. Such consensus
is particularly difficult to achieve in larger,
more complex, and fragmented chronic gang-problem
contexts. Community-based and criminal justice
agencies and local groups must also show their
dedication to the mission of gang control by
holding each other accountable for providing
requisite services.

Staff Selection and Training: CBYAs should be
staffed by mature individuals who are strongly
motivated to serve and have the capacity and skills
to work with young people. At least some of the
staff should have backgrounds similar to those of
the target population. Some should have lived in
similar ghetto or socially isolated and problem-
ridden communities. The CBYA worker should be able
to reach out to parents, criminal justice and
treatment agencies, and local community
organizations as well as to teachers in dealing
with troublesome gang member or gang-prone youth.
Only staff who are committed to the program's goals
should be hired. All staff should participate in a
training and orientation period.

Agency staff, board members, community residents,
and representatives of schools and justice system
agencies should participate in joint training, as
appropriate. Much of the training will be defined
by the experience that participants themselves
bring to the agency. However, outside experts will
have to be brought in to discuss a range of topics:
1) the current scope, nature, and basis for the
gang problem; 2) how to relate to gang youth and
their families; 3) special issues of gang control
and mediation of disputes; and 4) identification
and use of agency facilities and programs as well
as local community resources. Other topics include
appropriate collaborative procedures with staff of
other agencies. Ways to integrate CBYA support and
social control procedures with various agency and
community group representatives working with gang
youths should be emphasized.

RESEARCH AND EVALUATION

The proposed community-based youth agency model
should be tested in emerging and chronic youth
gang-problem communities. Such a complex program
needs to be carefully designed and faithfully
implemented. Specific objectives, services, and
process should be assessed initially through
formative evaluation procedures. In other words, a
substantial period of demonstrating and testing of
the elements of complex CBYA-related programs
should be carried out before any systematic outcome
testing or summative evaluation is conducted.

When such outcome evaluation is finally carried
out, it should focus on objectives for the general
reduction of gang conflict, gang-related drug
trafficking in the local area, and reduction in the
number of gangs and gang members among targeted
youth in the program. Specific intermediate
objectives to achieve these outcome objectives
should be assessed. They include changes in the
targeted youth's school performance, attendance,
and behavior; and special training courses
completed, types of jobs obtained, and their job
duration. Internal agency, interagency
coordination, and community mobilization processes
as well as the role of the CBYA worker should also
be studied to the extent that research resources
are available.