Introduction
The survey on gangs for the last 12 years points out that gang problems were at their helm in the early 90s. To be precise, the survey points out an average of 26,000 gangs in the United States of America. Starting from 1996, gang problems witnessed a steady reduction till 2003, a year that accounted for the lowest number of gangs in the country. However, the number has been increasing steadily since that year to 2007. In fact, 2007 indicated the highest number of gangs since 1998 (Egley & O’Donnell, p. 1). This points out that the problem is increasing each passing day. But what could be the cause of this disheartening trend? Could it be attributed to poor gang prevention strategies or simply a natural phenomenon? Are there any strategies that have been identified and tested and hence pointed out that they can positively impact on the effort to curb gang problems? This paper will thus identify the principles and practices that are fundamental to the process of gang prevention programs. It will achieve this through the identification of the principles, identification of programs that have been put up and resulted into improvements in the community and finally outline what entails the implementation of these programs.
Intervention principles and practices
To understand the best prevention principles, it is good to identify the characteristics of the gang first. While there is no official definition of a youth gang, several characteristics have been identified to run through all the groups identified as gangs. These have been pointed out after several research and evaluation. Most of the gangs are organizations made up of a formal or semi-formal structure. These structures have a clearly stipulated leadership which seems to be the arm that makes decisions. In addition, gangs happen to operate in a specific region or territory. Furthermore, the members of the gang seem to have specific interaction patterns that must be adhered to. Finally, most of these groups tend to engage in violent activities and criminal behaviors. One notion that has been wrongly believed by the general public is that gang membership is a life long affair. This is not the case according to researches carried out in Denver and Rochester. In these two studies, it was evidenced that more than half of male gang members belonged to a gang for a period of less than one year. In addition, the crimes committed by the gang members varied. Gang members had a disproportionate crime degree responsibility (Egley & O’Donnell, p. 2).
For an effective strategy against gangs and crime, several principles and practices must be employed. The US Department of Justice (p. 14) points out several practices and principles that offer great promise if well implemented. Firstly, before engaging in any meaningful program, the community must identify the gang problem. This forms the first step in the whole process of combating gang related problems. Secondly, the community must identify and suggest policies and strategies through which the problem will be combated. These policies should include collaborative processes management. In addition, goals and objectives are basic elements in the practices and principles to combat gang related problems. These objectives must not only involve the short term activities like suppression of the gang and outreach to the most at risk and target members but it should also involve long term strategies like training and job placement for the reformed members of the gangs.
While all the mentioned might be important, the most important step is the ensuring that all the activities, procedures and tactics are relevant to the objectives outlined. Once the relevance is ascertained, participation of the whole community must take the center stage. Coordination and mobilization should be the next step of action. Gang problems are best addressed when the community works together. All members of the community should take part in the process of addressing this problem. Another very important concept that must be considered before making decisions concerning gang problem is the accountability of the former gang members. It is logical and just to ensure that the members are held accountable for the actions that they committed but at the same time, it is important that they are given adequate opportunity to reform and also put their behavior under control. This will not only ensure that the victims feel that justice has been done but also the perpetrators will be in position to have a normal life and have hope in their future life. Another important principle that should be considered includes the staffing on the committee to be involved in the gang repression and prevention process. It is advisable that the staff consists of the most diverse representation as it can be achieved. This is attributed to the fact that gang activities are a complex phenomenon. It requires that a complex approach is used so that all the relevant aspects of gang activities are identified. Finally, after having identified the most appropriate mix of the staff that will be appropriate in the strategy of gang prevention, it is necessary that they are trained so that they have adequate knowledge in prevention, suppression and intervention (US Department of Justice, p 3)
When targeting gangs, the most effective strategy involves an integrated approach. The activities in this approach allow the community to assist the population that is already involved in gang activities and the population that is likely to be involved in the gang activities. To achieve this, there is need for primary intervention that involves targeting the whole population in areas that are considered high-crime and high-risk. This involves the use of a resource center that can be accessible to all members of the community. Secondly, there is secondary prevention that identifies children aged between seven and fourteen, who, in most cases, are the most at risk population that needs attention. The activities here involve cooperating with schools, faith based organizations and community based groups to ensure that early behavioral problems are not left to develop into serious crimes and involvement in gang activities (US Department of Justice, p 4).
The third activity involves intervention. This activity majors on gang members that are already active in gang activities. It also includes their colleagues and close friends. It involves aggressively outreaching to them and ensuring that they are given support in making of positive choices. It also involves dealing with the families of the youth involved in the gang and coming up with support strategies so that the youth are not compelled to revert to crime and gang activities. Fourthly, community based strategies to curb gang activities include suppression. In this activity, the most influential and dangerous members of the gang are identified and removed from the community. Finally, the activity of gang control involves reentry. This includes dealing with the gang members who had initially been removed from the community and are coming back. Such individuals need monitoring. Among these are those members who had an outstanding role but later got confined. On returning, they usually try to reclaim their former roles which could be assumed by someone else. This results into conflicts (US Department of Justice, p. 4).
US Department of Justice (2007, p 4) identifies several other fundamental concepts that must be considered for an effective program. Firstly, it is necessary to identify the needs of the community from the individual, the family and the community level. An assessment must be done to ensure that the real situation is understood before appropriate measures are taken. The measures should address all the necessary needs from a point of view that is comprehensive and coordinated. Secondly, the community’s resources human and financial could spew trouble. An imbalance could lead to gang involvement by the group that feels unprivileged. It is therefore important that an inventory of this is done so that all existing gaps are filled and resources are mobilized to support the gang eradication program. Thirdly, the different groups that are likely to be involved in gang activities should be addressed differently. The program should therefore identify appropriate individual activities for each group based on their age, risk categories, or the boundaries according to urgency. Finally, coordination must be encouraged. This includes vertical coordination which is the coordination between the local programs and those of the state, and the federal agencies and horizontal coordination which involves the communities and the different programs.
Successful Programs
Several programs have been implemented using these principles and shown great success. This part of the paper will point out some of the programs around the United States of America.
Baton Rouge Gun Violence Prevention Project
This is one of the community projects that have put the model programs in practice. In this project carried out in LA, the comprehensive strategy was employed so that juvenile violence would be reduced in the streets. Although the primary objective of this project was not primarily aimed at gangs, gang prevention can be part of it because it was aimed at reducing juvenile violence. In their strategy, the projected targeted 21 year olds and below in areas that were identified as high crime regions (National Criminal Justice Resource services).
They included suppression where law enforcement agencies were used to reduce violence for youth aged 17 and above. Secondly, the program involved intensive risk reduction strategies to all the high risk populations together with their families and their community. In addition, violent offenders who were deemed chronic were put to an intensive probation and parole program. Other programs included community mobilization that was aimed at reaching families that were hard to reach. Finally, long term strategies were made to help cope with the problems of strengthening resources so that the most at risk youth could be empowered (National Criminal Justice Resource services).
Data in this program pointed out great improvements in the effort to control crime. Evaluation pointed out that the number of crimes committed reduced by a margin of 27% after the implementation of the program. This period included the year 1997 to the year 1998. Apart from the reduction of the number of crimes, the Police Department pointed out that the number of arrests also witnessed some reduction. The statistics pointed out that the number of arrests for youth involved in violent crimes and those involved in drugs reduced by 21%. These improvements point out on the success of the comprehensive model strategy when combating gangs and other forms of street violence (National Criminal Justice Resource services).
The Little Village Program (Chicago)
This program was designed and implemented by Spergel and his group. It was carried out in Little Village in Chicago. This village comprised of about 90% low-income but working class Mexican Americans. This program was carried out by the Police Department. The target age was between 17 and 24 years. However, the program did not involve every gang in the area but majored on two major gangs who accounted for over 70% of all the violent activities in the neighborhoods, the Latin Kings and the Two Six (Spergel et al, p. 25).
This program relied on two major strategies. Violence control and gang suppression through probation of identified youth and service provision encourage change of behavior. The committee consisted of police officers, youth workers, probation officers and other agencies involved in gang prevention. These agencies involved church organizations, job placement agencies, the Alderman and the City residents.
The evaluation of this program at Little Village in Chicago showed several positive changes. This meant that the program, if well implemented, could give a successful ending. In Little Village, three years that were evaluated pointed out that serious crime reduced drastically as compared to other gangs that were not subjected to this program. The targeted gangs witnessed fewer arrests for serious crimes as compared to other gangs that were not involved in the program (Spergel et al, p. 28). In addition, the youth involved in this program improved their educational and job status during the period of implementation. This was a clear indicator that the program was functional if well implemented.
The North Miami Beach, (Florida)
This program was also referred to as PanZou. It was targeted to the City of North Miami. This is a working population that comprises of mostly Haitian population. The City is mostly reliant to service provision as it lacks any major industry. The activities involved the most at risk population and also those already involved in youth activities through intervention. It also engaged in programs for general awareness through the provision of a resource center. The major activities included mentoring programs for the most at risk, literacy for youth of Haitian descend, life skill classes for empowerment and midnight basketball, family strengthening programs, provision of school suspension alternatives, management of intensive cases, special social, emotional and behavioral programs for girls and boys separately and self sufficiency programs (US Department of Justice, p.15)
Intervention activities included counseling, on job training, referrals to agencies for counseling and removal of tattoos, boxing skills and opportunities to serve the community. Suppression activities involved increased patrols to hot spots, gang leader identification and coordination of gang activities (US Department of Justice, p.15)
This program also witnessed great results that point out that the comprehensive strategy is a practical approach to gang problems. Prior to the implementation of the program, violence had escalated greatly in the region. However, statistics point out that two years after the implementation of the programs gave statistics of reduced crime. The following table identifies the reduction of crimes prior and after the implementation of the program.
In addition to this, the statistics from the Police department also showed that the number of offenses and the arrests committed prior to and after the implementation of the program showed a recommendable reduction. The following table shows the trend.
All these programs have shown great success. Crime rates have gone down and fewer youth have been involved in the recruitment to gangs. This was however based on the superb implementation of the programs. The implementation involved participation of the criminal justice, team coordination, commitment to the model and crisis intervention.
This was a clear pointer that suppression was not the best way out in the prevention of gang activities. Using a combination of activities including suppression and social worker involvement reduced violent and serious gang crimes while less violent crimes were better controlled by the use of youth workers. In addition, the use of these programs also changed the perception of gang crimes by the community residents while the police were given better skills in handling of these crimes. This made the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority conclude that this approach was a success. They attributed the success to the cohesive team approach that assisted in addressing of all the aspects of gang organization and crime (Spergel et al, p 28).
Implementation
A strategy means nothing if not well implemented. It is therefore important that the implementation process is carried out in an accurate and faithful way in order to achieve the desired outcome. It is evident that the programs named above succeeded because of a good implementation of the strategies. The implementation involves participation of the criminal justice, team coordination, commitment to the model and crisis intervention etc. However, are these the ultimate success pointers that a policy maker must adhere to when implementing his strategy? What other factors need to be considered during the implementation of this program? Does the process of implementation have to be done as a joint process or does it have to be structured according to the relevant stages i.e. identification of critical elements in prevention, those in intervention, those in suppression and eventually in monitoring? Is the process of implementation carried out without a time frame or is there a specific time frame that should be allocated for the process of data collection till the final process of evaluation? These questions are very essential for a policy maker. In order to have a successful strategy, appropriate answers must be allocated to them. Otherwise, the program might fail to yield fruits (US Department of Justice, p.32).
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is evident that community wide approach to gang prevention is a more efficient way of dealing with gangs as compared to the traditional suppression method. This has been identified through several programs’ success after adhering to the principles of this program. Research has also pointed out that gangs that were subjected to this program witnessed reduced arrests for serious crimes as compared to other gangs that were subjected to traditional suppression method. However, before engaging into these programs, one must understand the underlying principles and practices. He should also understand the challenges and requirements of implementations. Failure to have this understanding may result to increased gang problems.
Works Cited:
Egley, Arlen and O’Donnell, Christina. “Highlight of 2007 National Youth Gang Survey.” Institute of Intergovernmental.
US Department of Justice. “Best Practices to Address Community Gang Problems: OJJDP’s Comprehensive Gang Model.” 2007.
Spergel, I.A., Wa, K.M., and Sosa, R.V. The comprehensive, community-wide, gang program model: Success and failure.(2006) In J. F. Short and L. A.
Hughe (eds.), Studying Youth Gangs (pp. 203–224). Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.
National Criminal Justice Reference Service. “Comprehensive Approaches to Gang Problems.” 2007.
Panzou Project, Inc. “Outcomes.” 2009. Web.