Gang Prevention Programs

Inexplicable inaction by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has stalled a decision concerning second-year funding of the successful Hope in Youth project. The majority of the current board was instrumental in starting what is nationally recognized as one of the most innovative gang-prevention programs in the United States--making their inaction that much more perplexing. Nothing on the scope of Hope in Youth had ever before been tried.

With every enchilada and margarita Officer Richard Stocks serves Tuesday, his shoulders will relax a little bit more. For nine hours, he and 65 other volunteers from the Los Angeles Police Department's Foothill and Van Nuys divisions will take over for the regular servers at two San Fernando Valley restaurants for the purpose of raising $5,000 for the LAPD-sponsored gang-prevention program Jeopardy.

Fighting to overturn a proposed cut in a local gang-enforcement effort, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan blitzed state legislative leaders Tuesday with phone calls and letters urging them to restore full funding for the Community Law Enforcement and Recovery program. When the program was considered in the state Assembly, legislators approved $14 million in funding, but the state Senate voted to cut $4.8 million.

To reflect a newer and broader curriculum, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has renamed its drug and gang prevention program Success Through Awareness and Resistance or STAR, authorities said Tuesday. Formerly known as Substance Abuse Narcotics Education or SANE, the youth education program will include instruction in handling peer pressure, decision-making, conflict resolution, anger management, cultural awareness and confidence building, said Lt. Trudy Wilson, STAR unit commander.

Planners of the Sin Fronteras Latino Music Festival, to be held Sunday at the Hansen Dam Sports Complex, said they hope to raise $100,000 or more to benefit gang-prevention programs. The Sin Fronteras--Without Borders--festival has raised nearly $1 million since it started seven years ago, said Bill Beadles, marketing director for three sister radio stations--1020 AM, La Nueva 101.9 FM and KLVE 107.5 FM--that sponsor the event with the Los Angeles Police Department and Sears department stores.

In some areas of Santa Ana, gunfire is almost a nightly occurrence, the sign of gangbangers at lethal work. So far this year, more than 40 homicides in the city have been the work of gangs, according to police. The gang violence is not confined to Santa Ana. South County's gang problems have worsened too, though they are much less extensive than those in North County.

"OK, let's have the fight," says Sister Anne Regan. Two 8-year-old boys start arguing. They go back and forth, getting nowhere fast. "You shut up." "No, you shut up." Regan, directing the role-playing, finally steps in. "Who can tell me the first step when I have a problem?" she asks the boys and girls seated around her in a semicircle. "You identify the problem," a girl answers.

In a year when Orange County's gang violence has escalated to a record level, one of the county's most respected gang prevention programs has gone out of business. Lack of money forced the 15-year-old Turning Point Family Services Inc. to close its doors last week after the agency had spent 3 1/2 years battling gang problems in central Orange County.

Curtis is 15 with heavily muscled arms and, at times, a heavily muscled head. He doesn't like listening to other people's advice or orders. That's why he's been at Camp Kilpatrick in Malibu for 10 months instead of the six months that the average teen-age inmate spends at the juvenile probation camp. But gradually Curtis is getting the point. "I'm learning to hold back what I say," said the youth, who was placed at Kilpatrick as a ward of the Juvenile Court after being arrested for driving with a loaded firearm and selling drugs.

It was Faithful Central Baptist Choir meets Beverly Hills 90210. About 1,500 people attended a Sunday performance by a church choir from South-Central Los Angeles at Beverly Hills High School to raise funds for anti-gang programs run by churches in riot-battered areas. The event, which exposed some well-heeled Westside residents to live African-American gospel music for the first time, was also designed to be a cross-culture mixer, said organizer and Beverly Hills Mayor Bob Tanenbaum.

Planners of the Sin Fronteras Latino Music Festival, to be held Sunday at the Hansen Dam Sports Complex, said they hope to raise $100,000 or more to benefit gang-prevention programs. The Sin Fronteras--Without Borders--festival has raised nearly $1 million since it started seven years ago, said Bill Beadles, marketing director for three sister radio stations--1020 AM, La Nueva 101.9 FM and KLVE 107.5 FM--that sponsor the event with the Los Angeles Police Department and Sears department stores.

Fighting to overturn a proposed cut in a local gang-enforcement effort, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan blitzed state legislative leaders Tuesday with phone calls and letters urging them to restore full funding for the Community Law Enforcement and Recovery program. When the program was considered in the state Assembly, legislators approved $14 million in funding, but the state Senate voted to cut $4.8 million.

Unity One, a grass-roots gang prevention organization, focuses on street-level intervention to quell gang skirmishes before they become deadly. "We need to support groups like this who can solve the problems from the street level--not from offices," state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) said. The group hopes to raise financial support tonight at a fund-raising dinner at 7 at the Gotham Club, 2817 W. Beverly Blvd. "I feel really good about this event," said organization President Bo Taylor.

Up a short, winding road, tucked behind a refuge of trees, the Old Mission Cemetery suffered from lack of upkeep--wildflowers and grasses had grown unchecked because of recent rains. But this week the cemetery got a spring cleaning when a group of seven boys took time from their school break to fix up the historical grounds, established around the 1850s.

In some areas of Santa Ana, gunfire is almost a nightly occurrence, the sign of gangbangers at lethal work. So far this year, more than 40 homicides in the city have been the work of gangs, according to police. The gang violence is not confined to Santa Ana. South County's gang problems have worsened too, though they are much less extensive than those in North County.

Teresa Chavez shouts at her 9-year-old listeners, pleading with them not to follow the path that has led to death and misery for so many of her friends. Her throat catches halfway through the lecture, when she talks about Oscar, the 16-year-old gang member who was gunned down a few blocks from her house. Her eyes well up when she recalls seeing her former best friend Sylvia, now a crack addict, panhandle for change. Four days each week, in 15 different classrooms, she puts herself through this.

Three nights a week, in a South-Central Los Angeles park gymnasium 11 blocks from the L.A. riots' flashpoint at Florence and Normandie, Crips still shoot and Bloods shoot back. Except that at night's conclusion there are no toes to tag or funeral arrangements pending. Some said it was foolhardy to bring elements of the city's most notorious street gangs together for organized games of basketball from 8 p.m. until 2 a.m. The Six Deuce Brims thought so.

The Board of Supervisors this week gave unanimous approval for about $400,000 in start-up costs for a new gang-prevention and education program developed by the Orange County Chiefs of Police & Sheriff's Assn. The anti-gang program is modeled after the Sheriff's Department's Drug Abuse Is Life Abuse Foundation, a privately funded partnership between business and law enforcement leaders that has produced anti-drug brochures for students, as well as other educational programs.

Nine more police officers would patrol city streets under a budget plan unveiled Tuesday, but 31 positions in other departments would be eliminated, including nine management jobs. The proposed $133-million general fund budget for 1995-96 also calls for the city to reopen its branch libraries on Mondays and for continued funding of gang-prevention activities the city funded on a temporary basis last fall.

Inexplicable inaction by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has stalled a decision concerning second-year funding of the successful Hope in Youth project. The majority of the current board was instrumental in starting what is nationally recognized as one of the most innovative gang-prevention programs in the United States--making their inaction that much more perplexing. Nothing on the scope of Hope in Youth had ever before been tried.