The Los Angeles City Council's pioneering L.A. Bridges anti-gang program will fail unless its efforts are specifically directed at certain types of youths in gang-infested neighborhoods, according to a report by Malcolm W. Klein, a distinguished USC professor involved in the initiative.
Klein's report has touched a nerve in City Hall, where the L.A. Bridges program was created after the September 1995 slaying of 3-year-old Stephanie Kuhen. Gang members' killing of the child, whose family made a wrong turn into an alley, sparked an outcry from politicians eager to address gang violence.
The City Council created a committee to deal with gang problems, headed by Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, the architect of L.A. Bridges.
The committee, which met Monday but did not discuss the Klein report, raised several concerns about evaluation of the program's results, which is essential to determine whether L.A. Bridges is meeting its goals.
But Klein said the operators of the program could not be evaluated on something they weren't asked to do: prevent gang involvement.
"If they don't address the gang problem directly, then they won't be in a position to say, 'What we did caused a reduction in gang crime,' " Klein said.
He also objected to the widening of the program to accommodate council members who want to offer it in their districts. He said that the move was "pure politics," which contributes to lessening the impact of the program.
Instead, the city should concentrate on areas infested with gangs because other youths are at risk of becoming gang members.
He said his experience with the city has provided valuable yet extremely frustrating lessons in "town and gown" relationships. He said the city is in dire need of gang reduction and that he hopes expectations are met.
"In my view," Klein said, "[city officials] are going to be sorely disappointed," Klein said.
In his sharply worded critique of the fledgling program, Klein, who is a nationally recognized gang expert, said the absence of efforts directed at specific gangs will so dilute the impact of the multimillion-dollar L.A. Bridges effort that it will turn into yet another one for so-called at-risk youths.
Even the initial requests distributed to potential operators of the program failed to ask for specific gang prevention or intervention strategies, he said.
