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Transcript of: 
DOJ Connect Webcast 
June 6, 2006 
2:00  3:30 PM ET 
Preventing Gangs in Our Communities  Part 2 
This is DOJ Connect. Today's program, "Preventing Gangs in Our 
Communities." 
Hello everyone, I'm Doris McMillon, and welcome to this national satellite 
broadcast focusing on "Preventing Gangs in Our Communities." We want to 
extend a special welcome to the satellite downlink and internet sites joining us 
today from across the country. Today's program is part two of a two part series 
developed within the Department of Justice, through a partnership between the 
Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and the Office of Juvenile Justice 
and Delinquency Prevention. Now, both broadcasts will be archived and 
available for viewing at dojconnect.com. During the program, you'll have the 
opportunity to submit your questions to the panel by sending them to 
questions@DOJConnect.com. Here to welcome you to today's broadcast is 
Attorney General of the United States, Alberto Gonzales. Under his leadership, 
the Department of Justice has refocused its efforts to combat violent crime to 
target the specific problem of gangs in America. His message today underscores 
this intense commitment and support of our efforts to prevent, prosecute and 
reduce gang crime. 
Thank you for participating in the second part of our program on Preventing 
Gangs in Our Communities. America faces gang activity in almost all of our 
large urban centers as well as in smaller cities, suburban communities and even 
rural areas. Young people are the most prone to the false promises of the gang 
lifestyle. And they also are most likely to be the victims of gang violence. Once 
they become members of a gang, they are far more likely to drop out of school, 
become involved in drugs and violence and experience a host of negative 
outcomes that stretch well into adulthood. 
The fight against gangs is one of the top priorities of the Department of Justice, 
following President Bush's leadership on this important issue. To remove the 

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scourage gangs, and gang violence from the experience of our nation's youth, 
we need an integrated, comprehensive approach that includes prevention, 
prosecution and prisoner reentry. Last year, I directed each U.S. Attorney to 
designate an anti-gang coordinator in his or her district to prepare a 
comprehensive, district wide, anti-gang strategy. This is being done in 
consultation with law enforcement partners, social services, and community and 
faith-based groups. Our successful project, Safe Neighborhoods Initiative, has 
now been expanded to include new and enhanced anti-gang efforts. And 
recently, I directed the U.S. Attorneys to convene local gang prevention summits 
by the end of this year to help coordinate the gang prevention efforts in their 
districts. In addition to these national efforts, this year I launched a 
comprehensive anti-gang initiative in six locations around the nation: Cleveland, 
Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Tampa, and the 222 Corridor that 
stretches Easton to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. These programs 
will complement the good work already being done in the field to reduce gang 
violence and offer at-risk youth viable alternatives to gang membership. I am 
confident that these steps will help us continue to prevent and reduce violent 
and gang-related crime in our nation and to heal troubled communities. Every 
American deserves to live in an environment free from the fear of gangs and 
violent crime. Effective gang prevention is an important way to achieve this 
goal. Today's broadcast will be a viable resource as you continue your efforts to 
combat gang crime. Thank you for your dedication to making our communities 
safe. 
We would like to thank Attorney General Gonzales. Now, the purpose of our 
teleconference today is to provide a comprehensive discussion concentrating on 
programs, strategies and resources that can be used to reduce gang activity in 
our nation's communities. Our broadcast will feature videotape presentations 
showcasing three promising community gang-reduction projects in Riverside, 
California, Las Vegas, Nevada, and Los Angeles, California. Additionally, we 
will provide you with a comprehensive review of gang-related issues through 
discussions with our studio guests who we recognized nationally as experts in 
crafting meaningful responses to the problem of gangs. I would like to 
introduce them to you now. Our panelists today are Joe Mollner. Joe, is the 
senior director of delinquency prevention for the Boys and Girls Clubs of 
America. Errika Fearbry Jones, director of the Gang-Free Schools Program for 
the Pittsburgh Board of Education. Also joining us, Victor Gonzales, director of 
program services for the Mayor's Anti-Gang Office in Houston, Texas. And 
joining us again is Dr. Scott Decker, professor and chair of the department of 
Criminal Justice and Criminology at Arizona State University. 

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And I'd like to say thank you all for being here. Welcome. To get us going, I'd 
like to start with each of you with an opening remark. So, Joe, why don't I start 
with you. 
Thank you, Doris. I had the opportunity to oversee our targeted outreach 
model for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America which encompasses our gang 
prevention, our gang intervention, our delinquency prevention delinquency 
intervention, and targeted reentry operations. Now, as Boys and Girls Clubs 
staff, we learned quite a while ago that we must step outside of the Boys and 
Girls Club walls in order to really be effective in the community. It's not just 
enough to open the doors and let kids come to you and work with them. We've 
got these hard to reach kids out there who are very high-risk sometimes, are 
being involved in some of these gang activities and delinquent's activities. And 
unless we have people to go out and seek those individuals, work with those 
individuals and get them involved in pro-social activities, then we can be 
effective in the community and the work that we have to be done. 
Okay, thank you, Joe -- Errika? 
Sure, the school district of Pittsburgh, is part of a collaborative effort to look at 
the gang -- some of that gang activity in Pittsburgh. We have a fabulous 
partnership with an outreach team that we contract through the YWCA -- 
YMCA, excuse me. Also, we work with Mary Beth Buchanan's office who is our 
United States Attorney, the Pittsburgh Bureau police, juvenile and adult 
probation. So, we're all working together to look at how we engage young 
people in solutions as well as provide services to them. All right, Victor? 
Hi, in the Mayor's Anti-Gang office, as the director of program services, the 
office in itself unique under the leadership of our Mayor Bill White and my 
director, Patricia Harrigton, and all of the wonderful staff that I have. It's a big 
task, but we like to review the policies and strategies that are being implemented 
in the city. We do a great job of educating professionals in the city to combat 
gang activity and to work with the youth involved in gangs. We have two 
programs in our office: Gang Reduction Intervention Team, and the Gang Free 
Schools Project. And those teams are responsible for providing case 
management, incident response to schools, to community. They also educate 
their areas of service that they provide for many professionals to be able to 
understand what exactly is going on in the city of Houston. 

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Okay, thank you; and Scott? Hi, again, Doris. I'd like to say that from my 
perspective, the most important thing for communities is to understand the 
nature of their local gang problem and not respond to a problem that they think 
exists or that they heard exists in another city or another part of the country. 
'Cause gang problems, like communities, are unique. And if the viewers can 
make use of some of the resources, the first slide in particular, that's called the 
response pyramid; I think that is a useful way to orient the understanding and 
response to gangs. It lays out the problem from the most seriously involved, 
who are relatively small in number at the top of that pyramid, down to those 
that are the least involved at the bottom of the pyramid. It also lays out an 
appropriate response, suppression for the most involved, primary prevention to 
those at the least level of involvement that can work in any community. A 
variety of other resources that are up on the web that communities ought to 
avail themselves of following the broadcast as they begin to craft a solution. 
All right; well, thank you for those opening remarks. We're gonna move on 
with our program and I'm sure folks will be listening closely to see what has 
worked for you all. The combined leadership of the community and the justice 
system must focus on the mobilization of community resources to address gang 
problems. Project Bridge seeks to prevent and reduce youth crime and 
victimization through a continuum of care. Currently, in its tenth year, the 
project provides comprehensive services to gang-involved youth between the 
ages of 12 in 22, and their families in the city of Riverside, California. Now since 
the program was implemented, it has served 550 gang-involved youth in the 
city. Let's take a look at how it's working in Riverside, California. 
300,000 people live in the city of Riverside. One of five sites selected by OJJDP in 
1995, to receive grant funding for a research project that would test a model to 
reduce youth gang violence for a three-year period. 
Riverside is the only remaining site of the original five urban sites and we 
certainly appreciate the opportunity to assist other communities in replicating 
this model. 

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These were three of our local gangsters that were hanging out in the park here. 
One of them made a U-turn to come back around. They decided that they didn't 
want to stick around. 
Currently, their are 78 gangs in Riverside. And over 5,000 gang members. 
Each year, more youth are recruited into gangs. I've been in the gang unit since 
1991, before Project Bridge started. And we have probably, I'd say two, three, 
sometimes four drive-by shootings a week during that period of time, between 
the violence in various parts of our city. 
And yet in a Riverside, gang-related violence has steadily declined, 
since the implementation of Project Bridge. So, we've only had eight murders 
this year. I think two of them were gang related. And we probably only handle 
maybe two, three drive-by shootings -- ah, I might say one drive-by shooting a 
month maybe. So, quite a dramatic decrease in the level of violence. 
We want first and foremost our community to know that we care about our kids 
here. It's far easier and cheaper, more effective to go out with open arms to 
include people in top quality programs that will help a kid change his or her at 
life and become acceptable with society. 
The range of services Project Bridge offers covers a wide spectrum. 
We use a holistic approach to intervene with the youth in various stages in their 
life so that we can meet the needs of the youth fully. 

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One of the first things that our program did was we implemented a street 
outreach program. And we targeted two areas in the city of Riverside and we 
selected to target youth between the ages of 12 and 22. 
The average program is really the key to Project Bridge. Right now, we are 
about to go visit one of the young people in our program that has come a long 
way. It's a young lady, she has many struggles. She had numerous charges for 
violent things, real active out in this community as far as being gang involved. 
So, you been doing all right? 
Yes. 
Family all right? 
Yeah. 
Okay, now, you know you are one of our success stories and we're real proud of 
you, all right? From where you've come from to where you're at now it's cool 
to see that you learned and I'm glad that that happened that way. 
The great thing about Selena's progress through Project Bridge is that she's 
never given up. That whatever services that we've offered to her, she has taken 
full advantage of. And her family is very involved and she has her mother and 
father who are very supportive of her and want to see that she does well. And 
through this project, she has been able to achieve her goals. 
What is it you want to do with your life now? 

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I want to be a counselor for teens. So, I can share my story about what was 
going on with me in the past and how it is easy to turn yourself around and 
leave everything else alone and it's not hard. 
We've found that the outreach method, provided by Project Bridge, has been 
very successful. And what we do is we provide these kids -- these are really 
high-risk kids, we provide these minors with the opportunity to see an 
alternative method to their gang entrenchment. 
Since Project Bridge began, we have served over 500 youth. And currently, we 
have a little under 150 youth involved. 
Project Bridge is the result of widespread community collaborative efforts 
committed to reducing youth gang violence. 
I'm very proud of the record of Project Bridge and its ability to essentially 
change the endgame -- change the outcome of what now is literally hundreds of 
gang members. 
Project Bridge grows every year. Every year, more and more people want to be 
a part of the collaboration that Project Bridge has initiated. Why? Because it 
works. 
And with the support of the community for Project Bridge, we can really get at 
the core principle of gang intervention which is it's never too early and it's never 
too late to help at-risk youth. 
Welcome back. I'd like to encourage you all to e-mail us with your questions 
and comments. And our address is questions@DOJconnect.com. 

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Okay, expert panelists -- outreach, what does it take to do it? I think Doris, what 
people have to really realize is it takes a special person to conduct outreach. The 
person has to get over a level of intimidation at times, at first, if your new to the 
field. It takes a certain drive, a certain passion to really want to get out there on 
the street and understand what is going on. But before you even get those guys 
out you have to kind of conduct an assessment of what's going on in your area -- 
what gangs exist, what signs, what symbols, what alliances, what rivals exist in 
the community. You always want to be cognizant of safety factors; I think the 
big thing for outreach workers is that because they are so low to the ground -- 
their ear's to the ground they see so many things and they are put in dangerous 
situations on occasion, that you don't want to run the risk that anybody gets 
hurt. But they to me are the heart of an intervention team because they are just 
so close to the activity and the kids that are involved in gangs. Joe? 
I think I'd look for some characteristics in an outreach worker also, in the fact 
that they can communicate with the individuals and they have good listening 
skills. Because you're going to have to learn a lot from the individuals that 
you're dealing with, and what the problems are, what the needs are, what the 
strengths are, and so on from the individual. So, there is a lot of things that 
should be looked at before you even have a person that you hire as an outreach 
worker. 
But, it's important to point out that outreach is a critical component, and good 
gang intervention and good gang suppression probably can't be effective 
without a strong outreach worker and outreach worker program. Sure, and you 
want to make sure that the outreach worker that you have, if they're from -- 
been there, done that, you want to make sure they are out of that lifestyle. And 
if they are from a college educated background, you want to make sure they 
also have that connection to the streets as well. 
Okay, how does the outreach team make the most of the other agencies? 
I think the outreach team, because they are the ones that are out first, they hit 
the street first, I think they are the ones that are going to educate your 
coordinator, your steering committee, if one exists, your group that's gonna 
give you a real good indication of what's happening on the street. And without 
those guys, you don't have very much information. And I think lots of times, 

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you can't get moving until you have such information about what's going on as 
far as gangs in the community. 
And you also, Doris, I think, have to look at the relationships that they build with 
the workers that are out there, police officers, probation officers, teachers. And 
the relationship that they will develop with those individuals is gonna be very 
important on how they're going to be able to deal with the kids and the kids 
they are going to be able to reach on the street. 
Victor, how do they get past the mistrust? 
Oh, that takes a long time. You've got, you've got to be able -- it helps to be able 
to understand, again, what's going on in the neighborhood. When the kids 
realize that every now and again you use the slang that they're accustomed to 
hearing, signs and symbols of certain gangs it makes it easier to open the door. 
Once you're in, you have to really bring in the professionalism. You've got to be 
able to really understand what their needs are and get their -- and focus on their 
needs. I think a lot of times, the kids are always are going to be mistrusting of 
folks like outreach workers because they don't know where you are coming 
from. You know you are a snitch, you are undercover, you're all those things. 
But you have to get to know them as a person. I think that's the biggest thing 
we'll stress here. Get to know them as a person and you'll be surprised how 
quickly you'll be able to establish a rapport with these kids. Okay. And I think 
the remarkable thing about Riverside and what's going on, you see in the video 
that this program has gone on for a long period of time, coming up on ten years. 
And it points to a real key issue, and that is the sustainability of interventions. 
We need to be communities that will get involved in gang prevention and 
intervention -- we need to be in it for the long haul. It's not going to be 
anything that gets solved overnight or in a quick period of time, and sticking 
with it in tough times and through good times is important for communities. 
Sure, Errika? 
We have an intervention team in Pittsburgh, and our outreach workers are a 
part of that. But we also have police, probation, and a lot of different partners -- 
communities and schools that are all part of that. And it's those resources that 

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help those outreach workers really to be able to make good on those promises 
that the outreach workers have to promise to the kids. If you're gonna say to a 
kid, "I'm gonna get you a job." The outreach worker has to be able to get that 
kid a job. Right. And that team is so important to do that. And in Riverside -- 
you know, we, we, model our project after the Riverside project and there is a 
lot of things that we have learned about system building, not just running a 
program, but how do you develop a system that can help sustain your program 
or project? 
Well, how common is if to have a program like Riverside's, to have the longevity 
that it's had? 
Well, I think it's -- it is uncommon because they have been going for ten years. 
However, I think we can learn from them in regards to diversifying your 
funding -- don't just look at one funding stream. Look at different funding 
streams. Look at how you can pool resources in that don't cost you any money. 
We have a program that through the state that will pay for all types of training 
for young people. That costs nothing, it's just getting that young person 
through the door. 
Also, Doris, I think what happens too, is that when you bring in all these people 
together to create a strategy, when you start working with other agencies like 
law enforcement, like criminal justice, lots of times they have small budgets that 
they may be able to bring to the table to be able to sustain a program like this 
for length, for a length of time. 
But it isn't until we get together that we really start to understand how we can all 
help each other. And the structure may differ in the long run. You might have 
different agencies that come into the operation to start off and they may fade 
out after a while and others will join in. But the important thing is to keep it 
going and to keep the initiative alive. Scott? 
And one of our dilemmas in youth interventions and delinquency interventions 
is that for decades, we thought of programs as opposed to strategies. A 
program has a start, a program has a end, it has a finite amount of money, 
people leave to get new jobs and what my colleagues have described in their 

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own communities and what we saw in Riverside, is a strategy. It is a different 
way of organizing the system and the community and agencies to respond to 
delinquency problems for the long haul as opposed to saying, "In two years the 
money's gone and we're not going to do anything anymore." A strategy says 
we're gonna change the system that responds to delinquency and gangs in our 
community. 
I would like to bring up, right now, the focusing anti-gang strategy a slide. 
Because that really will help to define a little bit what we're talking about. Again, 
Dr. Decker has sort of the talk about who's involved but if you look to the one 
side, you see serious chronic offenders, gang-involved youth, high-risk youth, 
and other community members. Your strategy needs to be focused or targeted 
towards those young people who have that particular issue that you are trying 
to engage. For example, our outreach workers actually focus on that level two 
young person, gang-involved youth. So, we have that resource that is not being 
spread over a bunch of, a bunch of different young people but really targeted. 
And then we have another program that is mentoring for example. And our 
mentoring initiative is focused at the lower -- at three and four -- young people 
who are in the category of the three and the four. So, again, we are trying to 
figure out how you build a system, build strategies, it's really understanding the 
young people who you are involved with, and then understanding what 
strategies are appropriate for those young people. Right; okay, Victor? 
I think the biggest thing too is to really look at the partners that you have in 
your -- in a given city. I think there's agencies that can service any one of these 
populations that we're seeing on the graph here. Who might those partners be? 
I mean anywhere from law enforcement, to probation officers -- even schools 
have a tendency to not want to engage themselves in gang intervention. But, 
they got to because it's gonna exist on the campus. I think it's really trying to 
bring folks together and educate them on, on how best I can address it and what 
population and what piece of the pie do I take to impact the whole city or to 
impact my area? 
And I think in order to really look and have impact on a problem that you have, 
you need all three areas. You need the prevention, you need intervention and 
you need the suppression of the police and the agencies involved. And you can 
see from community policing how important police have become as far as 
actually crossing boundaries now, not just as suppression aspects anymore. But 
actually helping out with the intervention and having kids go to different 
programming that they see out there and then the prevention areas before kids 

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do get involved in the system to make sure that those kids have an opportunity 
to do something else. 
Okay, how difficult, and Scott, let me address this question to you, how difficult 
is implementation and sustainability? 
Most of the evaluation and research of programs like these and other gang and 
delinquency programs has shown the two toughest steps are implementation 
and sustainability. So often it's the case a community does a good job assessing 
its problem, develops a good plan building on existing plans and resources and 
then goes to implement it and runs into a variety of roadblocks that lead it to fail 
to implement one part of the program, or omit completely another part of the 
program that has to be there. And then the sustainability, once you've 
implemented, the sustainability issues comes along. And it's -- it seems ironic to 
say that if you've got a good program and it's been running for a while, it is 
hard to sustain. It ought to be the opposite. Good programs ought to be self-
sustaining in communities and governments and leaders ought to support 'em. 
But for a variety of reasons those programs run into difficulty being sustained -- 
perhaps a key leader leaves and is replaced. But we believe that institutionalizing 
change, changing the system is the best way to ensure programs can be and 
strategies can be sustained over the long haul. 
Victor? I think, you know, in the Mayor's Anti-Gang Office, we try to be the 
lead folks there in this city, to be able to take it to a -- as a city, take it to the 
grassroots to educate and show people how to implement these types of 
strategies. 'Cause for many folks, it is new. And so us, as the office, we try to 
take that lead and put it out there and give them the confidence and the 
directions so that they can make there own assessment and create their own 
strategies for whatever issue that they're having in their area. 
And I want to say that leadership definitely is important. Again, for our office in 
Pittsburgh, it's the school district that is the lead agency. However, what we 
have found is buy-in is so important of your partners. If your partners don't 
buy-in, you could be the best leader, you could be the Mayor's Office, if you 
don't have that buy-in from your outreach team -- if you don't have that buy-in 
from your partners when one does fall away at the school district -- if I've left 
the school district and a new leader came in, how would we be able to really 
keep the momentum going? So buy-in is so important and everybody having 

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ownership of this project, it's not the school district's project in Pittsburgh, it's 
everybody on our team's project. Now, what does the buy-in look like? Oh, 
okay, well, buy-in looks like when people are actually following through. When 
we bring a particular young person to the table and says -- and say for example 
that he needs his school records because he stayed so much in a detention center 
and the school record's all fragmented. We need to get those together. Our 
juvenile probation partner will actually go and work with their team and get all 
those records together so that outreach worker can now go back to that young 
person and say, "I got all your records, we're ready to go get your GED or 
we're ready to get you in the Diploma Recovery Program," et cetera. Buy-in 
looks like when people actually do what they say. I mean that's just an action-
oriented piece. I'll give you an example. In Houston, with the Harris County 
Juvenile Probation Department, they have created gang-caseload probation 
officers. They are responsible from receiving kids from juvenile court. And our 
outreach personnel, from the office, team up with one another. But what does 
probation get out of it? Hopefully, better compliance. Over the years they have 
had poor compliance and over the years we've done a great job of partnering 
together to be able to educate them a lot more on the gangs and what's 
happening and in return, they educate us on what the criminal justice system is 
like for juveniles. 
So together and collectively, we're able to do stuff, creative parent and 
probation support group where we're talking about gangs and how to fix family 
and the person. 
So, I mean there's a lot of benefits to it. Okay, Joe, what does buy-in look like for 
you? When you see some of the interesting things that both Errika and Victor 
have brought up and the fact that the different jobs that each of these agencies 
have and it's very important that each agency and representative there 
understands what their responsibilities are within the whole picture. And you 
won't have this, this fighting, in-fighting then about, "That's my job -- no, it's 
your job." This is an important thing to really set down and what those should 
look like. 
Okay, let's talk about -- Joe, we'll come back to you, intervention or prevention, 
and how important is community foresight? 

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Well, the intervention and prevention aspects, of course, now you've got 
different areas you are looking at. Your looking at the kids that have never been 
an gang activities before, but maybe have siblings who are in gang activity or 
they live in an area that is heavily gang infested -- those kids are going to be at 
high risk of gang involvement. And you're looking at the prevention aspects to 
find them other avenues that are going to keep them out of the gang life. When 
you get to intervention, you've already taking kids who have taken that step 
into gang activity. Your starting working with them and you start looking at a 
whole new parameter of what you're going to be doing and the fact -- what 
safety issues are involved because you're now -- you're taking a kid out of a 
gang. And they always talk about, you've heard of jumping in and jumping out 
and the beatings and everything. What are you going to do two protect that 
individual and also, the protection of your own staff that's out there on the 
street with these individuals? Those are things that have to be looked at when 
you starting to look at the two different aspects. 
Okay, Victor, can you speak to that? Community policing, I think it is a big -- it's 
a big thing that we have to have. You know, people have a tendency to say, 
"Well, the police are supposed to be there to suppress." Well, that's fine, they're 
gonna do that anyway. But I think research has shown that over a long period 
of time, you've got to have prevention and intervention. In Houston, we -- 
some of our officers will go out and speak to students about gang activity and 
how to stay away that. 
We have a program, a elite law enforcement assistant project that is done with 
our Gang Free Schools Project, on the east end of Houston, where you team up 
the probation officer and you team up the police officer to, to monitor curfews 
and to interact with the family. Not just drive around, interact with the family; 
get to know what the family's about and what's going on with that individual. 
Joe started by talking about how the Boys and Girls Clubs have moved beyond 
the walls of the clubs and into community. And in a sense, community policing 
has meant the same thing for law enforcement where they have a better 
knowledge of the community where they've become problem solvers and 
where they can use that knowledge to solve problems with other means than 
arrests before they become bigger problems. 'Cause in the long run, our crime 
problems in American cities are large enough that we need the police to do 
more than just suppress we need them to engage in problem solving with 
community and community groups as well. 

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Errika? And that's you're intervention team. I think just police officers serving 
on an intervention team where they're actually talking about young people in a 
context other than just arrest and things of that nature, but there talking about 
services and supports that they might need, they are actually hearing an 
outreach worker talk positively about a kid. Because that -- the police officer 
might know only know the family as, you know, they cut up in the community, 
et cetera. But the outreach worker sees them in a different light. So, just police 
officers opening themselves up to sit around that table to give their time is 
actually just, you know, just a great thing. And then one other thing that I 
wanted to add is, you know, that whole relationship and dynamic between 
outreach workers and police officers actually sitting at the table, it's a whole 
different dynamic. And it does take time for those relationships to grow. And it 
does take time for those relationships to actually be -- for people to figure out -- 
as we heard talk about roles for people to figure out what are appropriate roles 
when you're sharing and talking about young people. 
Okay, I'd like to encourage you all, again, if you have any questions or 
comments, we would like to hear from you. All you have to do is send them to 
questions@DOJconnect.com. 
All right, why don't we move on. We're going to move into our next video. It 
says community leaders must recognize the presence of gangs and seek to 
understand the nature and extent of the local gang problem. Since its 
implementation, the Southern Nevada Gang Task Force Community Agency 
membership has averaged a growth rate of 55 percent each year. Today, over 
120 community agencies and 14 law enforcement jurisdictions work together in 
reducing gang activity through out the Las Vegas valley. The momentum of 
community support has continued to increased with the additional 
memberships of local casinos and community businesses. Using existing 
resources the gang task force members, have redirected youth to educational 
opportunities, job placement, and have created safe places for youth in areas 
that are heavily populated by gangs. So, let's take a look now at how Las Vegas 
is addressing its gang problems. Clark County is the fastest growing county in 
the state of Nevada. 
The gang population reached nearly 6,000 confirmed members with over 3,000 
associate members by the end of 2004. Gang behavior is becoming increasingly 
violent. Because of its proximity to California, the gang problem in Las Vegas is 
particularly unique. Traditional turf battles and rivalries are beginning to 
change. 

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The Southern Nevada Gang Task Force started in the early '90s. A group of 
community leaders including the sheriff and some commissioners were 
responding to some incidents of violence that were going on in the community. 
And in our work, we went as a group to actually one of the OJJDP symposiums. 
And were familiarized to the model that we use today which is the 
Comprehensive Gang Task Force Model. And then unfortunately, about three 
years ago we had some major violence in our community due to gang violence. 
We really needed to get the community involved. They needed to be 
empowered, to feel that it's my neighborhood, that there is some ownership 
there. "How dare they come in my neighborhood and take lives or commit 
crimes." And that sparked the forming of the Community Gang Task Force, 
here in Las Vegas. 
The Southern Nevada Gang Task Force efforts are part of the community 
mobilization process that employs a steering committee. The steering 
committee is made up of chairs from each of the programs that support 
prevention, intervention and suppression of gang activity. Jerry Simon is a 
gang specialist with the Clark County Juvenile Justice Services and a member of 
the steering committee. The steering committee is the actual string or thread 
that connects the top of the gang task force with the bottom of the gang task 
force. Many communities can testify something gets lost between the top and 
the bottom and people rarely receive what was intended. 
We are just in the beginning of forming a partnership with Big Brother, Big 
Sister. I'm sure everyone knows about them. They will come in and do group 
mentoring. 
The steering committee is in the middle and we connect the top with the bottom. 

6/6/06 17 
And this is at three targeted sites; it's the McCabe Club, North Las Vegas, and 
the Andre Agassi Club. 
We do contracts, we do the Board of County Commissioner recommendations 
so that through all of the government entities, the i's are dotted and t's are 
crossed. So that everything that was envisioned at the top is delivered at the 
grassroots level. The task force cooperates with law enforcement in suppression 
and to identify gang members. By communicating and sharing intelligence, law 
enforcement agencies are able to come together and impact some of the 
unsolved cases to really bring a case to trial and lockup some of these notorious 
gang members. Okay, we're still verifying -- I'll let you know in a second. That's 
the key -- community and law enforcement. 
The only way we can do a really sincere effective effort, is to work together. The 
police capture intelligence to reduce the threat of gangs to the community. 
Those tattoos usually tell a story; these are all going to be documented with him, 
as a gangster, here in Las Vegas. (yelling) The Southern Nevada Gang Task 
Force also partners with Get High on Kicks Not Drugs. A program designed to 
build awareness, character and prevent at-risk youth from entering gangs. Our 
job here is to keep the kids that are good staying good and the kids that are 
halfway over the fence to bring them back over to our yard. We want to get 
children into our program by -- the twist is that they go through our 
workshops, will teach them the martial arts for free. 
So, it's kind of a hook here. Kids want to do the program, they want to get into 
the karate classes but they don't want to do anything for it. Our role is to get 
them interested in the other workshops and to get them to understand what is 
really out there. Approximately 420 children have participated in Get High on 
Kicks in the last two years. 
The Boys and Girls Clubs of Las Vegas, play a critical role on the prevention 
subcommittee of the gang task force. People will say to you, "Well, why, why 
when something happens gang related in the community -- why is the Boys and 
Girls Club there?" Where else are we to be? It's the very place that we need to 
be; our staff are trained to be there, we work with our community partners -- 
that's why we are where we're at and that's how we really impact gangs in Las 
Vegas. They utilize community partnerships to provide a positive atmosphere 
for children. 

6/6/06 18 
This program offers an alternative to youth who are at risk of being involved in 
a gang lifestyle. We are able to offer them a choice. Many times they grow up 
thinking that being involved in gang is what their life is supposed to be all about. 
And when they become a member of Boys and Girls Clubs of Las Vegas, we do 
provide an alternate lifestyle for them. 
The mission of the Boys and Girls Club of Las Vegas is to change the lives of 
children. It's not just about a positive place. It's not just about programs and 
services. For the kids that come to our clubs that we spend our time with, we 
literally change their lives. 
You should do whatever is in your heart, what is good for you. Boys and Girls 
Club made me realize that no matter what's going on in my life, I can do what I 
want to. (music) 
My hopes for the future are helping to share our experiences and a lot of the 
inside knowledge that we have with other gang task forces across the country. 
We are so excited about this model that we really have taken it to the statewide 
task force and we have said there are other communities across the state that 
could truly benefit from putting all or even pieces of the OJJDP model in place. 
And if each component of that model is working properly, you will get results 
and you will get success. 
The OJJDP model and the gang task force implemented by Clark County 
Nevada, has been successful, not only in coordinating community resources to 
show children a brighter future but by making Las Vegas a happier, safer city in 
which to work and live. 
All right, welcome back; we're gonna take some of the questions that you all 
have sent in. This first question comes from William Sulstrum, and it says, 

6/6/06 19 
"What are the first steps that a community takes to start a grassroots gang 
prevention program and how do you engage residents that have fear and 
apathy?" 
Well, The very first step is assessment. You've got to understand the dimensions 
of your gang problem, its relationship to crime in your community, 
membership. And there are a number of tools available up on the web under 
the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention website that allow you 
to do community assessment of the strengths and resources in your community 
and agencies. You can also go to the Helping America's Youth website that's 
also on our resource list that will lists all of the federal funded programs and 
resources available in your community. So, once you've done that assessment, 
then it is time to use it and move ahead to craft interventions. 
All right, Errika? 
Yeah, and let's bring up the slide about the five strategies for the comprehensive 
gang model. Because that will help us actually answer this question of little bit 
better. Okay. The first part of the strategy is actually community organization. 
So, it really goes to the heart of that question. I mean, it lays out ways to engage 
people. It lays out -- like for example, in Pittsburgh, right now, we're have 
community dialogs around these teleconferences. And so we're gonna get 
different people who are gonna come, and visit and sit and listen and figure out 
how they get tapped in to what's happening in our area. Also, we have some 
public safety committees that are in Pittsburgh, that people and homeowners are 
all involved in -- block watches. Those are the places where you find these 
people who you want to start your grassroot organization. The second -- the 
grassroot effort -- the second part is opportunity prevention. 
You know, what opportunities can you give to young people -- that's the second 
part of the model. The third part of the model talks about social intervention. 
What are we going to do with the parents? You can't just talk about the young 
people, the young people, the young people and never talk about that family 
that young person goes home to every single day. The fourth part is 
suppression. Law enforcement has a wall in this model -- why sometimes as 
community members we may not want to talk about law enforcement as being 
our partners. Law enforcement needs to be our partner because if a community 
is not safe, if a community has members in it who are causing and wreaking 

6/6/06 20 
havoc in that community, they might need to be removed. And the last part is 
organizational change. What do school district's needs to do in order to stop 
gang members from being produced or stop young people from choosing gang 
membership? What do law enforcement departments need to do? What do 
social service agencies need to do, et cetera? That model brings it all together in 
a platform that can help really people understand how we move forward. I 
think what it does, Doris, too, is the model allows you a structure, a starting 
point. It gives you something to look at. When you talk about gangs, there is 
that initial fear of just gang's activity, period. There is a level of denial. You have 
to educate a community about what is going on with gangs so they can have a 
better understanding. Invite all the key stakeholders that you're gonna need -- 
like law enforcement, criminal justice, schools and so forth and so on. I think it 
allows you to bring people together. Once they come together, they start to 
share. Your natural leaders start to come out. 
And once they start to come out, you start to be able to develop dialog and trust 
and building those relationships. Then eventually you can come up with some 
real good strategies to address something in your area. Oh, go ahead, Errika. 
And one of the things I wanted to say about the model is, building on what 
Victor said, in going back to the -- Scott had talked about is a lot of times when 
people are implementing the model, the don't implement all aspects of the 
model. And when you really look at all the aspects -- if your group that wants 
to do suppression all the time, then their not -- the model bring you back and 
says there are four other components that you need to do. When you have 
somebody who's only focused on providing opportunities to kids but not 
looking at community safety the model bring you back. So that's how the 
model really starts to stabilize your efforts. 
All right, go ahead, Victor. 
It takes, it takes time. This is new. For many folks that are not accustomed to 
working in this type of structure, new for law enforcement, new for outreach 
worker, new for schools 'cause everybody has their way of dealing with gangs. 
But I think this just allows you to be able to say, "What is my piece of the pie -- 
what is it that I'm going to be best at with this whole team, with this whole 
effort that we're trying to conduct here?" Okay, Scott? 

6/6/06 21 
One of the virtues of the timing of this is that it occurs several years after many 
communities have been engaged in Read and See, another partnership. It also 
occurs after Project Safe Neighborhoods has been on the ground for four or five 
years. And there's a partnership and a history of working together in many 
communities that didn't exist five or six years ago. One of the things that is 
really clear from the research is that if you only have one of the pieces of this 
model, you are not going to be successful. The only way to be successful, and it's 
more difficult to implement -- but the only way to be successful is to have all the 
pieces of the model with a roughly equivalent emphasis on each of them and 
then you've got a chance to begin to reduce gang membership and gang crime 
in your community. Joe? 
And the model will change as you go along through the process, also, in the fact 
that responsibilities might enhance in some areas, police may take on some 
responsibilities like they weren't taking on before like information sharing more 
in the community, attending community meetings, attending school meetings, 
spreading out the word as far as what is going on in the community as far as 
gangs are concerned. Schools will take on a different aspect. So you're going to 
see some changing roles as the program -- as the process goes on in time. 
Well, I endorse what I think has to happen with this is that as agencies, as a city, 
a state, a country, whatever it is we are going to put it in reference to, we got to 
put our egos aside. We've got to look and think outside the box to be able to 
implement and impact gang crime in any give city, state, or area. We've got to 
put that ego aside, we've got to look at new ways of doing things. 
All right, we have a couple more questions here; this one comes from Detroit, 
Michigan, and it says, "What are a few best practice models to address the needs 
of exfelons returning to the community from prison?" 
Actually, Doris, due to OJJDP funding as early as 1998 with us, we started a 
target reentry process. Where we're actually taking Boys and Girls Clubs and 
placing them in the correctional facilities working with young people and 
developing relationships with those young people while they are incarcerated. 
And that's -- we talked about the early planning that goes on, I think Scott 
mentioned that, we actually start looking at the case planning that goes on with 
these youth at the time they enter the facility. Work with them while they are in 
the facility, do some programming as far as maybe job ready -- which shows 

6/6/06 22 
them how to do -- their -- how to address themselves, how to do an interview 
and so on, then you move on into the factory and transition them back into the 
community. And eventually, back in the community we're still case managing 
those individuals. So, it becomes a three part operation. Where you're in the 
facility during the transition and into the community, but they can learn to 
depend that there are support factions out there from adults, caring adults and 
other role models that they can depend on and get that support from and work 
them back in to the community and give them a job when they get back in the 
community and help them with other needs and work in those areas. Okay, 
Scott? 
Addressing reentry, especially for gang members, is absolutely critical. 
Somewhere between 92 and 94 percent nationally, of everyone who is in prison 
now is going to be back on the street. And it's our question and it's our 
challenge to decide how we want them to come back and what we want them to 
do in our community. Do we want them to commit more crimes or do we want 
to take the steps that will enable them to become better integrated into the 
community. The research is pretty clear that the two most critical needs are 
housing and employment. And the more we can do in a state like Missouri, for 
example, that has a transition accountability plan, a TAP, when an inmate is 
committed to prison, within the first six months of their confinement, they are 
working on that plan to transition back to the community so it doesn't come up 
right before they are ready to come out. They have had time to plan on who is 
going to take them in to live and where they might look for a job and how they 
can get their Social Security card while they're still in prison and how they can 
move as seamlessly as possible. It's a really difficult transition, rarely seamless, 
from the prison into the community in a way that they won't prey on and won't 
commit crimes against other members of the community. 
Errika, isn't this where you said there's got to be -- it's very important to have a 
buy-in from the partners? 
Yeah, the partners and employers. I mean, this came up at the last community 
forum that you guys had last time. All committee members were talking about 
you need to have employers who are willing to hire the offenders when they 
come back to their home town. You need to add a network of employers to 
really be ready to get them a job. 

6/6/06 23 
I think we have just seen from the Attorney General Gonzales' efforts in those 
six new communities where a portion of that, actually $500,000 of that money 
that is going out there is earmarked for reentry operations back into the 
community. So, the leadership is seeing that there is a need out there to make 
sure that this reentry process is put into place. 
I think, Doris, the first 60 days, the first 30 days for a lot of guys is very crucial 
when they're coming out -- when they come out of prison or they're coming 
out of the county jail. They contact our office, you know, they have all of those 
issues, "I don't have an ID, I still got some stuff with child support -- I don't 
know how to do that; I don't want to go back to jail." They are faced with so 
many issues. And they're anxious to get something started and get going. But 
what we've got to pool our resources together and be a little more open. I know 
it's a dangerous situation sometimes for some folks. Because you get a young 
man, he's coming in with all of these felonies and chemical plants might look at 
him but nobody else. So, it's a, it's a battle -- it's a battle. We've got to open up a 
little bit. 
Okay, let's take another question, this one is from Chicago, Illinois, it says, "How 
have the various programs used to evaluation in their program?" 
The one thing I love about -- and Victor, we are like sort of peers here...in 
regards to our programs -- we have an evaluation that not only looks at what 
we're doing with the young people who we engage and who we enroll, but 
there is also a control group. There is another group of kids who are not getting 
services, not like that, in another area of the city and they are actually 
comparing how much more have these kids actually been involved in the 
program, how much have they benefited from our services, from our 
interventions, et cetera. So, this is real, real evaluation, not just we're just gonna 
provide some services and say everything works good. But when you have a 
comparison group like that, you're really making sure that you're giving a 
control for what these interventions have provided. Also, what we do is we look 
at our target areas and we look at gang crime in particular and we see from the 
implementation of the project has it gone up, has it gone down, has it fluctuating 
and we can also sort of tie that back to the project as well. 
Joe? The Boys and Girls Clubs have the opportunity to partake in a evaluation in 
1999-2001, which they took clubs across the country and did an evaluation 

6/6/06 24 
through public-private ventures. And it was shown that if you put some effort 
behind these individuals and work with these kids and get them back into the 
clubs, get them back into pro-social activities, that in a lot of cases, and in most 
cases, you'll be effective in keeping them away from the gang activity and 
keeping them -- getting them out of the gang activity. 
The other thing I wanted to say is that this model that we are talking about has 
not just come up overnight in only working with Victor and my project. I mean, 
it has been in existence -- you've seen Riverside has been using it for ten years. 
So, it's not something this is just fly-by-night. Let's take another question. This 
one comes to us...from somewhere. (laughter) 
It says, "Are the workers cross-trained in other adolescent problems, i.e. 
substance abuse, violence, STD-pregnancy prevention, truancy, delinquency, et 
cetera?" 
All are necessary, you've got to have it. With my line staff, you've got to have 
some knowledge about substance abuse. Do you do the actually counseling on it 
-- no. You've got to refer that out and to your partners. If it's substance abuse 
related -- HIV obviously, you're not going to be -- you'll be train enough to be 
able to recognize but then also to be able to create some referral sources for the 
clients that you run across. It is necessary. You got to have it. Because the 
outreach worker cannot do it by themself. All of the issues that these kids come 
with, you've got to have a variety of information and you've got to be trained 
on them enough to recognize it. 
You know, one of the things that was talked about in the video was the 
importance of the steering committee, it connects from the top down to the 
bottom. I wonder if I can come to you, Errika, with this one -- let's talk about 
the steering committee, what does the steering committee do? 
Sure, the steering committee's role is really they're the heavy hitters, I would 
say -- your chief of police is on your steering committee, people -- your chief 
probation officer's on your steering committee, CEOs of organizations are on 
your steering committee. Those are the ones that can really be able to get you 
the resources that you need. Again, we talked about funded programs, non-

6/6/06 25 
funded programs, when you have good partners who are willing to say I will 
give you 50 slots at all my -- at my programs and your kids can come in, when 
you have a partner who has the authority to speak for an organization to do 
that, then you have a great partner. Also, they set the policy for your 
intervention -- your collaboratives you're trying to do. They help to understand 
what the line staff are dealing with -- the line staff can bring the steering 
committee issues and barriers that they're dealing with -- and the steering 
committee because of their positions are able to make those calls, make those 
transitions, be the champion for this program that you need and get the line 
staff, the resources that they need. 
Okay, what's Pittsburgh, doing about adopting the model? 
We'll I mean, we're in our third year and we really love the model. I mean I get 
so excited about the model. We have an excellent steering committee. I talk 
about our new United States Attorney sits on our steering committee. I've 
talked about the DA's Office, I talked about the YMCA -- all of these people are 
sitting at our steering committee. It sits in the middle of the school district. To 
me, I've done other programs where we work with serious violent offenders et 
cetera, but I haven't worked with a program that has actually brought together 
these key players who have bought into this project and we are moving it 
forward in Pittsburgh. 
Victor? You know, doing gangs for almost 17 years, now that I'm thinking 
about it, we were doing a lot of these things informally. And, you know, one 
thing I've learned over all of the years I've been doing this, you've got to get 
better at working smarter not harder. And this model actually gives us a lot to 
be able to explain to other people and educate other people about how this 
thing works because a lot of people sometimes are lost. They don't know what 
to do with gang violence and how do we impact it. And I think being able to 
articulate the model at the different locations and the different people we need 
to address it to, it makes a lot of sense and it makes it easier for us. And in 
Houston, we're adopting a lot of these things and we're practicing it in our office 
currently. And hoping that the mayor is going to continue to look and see the 
office and the work that we're doin' to be able to implement it and look at it 
citywide. 

6/6/06 26 
Okay, Errika? The other thing about this model, it really takes the outreach 
component. There are outreach components that been done, you know, without 
this type of support but it really takes the outreach component and really places 
it in its proper place and really puts it in the middle and actually gives those 
outreach workers those resources they need to really change young people's 
lives who are involved in gangs. 
Okay, and again, this model is on the website DOJConnect.com. 
Scott, why don't we come to you. Let's talk about the infrastructure of the 
model. Well, I think it begins for me with the assessment piece that we talked 
about before and with knowledge. I liken the gang intervention process to 
almost a medical intervention. If you want to the doctor and the doctor said, 
"Well, we've never tried this before, but it sounds like you ought to be taking 
this medication or we're going to be doing this surgery to ya," I suspect we'd all 
be out that door pretty quickly. We ought to ask for the same level of certainty 
and clarity in what are perhaps equally important interventions against gang 
crime, against delinquency. I think most importantly, to help young people have 
healthy and productive lives. So, one key for me is that assessment both of the 
community as well as individuals and to make sure that local communities tailor 
their responses to the particular nature of the problem that exists in that 
community, rather than some fixed image of a gang problem that might exist in 
the media somewhere or might exist in a movie somewhere, but really doesn't 
exist on the ground. The way you do good assessment is to use validated and 
reliable assessment tools like are on the web at the OJJDP and COPS websites. 
You get input from a variety of groups and you build that input to form a base 
of knowledge from which your intervention comes. But then you've got to 
monitor it on a regular basis. You can't say, "We've got it solved now, we'll just 
do this for the next ten years," because your gang problem is going to change 
hopefully, as your intervention gets more effective that will help to change the 
problem a little bit. 
Joe? And I think if you're looking at the things you're looking at -- Errika, from 
Pittsburgh, Victor, from Houston, when you saw on the screen that these cities 
that they come from -- but I think that you have to remember here that this 
model will work in any size community. It's not geared just for a large 
community, but a sized community as long as you adhere to the model, the 
outcome will look a little different depending on the size of the community and 
what the resources are in the community, but the model, if you adhere to the 
model, you should have success. 

6/6/06 27 
Okay, what about the leadership that's needed? 
Well, I think Errika mentioned the key role of the heavy hitters... Project Safe 
Neighborhoods, for example, that have -- that has U.S. Attorneys and district 
attorneys and police chiefs and probation directors -- they have to be there to 
send the symbolic message but also the other message that this will be done and 
produce accountability. But the other key leaders are the leaders on the street. 
And it might be a sergeant or it might be a lieutenant in a police department. It 
might be a probation supervisor. It might be a deputy juvenile officer in the 
juvenile court. So there's two levels of leadership that have to be present. 
I think you can break it down even further -- parents can come together and 
create a committee of its own and identify what its community needs. And I'll 
tell you what, there will -- they make the noise they're gonna get attention. 
When you have a lot of moms, a lot of dads that are out there that are saying, 
"We don't want this in our community. We're gonna create our own little 
committee that is similar to the steering committee and we want things done out 
here. And I need you, and I need you, and I need you. And I need you come, 
we're gonna host a meeting." Sometimes parents can do a lot of good things 
and people in the community can really make noise to get really people to the 
table. 
You heard us talk a lot about the assessment process and that, but remember, 
like Victor says, the parents are very, very important in the assessment process 
also. Whenever we start up a gang prevention and intervention approach in 
any community, we always do focus groups with parents to ask them what is 
going on from their perspective. You ask the youth what is going on from their 
perspective in the community. They should really know. They are right there 
on the street with this thing. They got the knowledge of what's going on. So, 
make sure you get those people and get their perspective in also. 
And Joe, I mean you basically, just stole that answer right from me. But I do 
want to just enhance on it. I want to say that young people can also be very 
instrumental. I mean a lot -- we start talking and we start talking about 
providing services to them. But we also need to talk about they can actually be 

6/6/06 28 
leaders to us in this whole process as well. We're working on a youth council 
right now. We actually, on our steering committee have two slots for young 
people. But, what has happened is sometimes we don't prepare those young 
people to be able to sit at that level. So we're gonna go back now; we're gonna 
do some training, we're gonna do some developing and we're gonna bring 
those young people back out. 
So they can help you, help themselves. 
That's key -- they have all the insight. I mean when my line staff hits the street, 
the first thing we're going to is the kids. "What's happening out here? I've 
already heard from a principal, I already heard from the officer, I already heard 
from the parent -- What's going down for real, man; what's happening?" And 
they sit there and they explain to you what's going on and they give you a 
totally different perspective. 
I mean, you've got to have them at the table, they're just as important from the 
community standpoint perspective. Right. Young people forgive us for taking 
so long to get to you. 
We do realize you are very, very important. Right; young people, you are 
important. Okay, well, structured, good quality, early-learning experiences for 
young children are shown to have big payoffs in crime prevention, especially 
when combined with comprehensive family services. The gang reduction 
program in the city of Los Angeles, incorporates a comprehensive approach to 
reducing youth gang crime and violence including an inventory and integration 
of existing community services, coordination of local, state, and federal 
resources, and the application of best practices primary and secondary 
prevention. The GRP has implemented an innovative one-stop community 
center that targets all children and families living in the area. 
It provides prenatal and infancy support, truancy and dropout prevention, and 
afterschool and summer programs, employment services, and referrals. 
Secondary prevention services target high-risk youth, ages seven to 14, and 
provide focused services to avoid a pattern of increasing anti-social behavior and 
gang involvement. Services include intensive case management, mentoring for 

6/6/06 29 
young males, gang awareness, training for parents and the community, and 
afterschool and recreational activities. Let's take a look now, at what Los 
Angeles has done. 
(police radio) 
The street that we're -- that you're looking at is 8th Street; but, 8th Street and 
VNE, Varrio Nuevo, are enemies. So, anything that has an "8" on it, VNE is 
going to crossout in their neighborhood. So this is VNE's neighborhood, don't 
come here, don't come near me, this is my hood, this is my area, we hate 8th 
Street, you come here you're dead. Gang reduction program area is a -- it 
encompasses four gangs, basically. The gangs are a VNE, Varrio Nuevo Estrada; 
the other gang we'll be going to shortly is the 8th Street Gang they encompass 
Ivanwood. Another gang that we'll -- that GRP works with is the Opal Street 
Gang and then some of the White Fence Gang as well. 
Boyle Heights is five miles square; 200,000 people live in this East Los Angeles 
neighborhood with more than 7,000 documented gang members. 
Per capita, that gives the Hollenbeck division of the Los Angeles Police 
Department more gangs to suppress than in any other police division in L.A. 
Suppression does work, I mean, we're taking some of the most violent criminals 
in Los Angeles off the street and putting them behind bars where they belong. 
So, what we do works but it's not the answer -- it's not the only answer. It's like 
I said, a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. We look at it, yeah, we're still going to 
take thug to jail -- we're still going to put that guy behind bars, but we're also 
going to take time and refer them to -- give them some options other than the 
options that they face in just thug life and this project life that they live in. 
The gang reduction program in Boyle Heights now in its first year, looks with 
compassion on the community's investment as well as its needs for young 
people. 

6/6/06 30 
These are just generations of gangs, families of gangs. Mainly in the Estrada 
Courts -- the VNE, Varrio Nuevo Estrada, and the 8th Street Gang. Kids are 
kind of born into it and it is a way of life for them. But I think, if given the 
chance, these kids have the potential to succeed. They have the potential to go to 
college, you know, complete their bachelor's degree, go to a four-year 
university, to capture the American dream. And all they need is a little 
motivation, all they need is a little assistance. If our program can do that for 
them, then I think, you know, we're successful. 
I am 24 years old, I've been locked up seven years, and I have been in the system 
since I was ten years old. In this first phase of the gang reduction program, 
several intervention programs have been implemented. One of those programs 
is called Get It Straight. The Get It Straight program is a early intervention 
program for at-risk fifth grade students. It's really targeting those youth that are 
already exhibiting risk behaviors and essentially exhibiting a cry for help 
already. What about you sir, why do you think you came here today? So I 
could learn more about not being a gangster. Not being a gangster and making 
better choices. Okay, because even as young as you all are you can make better 
choices that's what it's all about. 'Cause they made the bad choices and they're 
here; and they're here today to talk to you guys, so you guys can now make 
better choices. So, you don't have to end up where they've ended up. The Get It 
Straight program is a violence prevention and intervention program for at-risk 
students at Deena Elementary school which straddles the line between two 
competing youth gangs. I'm -- Rivera, I'm locked up for second degree murder; 
I've been locked up since the age of 15, I am 22 years old now. I've been in the 
system since nine years old. ...I have been incarcerated for almost nine years and 
I came into the system when I was 13 -- '97. 
I started gang banging at 11 years old, wanted acceptance from my peers... They 
bring in individuals who have been there, done that. Former gang members, 
former drug addicts, to let them know that this is a possibility for them, that 
they did start this young and that they never saw this life for themselves. And 
that if they could go back, they would change or make different choices in their 
lives. 
When you guys go home, make sure you let your parents know that you love 
them and that you're gonna listen to them. And you're gonna do good in 
school. And you're gonna make them happy; how many of you guys are going 
to promise me that? 

6/6/06 31 
Overall, the goal of GRPLA is to provide our kids with opportunities. 
Opportunities for them to succeed, in spite of everything that is going against 
them, whether it be at home, at school, in the community. 
So, does this neighborhood have a chance? 
You bet it does. For the most part, crime is down here. So, those numbers are 
really amazing; I look at all of the stats as does GRP and things are getting better. 
We've got to get all partners involved, not just the faith-based community, not 
just nonprofit organizations, but we also have to get law enforcement involved, 
the city attorney's office involved and convince them that our kids are worth 
saving. If we can work together, to provide those services as opposed to 
incarcerating them or prosecuting them, then we can begin to help our youth. 
So, it's just getting them to the table and for them to agree that our kids deserve 
a chance. 
All right, welcome back. Joe, when a community finally admits that they had a 
gang problem, what do they do? 
Well, Doris, speaking from 27 years in law enforcement, what usually happens is 
the mayor gets involved and calls the police chief and tells the police chief he 
wants him to take care of the gang problem. Which really doesn't have the 
effect we want it to have. We can talk about community policing which is great, 
and we try to get out there and do community policing. There is a number of 
things we've done in community policing models with CERA's models and 
different models, but the whole thing is that you to have to get the community 
involved. The police department knows this in most cases now and will start 
working with community agencies like you've talked about here and the fact 
that we have to get other people involved. It's not just a police problem. Police, 
it's -- the main objective of the police department is the suppression aspect -- 
take the big hitters off of the street, lock them up and take that away. But you 
still got the problem. 

6/6/06 32 
Well, it says at the beginning of the video, they were saying suppression works 
but it is not the answer. You've got to give them options. 
That is correct and the options are you've got a lot of community agencies out 
there that have a lot of good operations going that can help out in all of these 
different areas. And there's not just one need, there's many needs out there. 
Why we have gangs, why the kids are getting involved in that and those things 
have to be addressed by community agencies and the community in the whole. 
Okay, we have a couple of questions here; let me start -- this one is from 
Tennessee. It says, "How are youth gangs in rural communities different; are 
there differences in prevention, intervention, and suppression efforts in a rural 
communities?" 
Errika? Well, first I want to say is that sometimes people -- first of all, in any 
situation you have to admit that you have a problem. I think a lot of times, 
those communities might have been slower in the past -- might have been 
slower in recognizing that, "I think that we really do have a gang the problem." 
The National Youth Gang Center has an excellent publication that is on there 
website it is www.iir.com/nygc/ -- I mean you can Google it. And they have an 
excellent publication that talks about gangs in rural areas and how you have to 
mobilize in order to combat that issue. And it's basically, the model. Again, the 
model works anywhere. 
Scott? I think, you know, Errika's point underscores one of the things we've 
been saying today and that is there is help for local communities. Your not 
going to have to invent a response or an assessment model or a community 
assessment model from scratch here. Between the COPS Office website and the 
OJJDP Office website, there's lots of resources for about any problem related to 
gangs -- identifying it, how you respond to it, how you deal with prison gangs -- 
a variety of the issues that you can go to for help. But you can't just take those 
off the shelf like software and plug it in to your local community. They have to 
be adapted to the characteristics of where you are and what your problem is. 

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All right, let's take another question. "Is there an increase in younger children 
and teen girls who are joining gangs?" 
Well, the data from the National Youth Gangs Center, which we've got good 
time -- overtime trend data, show that gang membership and the number of 
gangs has been declining, albeit slightly, over the course of the last several 
years. And that's, that's the good news. This also occurs at a time when violent 
crime rates measured either through the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports or 
through the National Crime Victimization Survey, show that the rates of violent 
crime are declining and have been doing so for a long time and the survey data 
show that violent crime is as low as it has been in the last eight or ten years. 
That's the good news. We always need to be concerned about a gang 
membership at young ages. And I think if we refer back to that response 
pyramid, that we showed earlier in the show that's up at the DOJConnect.com 
that people can download and printout, that group at the bottom of the 
pyramid, the young people who are the objects of primary prevention and 
those who are getting secondary prevention who have begun to show some of 
the signs of membership are people we need to be concerned about because as a 
society, we value and we want to protect six, and seven, and eight, and nine, and 
ten year olds from a variety of things as they develop and as they mature so 
that they can mature and develop into productive citizens. 
I think in Houston, I know I've seen, we've seen an increase with our younger 
population. And that interest has always been there; you know, being in this 
field for so long, it never really goes away. But I think what happened was that 
for a little while we stopped addressing it. And when you stop addressing it well 
that has a tendency to distort numbers and statistics. But when you're on the 
ground and my Get outreach folks are on the ground running and I'm out doing 
presentations, I was ask more this year, our office was asked more this year to 
present at the elementary and intermediate school level than we have had in a 
long time. 'Cause the kids were experimenting and displaying gang related 
behaviors. The were aggressive, they were practicing gang signs, they were 
coming up with graffiti, making up their own little gang names, you know, 
were bullying kids and name calling and teasing -- there was a lot of that going 
on. And some of the kids had some bad grades and their attendance wasn't 
even that great. Parents were coming in not trying to be very forthcoming and 
we're trying to help. I still think it exists there with the little ones. We've got to 
stay on top of them -- I call them the little bittys -- you got to stay on top of 
them because they want to know how to stay away; just like they always want 
to know what it's about you can also teach them, 'cause they're just interested in 
that. 

6/6/06 34 
Okay, how can -- oh, Errika, you wanted to comment? And I also wanted to say 
that Dr. Scott Decker is talking about the national trends and while, I know we 
community people -- all the people who are listening and watching, some of 
them are probably saying, "Not my community!" It is possible that in certain 
communities that it could be going up, while, however, the nation is going 
down. 
So, I just wanted to just add that. And that's why early intervention is so 
important. 
And assessing your own community. I mean if the rest of the country is going 
down but you are that one city, you know, when New York homicide rates 
were going down and they dipped below those of Chicago the good news was 
for the country homicide was going down, the bad news was if you were the 
mayor or the police chief in Chicago, then you were all of a sudden in the 
spotlight. So, you need to assess your local problem, know where you stand 
and then respond to the nature of that problem. 
Just last week I was on the east coast and there is a community out there and it's 
not a real large community that had 15 shootings in a three day period, gang-
related shootings. Now, when you've gotten to that extreme, you've got to 
really take some measures to do something about it. Hopefully, you can address 
these things before you get to that point where you got this type of activity and 
this type of real criminal activity going on. 
Would you say the community was in denial? Not anymore. Okay. (laughing) 
Errika, you wanted to comment? No. All right, well, let's take another question; 
this one is from Tampa, Florida. And the question is, "How can you tell the 
difference between a wannabe and a real gang member?" 
Victor, we'll start with you! Called a wannabe or gonnabe or whatever you 
called it. Obviously, when they're younger, they talk a lot. They're talking and 
bragging and trying to display the graffiti and the hand signs and they get to 
messing around. And I think what happens is, is that sometimes we 

6/6/06 35 
underestimate that little one. That little one, if you're not careful, will make it a 
point to try and show that he wants to become gang involved and he'll do 
whatever it takes. He'll be aggressive, he may bring a bandana to school, again 
the graffiti. His grades may not be as good, he may have poor attendance on 
occasion. He's starting to experiment with that. Your gang member is 
sometimes not even in school. And when he is in school, he is going to be out 
there just causing havoc. He's going to display the gang colors, he's probably 
going to have visible tattoos. He's probably going to be a leader or have 
influence on a group of people that cause violence in the community, on the 
campus -- the school campus. The level of activity is very, very -- it's a little bit 
more -- he's a little bit more active. And also, he is not going to talk much -- he 
don't talk much. His deal is to carry out the gang activity and the gang activity 
only they'll be running amok. 
I would really like to see us do away with the word "wannabe" out of the English 
language. Okay? I'm really, I'm afraid of that word because it seems that when 
you say a wannabe, people -- I mean they hear a lot, "Oh, he's just a wannabe." 
And like Victor said, you can have a lot more problems with just a wannabe then 
you have with a regular gang member in the fact that they are not using 
thoughts sometimes behind their actions and they just go ahead and do 
something just because it seems like the right thing to do at the time and 
they're going to cause more problems then the gang member actually in some 
cases. So, if we can do away with that and look at the fact that we have to treat 
those cases and look at them as far as prevention and intervention actually are 
concerned and get them away from that lifestyle. 
Errika? And I wanted to go back to that rural question. I think a lot of time 
young people who are in those rural communities, people just want to say, "Oh, 
they're just wannabees; they see tv, and they're trying to emulate what they see 
on tv." But we're finding out that there -- I think Victor, called them 
"gonnabees" are "now they are." Right. Scott? I worked with a community in 
the the late 1980s of which the police chief said, "We don't have real gang 
member here, because they're not Los Angeles Bloods and Crips." And I said, 
"Chief, there are in your local communities, Bloods and Crips." He said, "No, 
unless they are from L.A. or Chicago, they're not real gang to members." 
And I think that leads us to the denial issue. But there are other resources, I 
think, at an individual level. Parents may have the question, "How do I know 
that my son or daughter is gang involved?" And on the COPS website, there is a 
Parent's Reference Card that people can go to. It's on DOJConnect.com. Where 

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you can look for the signs that your child may be a gang member or may be 
getting close to becoming in a gang. 
Well, what are some of those signs? 
If I had my glasses on I would be able to read it. Okay, well, give them to Victor, 
he'll can read them. (laughter) Change in grades, new friends, misbehavior at 
home, having more cash than usual, wearing one particular color. And I think 
one of the things that the card illustrates is that we want to talk about this very 
clear line between a gang member and a non-gang member. And for many 
juveniles there is a period of experimentation with the lifestyle. And it's not like 
overnight they sign a piece of paper and they become a gang member. They 
become involved and they've done more activities. And so it is a gradual 
process. And for the intervention side, if we can recognize that early and 
intervene while they are in the early stages of becoming a gang member, we're 
gonna have fewer problems. 
I have a question then; when you see these young, young children moving 
towards gang activity, is it because things aren't well at home, they are being 
bullied someplace else, I mean, what is drawing them in at such an early age? 
I think community has a lot to do with it. Sometimes there's communities that 
are just infested with the gang, with the gang lifestyle and they become 
accustomed to just seeing it. Family tradition, you get a lot of siblings, older 
brothers, older sisters who may be involved in the gang and they just kind of -- 
the kids have kind of learned it. Or, it has been taught and it is expected. You 
know, "I came through the ranks and now it's your time to come through the 
ranks." I think it's a lot of -- a combination of those things. Family issues, the 
kid's not feeling part of family, parents not really understanding their own 
issues and never worked through their own issues. Substance abuse is a big 
factor. Mental health. I think there are so may different issues that come 
together with a family and these kids end up getting sucked in, however you 
want to call it, by accident or just by nature of engaging in it -- "It's what I want 
to do, I want to become a game member." 

6/6/06 37 
I think it's important that we keep in mind that adolescence is a period of 
experimentation, young people trying new things, they are becoming adults, 
they're breaking away from their family, they're breaking away from their 
parents. They are trying on their independence, so to speak. But adolescence is 
also a period when young people form groups and they become a part of 
groups and that is a normal behavior for adolescents. What we need to ensure is 
that the groups they belong to and the groups they become affiliated with are 
law abiding and not law violating. We, in the research community, talk about 
pulls -- and attractions towards joining the game: it may bring status, it may 
bring money, it may bring reputation. But there are also pushes. When young 
people experience school failure or when they experience family failure they 
may be pushed towards the gangs. So these pulls and pushes work together to 
induce gang membership for many individuals. We need to better understand 
what pulls and what pushes are at work in communities and for individuals and 
work on them to reduce the levels of gang membership. 
Okay, we have just a couple of minutes left. So, what I'd like to do as we wrap 
up our program today is to get closing comments from you all. 
What would you like to leave with our audience before we say goodbye -- Joe? I 
would like to make sure that people understand that a gang problem is a 
community problem. It is not just a police problem, a school problem, a civil -- a 
mayor problem or whatever. But gangs are going to do whatever the 
community will allow them to get by with. And when the community starts to 
step in and join together and do something, then they can have some effect on 
what the problems are. 
Errika? I also want to talk about that this is going to take time, building trust on 
your -- with all of the agencies on your steering committee does not happen 
overnight. We need to continue to work together in order to be effective. Okay, 
Victor? 
Don't quit. I think lots of times, you know, working gangs for so many years, it 
is easy to get frustrated. We can get frustrated easy. We can't quit. We may not 
have a problem today, but if you have a presence, you can certainly have a 
problem in a couple of weeks if you don't watch it. We need to stay out of denial 
mode. We need to start revisiting this gang activity that is taking part in our 
country, in our states -- our cities. I think we really need to start coming 

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together, we need to really put the egos down, and let's really sit down and 
discuss collectively, what is it that we can do to impact the gang activity that 
we're seeing. If we don't, we are going to be sorry and we got to really stay on 
top of that. 
Okay, Scott? 
I think we saw in the video from L.A., in the neighborhood there is a gang that 
has been present in that neighborhood, in Los Angeles, for at least 60 years. So, 
we didn't get into these problems overnight or last week or last year. And we're 
probably not going to get out of them in the very short-term future. 
What that says is that we need to better understand the problems, we need to 
change the systems that respond to gang problems, and as my colleagues have 
said so well, we need to stay the course on this problem for the next several 
years to come in order to ensure that the next generation of youth will be 
productive citizens and productive taxpayers. All right; well, thank you all very 
much. Thank you for being with us; and just a reminder, all of the things we've 
talked about -- the resources you can find on DOJConnect.com. Again, I'd like to 
thank our guests who appeared on our program today. I'd like to thank you all 
for -- who tuned in to view this broadcast as well as the U.S. Attorney's Offices, 
and other locations around the country that hosted the townhall gathering. For 
all of these efforts and for your committment to sharing this vital information, 
we say thank you. This reminder also: we'll be holding a webcast on a variety of 
other topics. The next program is entitled, "A Community Partnership Approach 
to Addressing Meth." It's going to be held on Tuesday, August 22, at 2:00 p.m. 
Eastern time. You can see the times and topics for all of our coming programs at 
our website: dojconnect.com. I'm Doris McMillon, thank you so much for 
joining us. 
This program is brought to you by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community 
Oriented Policing Services, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency 
Prevention.