MENU TITLE: Community and Institutional Responses to the Youth Gang Problem.
Series: OJJDP
Published: January 1990
121 pages
279,794 bytes

COMMUNITY AND INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSES
TO THE YOUTH GANG PROBLEM

Case Studies Based on Field Visits and Other
Materials

by

Irving A. Spergel and Ron L. Chance with the
assistance of Candice Kane, Phyllis Garth, and G.
David Curry 

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

January 1990

Distributed By:

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

-------------------------------

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CASE STUDY
1 Evanston, Illinois
2 Fort Wayne, Indiana
3 Ethan Allen School for Boys, Wisconsin
4 Columbus, Ohio
5 El Monte, California
6 East Los Angeles

SUMMARY

FIGURE

5-1 Mean Number of Homicides El Monte, CA

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INTRODUCTION

No one person, discipline, agency, or community
has the answer to dealing with the youth gang
problem. In fact, we are not entirely clear that
there is a single phenomenon identifiable as a
youth gang problem. Problems of youth gang-related
violence, criminality, drug trafficking, and drug
use come in many shapes, sizes, and stages. The
notions of gang and gang incident are not clearly
defined or consistent across agencies,
communities, or even in the same community over
time. Yet, it is quite clear that the phenomena of
youth gangs exist, are spreading across
communities, and growing more serious. The gang
problem has assumed catastrophic proportions in
certain chronic problem cities and is now present
in suburban areas that do not have a history of
gang problems.

The following six case studies of five cities or
urban areas, and one correctional institution,
represent in varying degrees success stories. The
youth gang problem does not necessarily have to
get worse. While we do not understand all aspects
of this complex and evolving social problem,
specific strategies and tactics of programs seem
to make a positive difference. While little "hard"
evaluation exists of the effectiveness of agency
or community responses, there do seem to be
promising, but not as yet "sure" ways for
controlling and reducing the problem.

The six case studies address youth gang problems
as distinct from youth group or individual youth
delinquency problems. Youth gangs have special
communal and organizational characteristics, and
usually persist over time. They are distinct from
other types of youth deviancy structures and
problems. They are present in certain impoverished
and/or disorganized communities or social contexts
where opportunity and control systems have broken
down, and family, school, employment and community
organizations have failed to meet the social needs
of youth and young adults. The youth gang is a
residual institution which has come to supply many
of the resources and controls that the legitimate
(or even illegitimate) institutions no longer
provide.

The six studies originally were intended to be
reports of field visits to Evanston, Illinois;
Fort Wayne, Indiana; Columbus, Ohio; El Monte and
East Los Angeles in California; and Draper
Cottage, Ethan Allen School for Boys, Wisconsin.
These sites were selected as among the most
"promising" based on data and perceptions of
improvement in the problem between 1980 and 1987
and related agency or interagency effectiveness in
dealing with it. A survey of 45 cities and 6
institutional sites was conducted in 1988 and 1989
to determine the extent and nature of the youth
gang problem and the pattern of organized response
to it. The six sites were then selected based on
computed scores of (1) multiple agency perceptions
of a reduced gang problem (later verified with
additional police and available data), (2)
perception of agency effectiveness, and (3)
perception of interagency or community
effectiveness. Several sites with higher scores
were not visited either because of lack of varied
approaches or agency informants, or because of
excessive travel distance and expense that would
have been incurred.

The six case studies constitute the third phase of
the first Assessment stage of a Research and
Development process "The National Youth Gang
Suppression and Intervention Program," in
cooperation with the Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Justice
Department. The Assessment stage has comprised a
Review of the Literature, Survey of Cities and
Institutional Sites, and Field Visits to
"promising" sites. The second stage requires the
development of general city or countrywide and
specific agency models for dealing with the
problem. The third stage will be the development
of Technical Assistance materials and Training, to
be followed by a fourth Prototype testing stage.

The case studies were planned originally as brief
reports of visits to verify the findings of the
survey. The visits, which lasted from two to six
days, developed their own dynamic, and involved
considerably more preparation and follow-up than
expected. More local organizations and community
agencies were contacted than planned. A variety of
program documents, studies, and evaluation
materials were examined bearing on issues of
agency and community response and effectiveness
with regard to the problem. Initial drafts of the
case studies were submitted to all key
participants for comments, additions, and
revisions. Most of the suggested changes are
incorporated in the present versions. The
individual studies should be considered reliable
and valid.

The cases, with the exception of the Ethan Allen
School study, are organized into the following
subcategories. Background, the Youth Gang Problem,
Community Response, Individual Agency Roles,
Assessment, and Conclusion. The perceptions and
roles of individual participants are considered
and analyzed. Police reports on gang crime, where
they exist, are cited. Our purpose in these
reports is to provide a relatively succinct,
balanced and usable report of the program
structures and processes of criminal justice,
community-based agencies, and schools in dealing
with the youth gang problem in its various forms
and stages.

Some of the cities, areas, or institutions studied
had chronic gang problems and programs, dating
from the 1960s and 1970s or earlier (El Monte and
East Los Angeles); others dealt with emerging gang
problems, dating mainly from the early 1980s
(Evanston, Fort Wayne, Columbus, and Ethan Allen
School). The cities or communities selected varied
in population from about 70,000 to 500,000. Each
of the sites was an urban area and contained a
heterogeneous population. However, the youth gang
problems in these cities and in the correctional
institution selected were mainly African-American
and/or Mexican-American. Our studies do not
represent, therefore, the full range of youth gang
problems in the country, including other Hispanic
gangs, Asian and White gangs. Nevertheless, the
studies probably represent the efforts of agencies
and communities in dealing with the most prevalent
and typical youth gangs and their problems, based
on the findings of our survey.

The youth gang problem was regarded as a community
problem by all informants during our field visits,
requiring a complex, community-wide, as well as
individual agency, approach. Police and youth
agencies roles are represented in each of the five
city or area cases. Other justice system, school,
church, planning agency, and political roles are
also described where they were developed. our
survey revealed four or five dominant strategies
for dealing with the youth gang problem across the
45 cities and 6 institutional sites: community
mobilization, social intervention, suppression,
social opportunities, and organizational
development or modification. Each of these
strategies is represented to some degree in the
six case studies.

We should add that the survey analysis revealed
that community mobilization and social opportunity
strategies were the best predictors of positive
outcome or perception of reduced youth gang
problems. Common definition of the youth gang
problem and cooperative, proactive efforts for
dealing with it were extremely important in
chronic and emerging gang problem areas. The
social opportunities approach which we defined as
including mainly educational, training, and job
placement efforts, was more prevalent in chronic
youth gang problem cities where the problem had
been reduced or perceived as reduced. We believe
the role of the schools and employers in dealing
with the youth gang problem has not yet been
adequately developed in most of the areas visited,
and this is reflected in the only occasional
references to program efforts of this type.

We hope that these case histories will be helpful
to a variety of policy and program leaders
throughout the country in understanding the nature
of the youth gang problem, describing the range of
organizational responses to it, and suggesting
what local communities, public and nonprofit, and
sectarian agencies, and correctional institutions
can do to "successfully" deal with the problem.
These are not "quick fix" approaches. Dedicated,
sustained, and wise leadership is required to
control and prevent youth gang problems. The
present cases have provided a basis for our
further efforts to develop general city-wide
prototype and specific agency designs necessary
for dealing with youth gang problems.

If our six case studies succeed in providing
guidance to policymakers and practitioners, then
perhaps we will have made a significant
contribution. As one of our respondent prosecutors
said, "If you are successful, lives will be saved
and communities de-terrorized."

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CASE STUDY 1
Evanston, Illinois

Background

Evanston is a diverse community of 73,000 on the
northern border of Chicago. It is part of a
pattern of independent, well established, and
often wealthy suburbs. The first black families
settled in Evanston more than 100 years ago,
usually as domestics in the large homes of middle
and upper class whites. In more recent decades,
its western and southern sections have been
populated by low- and middle-income black families
escaping Chicago's more urgent and complex urban
problems. At least 20 percent of the population is
estimated to be black. Public school student
populations are 40 percent black. A smaller lower
middle class Hispanic population has also begun to
settle in the city.

Evanston remains, nevertheless, a predominantly
stable white, high status community with a
relative wealth of social, educational, cultural,
and economic resources. It is a growing high tech
area. It is the site of the main campus of a world
famous university, Northwestern. It has a very
high standard, well respected public school
system. It is a well organized progressive city
with a concerned citizenry, alert to local,
regional, as well as national and international
problems and developments, proud of its
distinctive qualities and accomplishments.

The Youth Gang Problem

Evanston has had a history of gang problems dating
back to at least 1971 when "kids were hanging on
street corners," engaged in minor acts of
vandalism and graffiti writing. Two white groups,
the Main Street Bums and the Noyes Street Raiders,
developed unsavory reputations, but are not well
remembered today. In 1973, a mixed white and black
youth group came to the attention of the police
for their involvement in petty crime. Some youth
wore "hairnets" to school. Gang graffiti was found
in school books and on the walls of some of the
schools. There was some debate as to whether these
were nuisance groups or gangs. These youth groups
or gangs were referred to as "pseudo-gangs" and
"pre-gangs" by the former Chief of Police, who
retired in 1987.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was
apparently an attempt by some Chicago gangs to
recruit members from Evanston. The development of
a Chicago oriented gang, comprising Evanston
residents, stimulated the development of a local
gang, The Sconny Hoods. More and more youth,
mainly low-income black youth, were reported to be
hanging out with gangs. Evanston's first gang-
related murder was reported in 1976. Two
additional gang homicides occurred in 1983.

The distinction between Evanston and Chicago gangs
is a source of some confusion, since most of the
Evanston gangs now have the same names as Chicago
gangs. Many of the members of the gangs come from
families which reside in Evanston, but who may
have come originally from Chicago. Rosenbaum and
Grant, in their study of Evanston gangs (1983),
reported that two local gangs existed but that
three others were "satellites" or branches of
major Chicago gangs in this period. These
researchers insist that the so-called satellite
gangs comprised largely Evanston residents and "in
a very real sense are Evanston groups." The local
gangs contained somewhat younger youths, 13 to 29
years; members of the Chicago-connected gangs were
in their 20s. One social agency executive claims
that the age range of gang members is currently 11
to 55 years.

Community Response

The community perceived a rise in the level of
gang violence and the seriousness of gang crime
beginning in the late 1970s. Young men were
engaged in assaults and shooting at each other.
Complaints of drug-dealing and involvement in
prostitution by gang members were made by some
local citizens. The violence produced an
"increasing fear of crime . . . forcing community
reaction to the problem" (Rosenbaum and Grant
1983, p. 21). Residents on the west side, in whose
area the violent gang activity was occurring, were
largely to be credited with the impetus for a
series of public hearings which took place. They
pressured the City Council and the city
administration. The Evanston Human Relations
Commission played a key role in getting Evanston
to recognize the problem by organizing the public
meetings as well as facilitating definition of the
problem and an initial response to it (Rosenbaum
and Grant 1983, p. 51). In 1978, the Bishop-
Freeman Ad Hoc Committee was formed to address the
problem of drug selling and gambling in the
Bishop-Freeman parking lot. The Executive Director
of the Human Relations Commission was chairman of
the Ad Hoc Committee which included
representatives of the police department, other
public and nonprofit agencies, as well as
neighborhood groups and residents.

No significant city or community action apparently
was taken until another public hearing on street
gang activity was held in March 1981, after the
shooting death of a recreation leader. In June of
the following year, 1982, the Evanston Youth
Commission and the Mental Health Association co-
sponsored a conference on youth problems at which
the workshop on gangs drew a large audience. A
series of meetings sponsored by the Human
Relations Commission followed later that year. Its
subcommittee on gangs formulated a series of
recommendations as to what the city should do
about the problem. One of the recommendations
forwarded to the City Council and approved was the
funding of a study by Northwestern University's
Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research
(Rosenbaum and Grant 1983).

The university study was completed in a few
months, carried out with minimal city, and
supplemented by university funds. It described the
youth gang problem, its genesis and various
efforts to deal with it, and made policy
recommendations. The study emphasized that two
factors above all characterized Evanston's
response to the gang problem. "First, there was a
strong denial for quite a long time that a problem
even existed at all. Second, once the problem was
recognized, responsibility for the problem shifted
regularly. . . . For many city officials and
residents, there was no perceived gang problem.
For others, the problem did not seem serious at
all" (Rosenbaum and Grant 1983, pp. 82-83).
Reasons for denial were related to concerns about
the city's reputation and real estate values.

No agency stepped forward immediately to assume
responsibility for doing something about the
problem, whether prevention or intervention. The
law enforcement or suppression approach did not
show impressive results initially. Key gang
members were arrested. However, in the first six
months of 1983, only 21 of the first 187 gang-
related incidents resulted in arrest. A program by
the police to identify juvenile gang members,
contact their parents, and involve them in
counseling or parent meetings was viewed by at
least one informant as not successful. Only six
mothers participated in the parent group which met
eight times in September and October 1982.
Attendance was very low at the meetings. Four of
the parents were already involved in a Victim-
Witness Outreach program (see also, Rosenbaum and
Grant 1983, p. 47).

According to the Northwestern report, very few
youth officers were assigned to work with juvenile
gang members during this early period. The Youth
Bureau and Organized Crime Bureau of the
department seemed to operate separate programs
dealing with gang youth. Community and gang member
perceptions were that the police were not eager to
deal with the problem in this period (Ibid., p.
48). The schools, youth agencies, and businesses
believed that the problem was not especially one
they should address. It was regarded essentially
as a problem about which the police should take
major responsibility.

The Northwestern study concluded with a
comprehensive series of recommendations for
general and specific community, police, agency,
city administration and school improvement and
long-term change. Special attention appeared to be
directed to issues of providing an adequate
education for minority youth from low income
families and interagency coordination and program
development in respect to the youth gang problem.
Meanwhile, law enforcement strategy shifted with
the appointment of a new police chief. The
increased level of violence and drug activity was
a deciding factor in crystallizing police and a
certain degree of community reaction.

Police

New perceptions of the gang problem and how to
deal with it evolved with the appointment of a new
police chief and departmental reorganization
between 1983 and 1984. The police emerged as the
lead or dominant agency in the city's response to
the youth gang problem. According to police
reports, eight gangs were operating in Evanston in
March 1984. The combined Evanston membership of
the gangs was 410. Older gang leaders were
perceived as role models, providing organization
and leadership. Gang activity reached an all time
high. The new Police Chief Logan prepared a plan
of action for the entire department. The number
one priority was "to increase the response to
gangs."

A four-part approach was established:

1. Gather and analyze intelligence regarding gangs
and gang leaders.

2. Strictly enforce all laws violated by gang
members.

3. Diffuse [break up] gangs in the community.

4. Educate the community about the problem.

A new Gang Crimes Bureau was created with sole
responsibility for "investigating and aggressively
pursuing gang members and their activities." It
was staffed with a sergeant and five officers.
Liaisons were established with the Youth, Vice and
Narcotics, and Crime Prevention Bureaus, as well
as Patrol. Internal communication resulted in
improved overall departmental coordination in
respect to gangs. The Department's Vice and
Narcotics Bureau established an aggressive
enforcement posture regarding gang member
involvement with drugs and worked closely with the
Gang Crimes Bureau. Special interest in training
developed; 37 officers attended a gang crimes
training seminar at the Chicago Police Academy.
Gang Crimes investigators in Evanston were now
called on to give presentations at roll calls.

Interagency contacts and community participation
were enhanced. The Gang Crimes Bureau established
a working relationship with the Special
Prosecution Gang Crimes Unit of the Cook County
State's Attorney's office. A neighborhood foot
patrol program was initiated to increase police
visibility and promote "neighborhood cohesiveness
and problem solving." The four areas of the city
with gang activity were targeted.

The Police Department took a proactive stance in
educating all segments of the community about the
nature and extent of gang activity and how
citizens and police could work together to solve
problems. Numerous presentations were made to
civic, school, and community groups about gang
problems. Various units of the police department,
including Gang Crimes, as well as the police chief
were directly involved. The presentations included
information on gangs suspected of operating in
Evanston, their symbols and slogans, their
activities, how they operate and recruit, as well
as how parents can identify children who may be
involved in a gang. More recently, certain
officers of the department have joined with
personnel of the city's recreation department to
identify youth-at-risk of gang membership and
sponsor them in summer camp.

The role of then Police Chief Logan -- now in
charge of security at the Evanston Public Schools
-- was pervasive. He made certain that all units
recognized and fully implemented their
responsibilities. If police officers avoided or
shunted their responsibility especially in
cooperation with other units on gang-related
matters, he took disciplinary action. He got
around to all parts of the department and clearly
communicated his philosophy of "zero-based"
tolerance for gang members. Officers of the
department went to the Chief Judge and his
associates to request that gang-affiliated youth
not be given I-bonds (release on their own
recognizance) or minimum sentences. Police
officials met with the States Attorney and
arranged for one prosecutor to deal with all gang
cases coming out of Evanston.

The Chief encouraged police officer communication
with all elements of the Population, including
gang leaders. He knew some of the leaders
personally, met with them as a group, and informed
them of the consequences of breaking the law. Gang
members, in turn, said they had "nothing to do and
no place to go. They needed jobs." The Police
Chief urged his gang crime unit to assist some of
the gang members to obtain jobs. The meeting by
Chief Logan with the gang leaders was viewed as
controversial in some quarters, as possibly
recognizing the gang structure, but the Chief felt
that the meeting was not harmful to the interests
of the community.

In 1984, the Gang Crime Unit sergeant addressed a
memo to Chief Logan in which he stated that the
emphasis of the unit was also, when possible, to
redirect or refer gang members into constructive
pursuits, or to social agencies who were equipped
to counsel or help them. "We enforced the law
regularly and made numerous arrests during the
critical period, but we also functioned to help
the kids and present alternatives to gang
membership."

Law enforcement tactics included: identifying and
monitoring gang leaders and hard-core members;
prosecuting all offenses, even minor ones, by gang
members to the full extent of the law; encouraging
gang members to sign complaints against rival gang
members. While this latter tactic helped diffuse
potentially violent situations, certain gang
members also attempted to use the procedure to
file false complaints against rival gang members.
Special attention was directed to getting gang
members into the criminal justice system under
some kind of supervision. In turn, the police
worked closely with parole authorities to monitor
gang members when they were later released from
prison.

Gang Crime personnel were carefully selected. They
had to meet a variety of criteria: ability to
establish rapport with gang members, diffuse gang
situations without backing down, a capacity not to
be intimidated, and on the other hand, not abuse
gang youth. Additionally, gang crime officers had
to be able to collaborate with community groups
and agencies in dealing with the gang problem. The
police collaborated closely with and aided COEPops
and Moms, a grass roots group based in the gang
neighborhood.

COEPops/Moms

The Council of Elders (COE) Pops and Moms began in
1983 as a response primarily of black parents to a
gang-related slaying of a youth in 1983. They
perceived that officials and local citizens were
either frustrated and or indifferent to the gang
problem. They believed that strong involvement of
local parents was necessary. The group established
a "network of neighborhood adults who would watch
for potential misconduct by youth on the streets."
As "community elders," they were to forestall
violence and redirect gang behavior. Local adults
volunteered their time. The organization's budget
was about $1,500 per year, of which $1,000.00 was
provided by the City's Recreation Department; the
rest was raised privately. Use of volunteers was
emphasized.

The Council's first activities were weekend night
time foot and car patrols in collaboration with
the police. While citizen patrollers did not
replace or interfere with normal police
enforcement functions, the regular presence of
COEPops on foot or in mobile units, equipped with
city radios, on neighborhood streets and at youth
gatherings, made it difficult for gang elements to
operate openly or effectively. The police helped
to organize the group and provided technical
assistance to some members in operating and
maintaining their communications equipment.

According to a key COEPops/Moms leader, Don
Colleton, the Council's efforts should be viewed
as independent of those of the police. Some
members of the Council had mixed feelings about
the police, although generally good relations were
established with police officials. If a shooting
or fight occurred, Council members would call in
the police, but the focus of their patrols was not
police work. It was to provide an adult presence
to neutralize the effect of negative youth peer
pressure, for example, at dances. Council member
involvement was "deeper than that of the criminal
justice system." It was to "enter the lives of the
kids and have a positive impact on them."

In due course, COEPops and Moms became involved in
a variety of remedial and preventive activities.
They established two drop-in centers which
provided recreation in a safe environment where
parents, not gangs, set the controlling values.
Activities such as break dancing, tumbling, and
double-dutch were used to build relationships and
promote the values of education. The Council
volunteers also chaperoned dances and parties at
the YMCA, the Evanston Township High School
(ETHS), local churches and homes. By their
presence, Council members claimed they diffused
attitudes and pressures which could spawn violence
and substance abuse. Certain neighborhood dances
were not scheduled unless the Council agreed to
attend.

The Council has become increasingly engaged in
preventive activities with a deepening focus on
education and educational opportunity. It
organized a conference on the "learning gap" in
Evanston, the phenomenon in which black school
children as a group have significantly lower tests
scores than their white counterparts. It has for
five years co-sponsored and supplied the coaching
staff for a large basketball league which it uses
as a vehicle to teach high school males -- even
those hostile toward each other or toward
demanding adults -- discipline and respect and
guide them toward productive post high school
endeavors. It has established a scholarship at
Evanston Township High School. Students who
receive the scholarships are asked to assist in
the work of the Council and to serve as convincing
examples of the accessibility of opportunity for
advancement and escape from gang involvement. At
the same time, the Council of Elders has devoted
more and more time to younger children "because
their attitudes have not yet hardened." COEPops
and Moms appear to participate less and less in
crisis intervention activities with hard-core gang
members. In part, this may be due to fewer crisis
or gang-related activities that now occur on
Evanston streets.

Other Grassroots Groups

Former Police Chief, Bill Logan, notes several
other community groups that were valuable in the
community's response to the gang problem,
particularly in their assistance to the police.
Children Adult Network Unlimited (CAN U) was
committed to working with police in the Fleetwood
Jordain area, one of the primary areas of gang
activity. They shared information with the police
and engaged in various youth diversion activities.
COMMUNITY AID was a grassroots group of local
citizens who became the eyes and ears of the
police, and performed community watch functions.
Nichols Neighbors, at an early point in the
development of the gang problem, also monitored
the streets and called the police.

Youth Organizations Umbrella (YOU)

A number of social agencies or youth organizations
have been peripherally connected to the youth gang
problem, although they had long-term concerns with
other youth problems and working relations with
police. A youth agency, YOU, as well as the
police, were solicited by community leaders in
1984 and 1985 to develop a social intervention
program for gang youth. A plan was formulated by
the organization to target fringe or peripheral,
but not highly active or hard-core, gang youth.
Peripheral gang youth or those vulnerable to
membership were to be provided with jobs, sports,
or social activities to pull them away from gangs
and to counter gang recruitment efforts. However,
the plan and YOU's involvement became a source of
controversy. YOU was a white-staffed agency and a
black community organization objected. A variety
of issues surfaced: racial distrust, competition
for funds, and questions of program strategy. YOU
has originated a program for street youth, mainly
status offenders or runaways, a few of whom may
have a gang connection. The service mix developed
includes home visits, counseling, and recreational
activities. Nevertheless, the youth service system
did not develop a substantive program directed to
the problem of gang youth.

Other Agencies

Several agencies sensitive to the youth gang
problem have developed programs and activities
which may have some secondary or indirect
influence on the problem. Neighbors at Work is
geared to low income families and provides
emergency food and shelter. Family Focus is a
program that may serve gang youth families in its
program, but does not specifically target them. It
states that it does not have the resources to
directly deal with the problem. General counseling
and recreation activity, and assistance with
academic problems, are provided to a range of
youth. Youth outreach programs, such as the Youth
Alternatives Project (YAP) do exist in Evanston
and youth advocates are stationed at YOU, Family
Focus, and Evanston Hospital to deal with a
variety of dysfunctional or multi-problem youth,
including school and family problems, but gang
youth has not been a primary focus.

Schools

Public schools have occasionally confronted the
gang problem, but have developed no concentrated
sustained approach. At one time a special police
officer liaison program with the schools existed
which apparently failed to target gang problems.
Bill Logan, the former Police Chief, observes that
the city cut back on school-related programs, such
as Officer Friendly and School Officer Liaison, at
a time when the youth gang problem was emerging.
The police department recommended that the school
district and the city each pick up half of the
bill to reestablish these programs, but the
request was denied.

School security officers presently attempt to
control and forbid gang symbolism, gang graffiti,
and recruitment. Flashing gang signs and the
wearing of hats and colors still occur at schools.
According to one informant, gang-related fights
have broken out recently at a local junior high
school. However, schools presently do not identify
the youth gang problem as serious and requiring
special attention. Teachers have received only
limited gang-awareness training.

Evanston schools are primarily concerned with
maintaining high academic standards but still
attend to the needs of less academically-oriented
students. Special programs are provided to youth
with academic, social, and psychological problems.
The presence of the gang problem or gang youth in
the schools tends to be framed in more general
academic failure and racial terms. A majority of
students who score in the lowest quartile of
academic achievement are low-income black youth.
Estimates are that two-thirds of the students in
special-track educational programs are black. The
schools seem uncertain whether to label many of
these youths as possessing or being prone to
behavior problems or involved in gang activity.
Expectations for low-income minority youth,
including gang youth, appear to be lower than for
white youth (Rosenbaum and Grant 1983). Some
informants claim that alternative education for
gang youth outside the established school system
is a preferred option.

Assessment

The gang problem, especially its violent
component, has apparently been reduced in Evanston
in recent years, based on community perceptions
and police statistical data. Reduction of the
problem has been attributed to the pro-active
efforts of the Evanston police department and some
limited mobilization of community interest and
effort. The reduction of overt violent gang
activity, however, has also been accompanied by a
less visible drug-related and more sophisticated
criminal involvement by older and, to a lesser
extent, younger gang youth.

The Evanston Police Department has developed an
operational reporting and tracking system which
facilitates the statistical assessment of the
youth gang problem. The police defined a gang as a
"group of individuals with some degree of
organization and symbolism that is involved in
criminal activity" (Rosenbaum and Grant 1983, p.
8). A gang is of "concern" to the authorities if
it has "considerable membership and is regularly
involved in criminal activity" (Ibid., 13.) More
recently the Police Department has developed a
complex two-part system for identifying incidents
which serve both to identify and track specific
gang-based problems as well as general criminal
activities of gang youth. "Gang-related" incidents
refer to acts related to gang functions,
especially when they grow out of conflict or
threat of conflict between two gangs. "Gang member
crimes" are simply those committed by gang
members.

Statistics and Perceptions. Evidence exists for
the decline of gang-related incidents between 1984
and 1988. The police report a decline in gang-
related incidents between 1986 and 1988 from 474
to an estimated 345. Arrests of individuals in
these gang-related incidents were also down from
344 to an estimated 268; charges were down from
457 to an estimated 325; and use of weapons,
specifically shots fired declined from 71 to an
estimated 41. Data were not available for an
earlier period or for more broadly defined gang
member crime incidents.

The reduction of the explicit gang problem is even
more impressive when the units of reporting by the
Evanston Police are numbers of gangs and gang
members between 1984 and 1988. The number of gang
members declined from 440 to 138, hard-core gang
membership from 155 to 77. However, there was an
increase in marginal or peripheral gang members
from 20 to 58 in the same period. There is general
agreement that the pattern of change was due to
police targeting hard-core older gang members but
paying less attention to peripheral younger gang
members. The current Gang Crimes Commander
observes that many of the older youth "are pulling
back from the hard-core gang philosophy in order
to stay out of trouble and avoid incarceration.
They are more concerned now with individualism --
selling drugs and keeping their share of the drug
market. They cannot accomplish that if they are
constantly in conflict with other gang members or
law enforcement."

Chief Logan, head of school security since 1987,
claims that "overt gang banging in Evanston has
stopped." He agrees that drug trafficking by gang
members has probably increased. He cites an
instance of a gang member whose home was seized in
a drug trafficking prosecution. According to
another police official, some gang members have
been able to post high bonds in a variety of
criminal cases and that this may be evidence of
involvement in cocaine trafficking and generally
increased drug sales in the community. The
incidence of burglaries has slightly increased,
suggesting a greater need to support drug habits,
including those of gang youths.

According to the present Chief of Police, Ernest
A. Jacobi gang-related drug trafficking may have
leveled off, at least relatively speaking. He
cites a sting investigation in 1987 in which
thirty-five (35) gang members were arrested for
drug violations. In a similar street-level sting
investigation in 1989, the same number were
arrested, but the majority were not gang members.

Observers are generally not sanguine that the gang
problem has been solved or that it will disappear
in Evanston. Gang activity per se is less visible,
although one or two gangs remain quite active. One
social agency observer claims there is recently
increased gang activity by youth in one of the
city's junior high schools. The drug problem has
worsened. Some older gang members involved in the
drug market are now believed to be recruiting and
using younger gang members in drug operations. Of
concern also is that some of the older gang
leaders who once were opposed to each other may
now be cooperating in order to share in the drug
trade.

Conclusions

The Evanston approach to dealing with the gang
problem has been based on a strong deterrent and
community-oriented strategy, directed and largely
implemented by the Police Department, entailing
close surveillance and monitoring and occasionally
harassment, but also open communication and
support of community groups concerned with the
problem. Of special value was intrapolice agency,
as well as inter-justice agency, cooperation.
Within the Police department, intelligence and
investigative functions among all units in the
patrol, special operations, and criminal
investigations divisions were closely coordinated,
although some question remains about the level of
cooperation and exchange of information between
the Juvenile and Gang Crime units. A detailed set
of procedures was carefully and successfully
implemented, regarding case assignment,
intelligence gathering, screening of all police
reports, classifying gang-related information,
appraisal of data placed in intelligence files,
and regular purging of data. Selection and
training of police personnel in the Gang Crimes
Bureau was carefully conducted.

Collaboration with other criminal justice
personnel and education of the community about the
problem were also important elements. The Evanston
Police Department worked closely with the State's
Attorney's office, to some extent the county
judges, and also Parole in the development of
special procedures to deal with the Evanston gang
problem.

The police department, especially Chief Logan,
took leadership in obtaining community cooperation
and information which aided in the development of
a successful enforcement policy and the
incarceration of significant numbers of gang
youth. The fact that Evanston is a small and
relatively stable community where people know each
other and information is readily communicated
assisted in the development of the relatively
effective approach. However, it should be
emphasized that while gang-related violence was
reduced in the 1984-1988 period, the level of
other crimes committed by older gang members,
mainly drug trafficking and possibly burglary,
probably rose.

Certain limitations of the Evanston approach
should be noted. A strategy and program of
prevention and social intervention has not yet
been developed for a complex set of reasons. Basic
institutions of education and perhaps training and
job opportunities have not yet been adequately
mobilized to specifically address the problem. A
sustained commitment by key public and non-profit
agencies and actors did not take place. Denial of
the scope and serious nature of the problem as
well as considerable uncertainty as to how to
address it in light of underlying racial issues
and tensions may have impeded a strong collective
effort.

It is likely that the successful targeting of
older gang youth utilizing mainly a deterrent and
community-oriented strategy has in the short term
contributed to reduction of gang-related violence
by these youth and young adults. Relative
inattention to fringe gang youth and those
specifically ripe for membership may have allowed
for a new round of membership and gang
development. Simple incarceration of older gang
youth and their subsequent involvement in drug
trafficking may have lead to their increased
criminalization and may be associated with recent
recruitment of a new youth to gangs.

Nevertheless, Evanston may be an example of an
effective short-term, community-oriented deterrent
approach by a sophisticated and well-coordinated
police department, addressed primarily to the
issue of gang violence in a city without apparent
long-term gang problems. While it is not an
example of a broad scale, balanced approach to the
problem, it should be regarded as probably
successful in reducing the overt gang violence
problem over the past few years. A comprehensive
approach, as suggested by Rosenbaum and Grant in
their Northwestern study is probably required for
long-term effective change.

References

Rosenbaum, Dennis P. and Jane A. Grant. 1983 Gangs
and Youth Problems in Evanston: Findings and
Policy Options. Center for Urban Affairs and
Policy Research, Northwestern University. July 22.

-------------------------------

CASE STUDY 2
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Background

Fort Wayne, located in Allen county, is the second
largest city in Indiana, located in the
northeastern part of the state on main roads
connecting Chicago and Detroit as well as other
large cities such as Toledo and Cleveland in Ohio
and Ypsilanti in Michigan. Fort Wayne is a city of
190,000 population in a metropolitan area of
300,000. African-Americans comprise 17 percent of
the population, with its lower income groups
confined to certain sections of the inner city.
Fort Wayne also has a small Mexican-American
population of less than 5 percent.

Fort Wayne is in many respects a stable,
prosperous city with a diverse economy based in
large measure on light industry. Magnavox is the
largest employer. The Lincoln National Life
Insurance Company is headquartered in the city.
Business and industry are enlightened and
contribute significantly to social and youth
welfare development. The city does not suffer from
the effects of high-rise public housing, although
low-income project areas have a black population
with high rates of social problems.

Fort Wayne is a conservative but concerned
community. It has become aware in recent years of
growing social and youth problems. Representatives
of various agencies believe that gang and drug
problems were introduced and in part developed by
persons from such cities as Detroit, Chicago, and
Ypsilanti. Fort Wayne is currently regarded as the
"crack capital" of Indiana. The city prides itself
on being a law-abiding and socially pro-active
community, but is aware of an increase in family
breakdown, rising illiteracy rate, and the
isolation of its low-income black population,
which has not shared commensurately in the city's
prosperity.

The Youth Gang Problem

Fort Wayne agency informants state that its youth
gang problem is relatively recent. Law-violating
youth groups were only occasionally a problem. The
beginning of a youth gang problem was identified
about 1982 or 1983. Several older teenagers or
young adults from such large cities as Los
Angeles, Chicago, and Detroit were said to have
introduced signs, symbols, and youth-gang criminal
behavior patterns.

Some observers state, however, there was a
readiness by local youth with "little to do" after
school to be influenced by outsiders. Significant
numbers of black youth did poorly at school, could
not find jobs, and began to hang on the streets.
Youth groups or gangs were engaged in assaults
upon each other and property crimes, including
burglary, and theft. They were involved in
relatively little drug-related activity initially,
although alcohol use was an on-going problem among
teenagers.

The captain of the Juvenile Aid Division of the
Fort Wayne Police Department attributes the rise
of the formal youth gang problem to a particular
22-year-old member of a Chicago street gang who
with his family commuted between Chicago and Fort
Wayne. He recruited several other older teenagers
and formed a unit of the Disciples. The group
eventually split, and one faction became
identified with another opposing gang that
mimicked a Chicago gang, the Vice Lords. Turf
conflicts, shootings, beatings, and car thefts
ensued. Another older youth, with gang experience,
and his family moved from Los Angeles to Fort
Wayne. This youth also recruited and introduced
youth to gang patterns. Graffiti and weapons
started to appear. " . . . [F]actions developed,
confrontations and fights occurred." At first guns
were fired into the air for amusement and then
drive-by shootings followed.

The police detected an emerging gang problem in
1982, but were unsure what to do about it. They
called in an expert(s) from the Chicago police
gang unit to assess the situation. The expert(s)
concluded that Fort Wayne had a "mild" gang
problem. The gang groups or factions were small
and amorphous. Graffiti and symbols were not
clearly developed. Because of this assessment,
according to several informants, the police and
others in the community preferred to first clarify
the situation and did not take quick action.

The gang problem was recognized as serious in the
summer of 1985 during several youth festivals,
when gangs were disorderly and clashed with each
other. Shootings and serious injuries occurred.
Eight distinct gangs and between 400 and 500 gang
members were estimated to be present in the city,
particularly in the low income black areas. A
small Hispanic and white gang member population,
also present, was not regarded as a significant
problem. Two or three gangs appeared to be at the
core of the problem. The so-called Disciples and
possibly the Vice Lords were both composed of
older youth. The Renegades formed to protect
themselves from the Disciples and the MCJs formed
out of the Renegades. The Smurfs and its girls'
affiliate group, the Smurfettes, were also
identified. None of the gangs were well-organized
and the lines of membership among all of the
groups were not clear.

Turf issues were not strong since busing brought
youth from the different neighborhoods to the same
high schools where the gang problem was further
developed. Gang assaults began in and around
schools. Some youths and street groups that did
not have gang or delinquent traditions were drawn
into the gangs. To what extent the variety of
crimes by youth groups in this period, such as
criminal mischief, car thefts and burglaries, were
strictly gang-related or motivated is unclear. The
problems of drug use, possession, and trafficking
were not regarded as serious or gangrelated in
this period.

Community Response

A significant response to the problem came from
specific agency personnel and community leaders. A
unique and productive set of collaborative
interagency relations was developed to deal with
the problem. The initial reaction of the police,
business, and real-estate interests to play down
the problem was no longer adequate. In hindsight,
the assessment by the Chicago police expert(s) was
not viewed as energizing the police into a pro-
active stance. One police informant, however,
stated that the police department's initial
reaction was a way of not recognizing or giving
gangs publicity and thereby alarming the public.

Juvenile Probation and several social agency and
community leaders called a press conference in
1982 to voice concern with rising problems among
children and youth, including youth gangs. After a
period of negotiation, the Coalition for Youth
Services (CYS) was established under the aegis of
the YMCA. Various affiliated or component action
groups were formed. One of them dealt with youth
gangs. An agency network strategy evolved both
informally and formally. Representatives from the
police, probation, schools, the YMCA, prosecution,
and other agencies initially comprised the gang
action group. David Brittenham, the CYS
coordinator, was influential in the development of
the Gang Prevention Action Group (GPAG), which
produced a networking strategy and a systematic
way of dealing with the gang problem.

Police

Despite the delay by the police in formally
recognizing or publicizing the presence of gangs,
they had in fact already begun to target gang
leaders and core gang members. A broad scale
attack was initiated with the advent of the
Coalition for Youth Services. The strategy
developed as follows:

Identification of Gang Members. Patrol division
officers developed a list of 200 probable gang
members and associates, in conjunction with the
prosecuting attorney, deans at the local high
schools, and the Juvenile Probation Department.
CYS personnel served to facilitate this process of
interagency communication and cooperation.
Categories of gang members were identified. These
included gang leaders, core members, fringe
members, and even family members who might also be
gang affiliated. Other youth admitted their gang
membership. Some of the youth were identified by
the dress or gang colors they wore. The police
began to check and track gang incidents on the
basis of the lists developed by GPAG agencies and
police field cards. The members of the Gang
Prevention Action Group (GPAG) used the lists to
monitor alleged gang youth. A special public
meeting of the parents of these identified youth
was called by the Juvenile Probation Department,
which stirred parental consternation and anger
(see Probation below).

Intelligence Gathering. Information on the gang
problem flowed to the police from many quarters.
The YMCA outreach worker, who had established
rapport with gang leaders and members, transmitted
information about gang structure and impending
criminal gang activities. He was able to persuade
some of the gang leaders to provide useful
information during gang crises. School officials
who heard of an impending gang "rumble"
immediately called the police who would send an
unmarked car to verify the impending threat, deter
the action and sometimes make arrests. The police
in turn, if they had information, would notify
Brittenham or his associate, Frazier, the outreach
worker, about impending gang battles. A CYS crisis
team, usually consisting mainly of Frazier,
sometimes Brittenham, and a community resident,
would cruise the streets looking for kids who were
facing each other down and prevent conflict. The
CYS staff, because of "good relations" with the
gang, was able to pull the "power" persons aside
and get them to assist in resolving the gang
fracas before it started.

Enforcement. A special gang enforcement (or
investigative) unit was not established by the
police to focus specifically on youth gangs. The
Juvenile Aid Division continued to carry out its
general juvenile work and in addition
investigated, as well as monitored, gang activity.
However, a task force of foot patrol officers,
comprised of volunteers, was assigned to deal with
gang activity in the affected area. They operated
mainly during the night shift from 5:00 p.m. to
3:00 a.m. The officers were "screened as to
toughness, good mediators, and public relations
men." No black police officers volunteered for the
unit. The task force conducted sweeps, searched
youth for weapons, and made photos and video tapes
of youth. Gang leaders and members were identified
and targeted. The police actions at times bordered
on harassment. About 50 guns were collected and
400 arrests were made during the year 1985-86,
when the gang problem was at its height. Twelve to
fourteen hard-core youth were also incarcerated
for periods of 6 months or more on charges such as
aggravated assault, strong arm robbery, and
vehicle theft. The fact that the arrested youth
were gang members or "involved in gang-like
illegal activity," e.g., burglary, was
communicated to the judge who "enhanced" their
sentences.

There is a difference of view among police
informants as to how effective some of these
suppression activities were. One informant
observes that the curfew sweeps were a "waste of
time and manpower." Youth were quickly released to
parents and police had to provide a taxi cab
service to return youth home. Then, "they were
right back on the street." However, the situation
began to change over time. By the middle of the
summer of 1986, gang youth were no longer carrying
weapons. In September of that year, with the start
of school, gangs began to dissipate. The benefits
of a suppression approach seemed to outweigh its
costs, at least over the short term. The police
also about this time assisted the community in the
development of the Pontiac Youth Center (see
below).

Schools

The schools, as well as probation, recognized
early the importance of a pro-active approach to
the youth gang problem. The schools, a participant
in the Gang Prevention Action Group (GPAG), took a
strong stance and emphasized the importance of
good early warning and information systems. A key
school official believed that effective exchange
of information about youth gang activity was
important and that the targeting of gang
leadership for incarceration or jobs was crucial
in the attack on the problem. A justice system
official notes, however, the mixed motivations of
school officials in the use of "gang lists." Some
school deans, who were mainly concerned with
school security, wanted only to identify gang kids
and "kick them out of school." Other school
officials realized the complexity of the problem,
the general community's responsibility, and were
genuinely interested in helping problem youth.

Cooperation by the schools with the police was
emphasized. The police supplied the names of youth
who were suspected of gang activity to a key
school planning official who ran the list through
the school's computer system. School officials
were then able to determine where gang youth were
located and monitor them more or less closely
depending on their concentration in certain
schools and classes. Information as to which gang
youths were at which schools and where they were
living was supplied to the police who were able to
monitor the youth outside of school hours.
Identification of these youths, including names,
birth dates, schools, and residence, was also
given to Juvenile Probation (See Probation below).
All deans and assistant deans were continually
made aware of pertinent gang-related information
relayed by electronic mail. In turn, they quickly
transferred pertinent information on these youth
to key school liaison, usually for transmittal to
the police.

School officials took a "hard line" against gang
youth and gang activities, even harder than
probation which often advocated "alternative
school programs" for youth who were suspended or
expelled. Suspensions for gang activity were
increased during this early period, from 6 to 12
months. No form of gang activity was permitted on
campus. School officials believed that some older
students sought to transfer to the high schools
from out of town, mainly to sell drugs. To prevent
this, the presence of a parent and records from
their previous school of enrollment were required
before the transfer was completed. A "hard line"
was also taken on drug and alcohol use. "If kids
were caught with drugs or alcohol, they were
'busted' out."

Probation

The Allen County Court Family Relations
Department, and specifically its Juvenile
Probation Field Division, has received national
recognition for its innovative and comprehensive
programming with problem youth. It has an
intensive probation unit, uses urine testing to
monitor possible drug abuse, and employs
electronic monitoring devices in lieu of
incarceration. The Probation Department emphasizes
community-based treatment as well as close
supervision.

The Field Division has five juvenile "drop-in"
centers around the city furnished with offices and
also recreational areas with pool tables, ping
pong and weight machines. They sponsor soccer and
basketball teams for inner city youth, age 8-14
years. These neighborhood centers provide
education, job-readiness training. and work-
related opportunities. A wilderness site has been
created with the aid of the Lincoln National Life
Insurance Company, where youth can fish and camp.
Group rap sessions led by trained graduate social
workers are also available.

Duane Hinshaw, Supervisor of Field Services of
Juvenile Probation, claims that the Probation
Department was one of the early leaders to
recognize the gang problem and do something about
it. Probation officers in neighborhood centers
located in the gang neighborhoods became
especially sensitive to the emergence of the
problem, since probationers often had difficulty
getting to the centers and were occasionally
assaulted. In response, juvenile probation
officers began to escort youth through these
areas.

The Probation Department urged and strongly
supported the development of the Coalition for
Youth Services and the Gang Prevention Action
Group. The Department was especially concerned
about the lack of trust among agencies. Hinshaw
notes that even after the formation of CYS, it
took close to a year before effective working
relationships were created. The Probation
Department, however, was very proactive in its
concern with the gang problem.

In one instance, the Field Division utilized the
list of gang members compiled by the schools and
police under the aegis of the GPAG to "summon"
parents of alleged gang youth to a town meeting.
The letter to parents stated that their child was
possibly involved in gang activity and asked them
to come to the Court House to a town meeting
discussion. The meeting was chaired by Ken Watson,
the Chief Probation officer. The County Coroner
was also present and provided information on
gunshot and stab wounds. Many of the parents
became extremely upset. They denied their children
were gang members. They wanted to know why their
children were suspected of being gang members.

The mood of the parents was very hostile until one
of the most vocal parents used the meeting as an
opportunity to urge the development of an after-
school recreational facility for youth, since many
youth claimed they did not have enough to do. This
discussion lead to the idea for the creation of
the Pontiac Youth Center. The parents agreed to
volunteer their time. An advisory committee was
formed. Members of the police foot patrol unit
assisted parents in the furnishing and renovation
of a building for the Youth Center.

YMCA/CYS/GPAG. The United Way, influenced by key
business and community leaders concerned with the
rise of social children and youth problems in the
city, established a citywide task force to
consider means to deal with them. The YMCA,
particularly Dave Brittenham, was involved and
influential in these formative discussions in 1982
and 1983 which resulted in a three-year youth
services program. A key objective of the program
was interagency coalition building and the
solicitation of funding for projects developed by
agencies in the coalition to deal with the
problems. Agency resources were expected to be
better interrelated and used more efficiently.

Two key problems had to be overcome for the
successful building of the interagency coalition:
[1] a history of competition, distrust, and
inertia in interagency endeavors; and, [2]
underlying tension and distrust between the black
and white community particularly in regard to
recognizing and addressing problems largely of
low-income black, disadvantaged inner city
community residents.

Dave Brittenham, a social worker, had extensive
experience as a YMCA director in Detroit, Chicago,
and St. Louis and was an astute, non-threatening,
innovative administrator. He was able to establish
the Coalition for Youth Services (CYS) as an
umbrella organization under the aegis of the YMCA.
Its component action groups, comprised members who
were operational persons from key agencies
concerned with the different children and youth
problems. With the assistance of his associate,
Mel Frazier, he carefully played a series of roles
in regard to the development of the Gang
Prevention Action Group (GPAG), including
interagency communicator, program facilitator,
crisis manager, and at times outreach worker. A
key activity of the group was the "fast sharing of
information" with key operational persons during
gang crises and the avoidance of formal
bureaucratic procedures or political
considerations.

An executive committee of GPAG was set up
comprising key actors from the police, schools,
and probation, as well as the YMCA. The
interagency group operated with some secrecy. Its
decisions and operational procedures were not
widely communicated outside of the group. Trust
developed largely due to the skillful, self-
effacing efforts of Brittenham. The Chief of
Police became more cooperative when he realized
that the schools wanted swift action and that Dave
Brittenham was not running for mayor. Brittenham
was especially concerned about maintaining the
group's unity and confidentiality of its decision-
making process.

Brittenham was also somewhat sensitive to the
interests and concerns of the black community. He
was aware that when it came to certain social
problems, blacks and whites tended to go their
separate ways. He believed that "what you had to
do was find creative ways to make blacks and
whites partners in a collective effort." He was
able to partially do this through employment of
Melvin Frazier, a black associate coordinator, who
not only had special responsibility as an outreach
worker to black gang youth but who was able to
relate both to the grassroots black community and
the authoritative or established white
institutions, especially the police. Frazier had
to demonstrate his credibility with adults in the
disadvantaged neighborhoods as well as not
threaten key city officials.

Frazier proved to be admirably suited for the job.
He was "resilient to the ups and downs of outreach
work, and committed to work around the clock." He
came to be seen as a positive presence by the
police department. He did not criticize police
strategy or activity. He let youth know up front
that he would pass on certain types of information
to the police, when it was in the best interests
of youth. At the same time, he went out of his way
to assist youth and their families when they were
in crises, gang-related and otherwise. He
counseled and referred them for various services,
particularly jobs. The Lincoln National Life
Insurance Company established a special program of
employing youth at risk, as well as hard-core gang
youth. Part-time after-school jobs, along with
arrests, seemed to be a useful strategy.

The CYS eventually evolved into a networking and
planning agency, comprising a coalition of job-
training programs, a ministerial group, hospitals,
child-care agencies, grassroots groups, and
community action organizations. A drug prevention
action group has recently been organized.
Representatives of over 50 agencies participate. 
Key organizations, black and white, are involved
in various aspects of the interagency coalition
program. To what extent the coalition,
particularly its gang action group, has been able
to directly reach out and obtain cooperation of
residents of the disadvantaged black community is
unclear. Many of the agency representatives
contacted agree that parents of gang youth -- many
of them single parents -- were not successfully
involved, except for the development of the
Pontiac Youth Center. The schools, police, or
youth agencies were generally not able to mobilize
local grassroots groups to support their efforts.

CYS was able, however, to organize "8 to 10
merchants at the corner of Pontiac and Anthony
into an association . . . to work with the police"
to keep the area clear of gangs. The area was
cleaned up in about five months. . . . Gang
activity was displaced to other areas." There was
also some effort expended by GPAG in meetings with
residents at apartment complexes. Police, prosecu-
tors, and social agency staff made presentations.
Residents were informed about who they could call
in an emergency. They were also made aware of
educational and social programs available for
youth.

The basis for the Coalition for Youth Services
(CYS) and the principles of its operation are
articulated as follows:

"A smaller city will have a greater chance of
effectively addressing a developing gang problem
if it is confronted during its early stages. It is
also important for a community to realize that
gang development is a symptom of deeper causes
which must be addressed . . . gang development is
a community problem which cries out for a
collaborative community response" (Coalition for
Youth Services, U.D., p. 4).

Principles of community collaboration include (1)
The development and acceptance by agencies of
certain "facilitating leadership" . . . Someone
must have the vision and be willing and capable of
providing organization and coordinating roles.
This facilitating role is necessary to get the
process started, to get the right individuals
together at the right time to address the right
issue; (2) Significant "key" participants/
organizations must be part of the process; (3)
Issues must be identified, accepted, and (there
must be) commitment to follow through by the key
individuals/ organizations; (4) Procedures and
organizational mechanisms, whether simple or
complex, must also exist to facilitate
collaboration.

The underlying basis for these principles was: (1)
Willingness of participating parties/organizations
to give up a degree of recognition and control of
end results because of the greater value
recognized through the results of collaborative
efforts; (2) The facilitating leadership and
organization needed to be non-threatening, held in
high esteem, and have a reputation for operational
competence; (3) Trust between participating
parties (especially key individuals and
organizations) is necessary in order to bridge any
past, present, or future negative dynamics; (4)
Significant support is necessary from the power
base of participating organization(s) and/or
government(s); (5) The more comprehensive the
collaborative effort, the greater the need for
broad-based power support; and (6) Sustained
"intentional connectedness" would result from
effectively working toward a common purpose
(Ibid., pp. 6-10).

Assessment

The emerging youth gang problem is perceived as
eliminated or reduced in Fort Wayne since about
1986. It is not clear, however, that crime by
youth gang or former youth gang members has
abated. The major problem(s) of current concern to
key agency persons is drug trafficking and drug
use. There is a difference of view as to whether
"former" gang members are involved in drug
trafficking, although there is general agreement
that drug use by juveniles, including younger gang
members, is not a serious problem. There is also a
difference of opinion as to whether the
disappearance of the gang problem or its
quiescence is directly associated with an increase
of drug trafficking. However, CYS and its Gang
Prevention Action Group (GPAG) believe that the
reduction of the gang phenomena, in its visible,
congregate, assaultive form, resulted largely from
its collaborative efforts.

Statistical evidence is not available or at least
not accessible to test any of these propositions.
A key data problem may be the lack of consensus on
what constitutes a gang or gang incident and to
what extent all crime committed by gang members
should be considered gang-related. The distinction
between the activity of law-violating youth groups
and youth gangs also seems unclear. Definitions of
the problem by key actors appear to be variable.
However, it is likely that the close working
relationships of key actors and their common
understanding of who gang kids were and what the
gang problem was in specific situations overcame
differences in articulation or conceptualization
of the problem.

According to a school official, a gang-related
incident is a situation involving two or more
identified gang members resulting in a hostile or
illegal situation. "Most incidents were gang
fighting." According to Dave Brittenham, "we have
a loose definition -- any behavior which is actual
or potential of a violent or socially unacceptable
nature involving youth known to be members of, or
associated with, an identified gang." Duane
Hinshaw of the Probation Department, however,
indicates that a gang incident or gang-related
offense is difficult to identify. Activity such as
drug behavior, vehicle thefts, and burglaries by
suspected gang members should not necessarily be
regarded as gang motivated or related.

The focal definition of the Coalition for Youth
Services is very broad. A gang-related incident is
"youth activity and/or behavior which is unlawful,
harmful, and/or excessively antisocial which needs
to be addressed in its own right as well as being
or potentially being associated with gang
activity. The activities include, but are not
necessarily limited to, breaking and entering,
burglary, theft, drug use and dealing, auto theft,
and robbery, etc."

It is possible that law or norm violating behavior
by youth groups was made equivalent to youth gang
behavior. Youth gang behavior may also have been
viewed as more characteristic of or attributed to
black than to white youth. This is not to deny
that logos, graffiti, colors, gang fights, or
drive-bys are clearly gang-related behaviors and
also occurred. Further, it is possible that in a
city with an emerging gang problem, law violating
youth groups and youth gangs and their respective
behaviors are difficult to distinguish.

There is more consistency in reports about the
appearance and disappearance of gangs, mainly
traditional gangs. There was no noticeable gang
problem in 1980, although there were possibly some
youth groups engaged in law or norm violating
behavior at the time. The gang problem in its
visible form started around 1982 or 1983. It
reached a peak in 1985 or 1986, when three to five
significant gangs were identified, with average
memberships of 50 to 60 members each. By 1987 or
1988, there was no longer a set of youth gangs
committing typical or traditional youth gang
problems. Sergeant Roach of the Juvenile Aid
Division recently reports that a series of video
surveillance activities at traditional youth
hangouts, carried out in relation to a series of
vehicle thefts and armed robberies, revealed that
no new gang activity was occurring.

While there is agreement that the reduction of
traditional youth gang activity paralleled a
significant increase in drug dealing activity,
there are different views about the connection
between these two trends. Chief of Police Moore
states there has been a "significant increase in
the number of crack houses in the city." He
believes that the decrease in traditional gang
activity is linked to the involvement of older
gang members or former gang members in the drug
trade. He states there is less overt traditional
gang activity because "it could hurt their drug
profits. Recent investigations of the crack
dealers in the city have turned up the names of
former gang members." There is some agreement that
a major reason for the crack trade is the movement
of dealers from Detroit into Fort Wayne. Juveniles
are often reported to be street suppliers and
runners.

Duane Hinshaw of the Probation Department is less
sure that the reduction of gang activity and the
rise of the drug problem, at least as it is
related to juveniles, are linked. He states that a
few of the former gang leaders are now "strung-out
on crack," but many juvenile gang members have not
been involved in selling or using crack. He adds
there was at least a year separating the decline
of gang activity and the rise of the drug problem.
Most juveniles are still into use of alcohol and
marijuana. Another police informant suggests that
while the influx of crack may not have had an
impact on reducing traditional gang activity, it
could still be a factor in preventing the re-
emergence of traditional gang activity. In other
words, the efforts of CYS, GPAG, and the key
response agencies individually and collectively
could still have been significantly responsible
for the reduction of the gang problem.

Duane Hinshaw and other justice system officials
also state that criminal offenses by juveniles
"have not gone down" in recent years. Total
offenses for youth and adults have consistently
gone up while the population has remained
relatively stable. Burglaries, robberies and
homicides are up. It is possible that some former
gang members using drugs are now into more
burglaries and auto thefts to support drug habits,
although they may not be heavily into drug
trafficking. According to Hinshaw, the rise of the
drug problem and other criminal offenses may not
be related to the lack of jobs. There is currently
full employment in Fort Wayne. "Employment of kids
has gone up." The key problem is the lack of basic
academic skills of many street youths and
therefore their failure to be employed.

Captain Greer of the Juvenile Aid Division agrees
that few juveniles have been involved in drug
trafficking. Only three cases were reported during
the past year. He indicates further that he has no
reports of youth gang members arrested as part of
crack house raids, although older "former" gang
members have been involved. About 50 of 100 crack
houses have been closed down. No major drug
problems have been identified in the schools. "We
had a police informant positioned in the schools
for some time, but he was unable to buy anything."
He adds "There are not a lot of kids in drug
treatment."

A school official and Dave Brittenham suggest,
however, that there may be heavy involvement by
youth in drug selling and using, although it is
not clear how many of them are gang members. The
school official states that "kids in the middle
school are becoming involved with crack house
operations and most of the youths are from Fort
Wayne." Dave Brittenham claims that drug use is
widespread in the black and white adult and youth
populations. Furthermore, "younger kids are being
used as lookouts and runners. Kids are making fast
bucks. There is minimal competition between drug
factions, but this is beginning to change."

Brittenham suggests that the drug problem is more
complex and elusive than the traditional youth
gang problem and that the city and CYS have not
yet been as successful in dealing with it.
"Whereas in our previous gang situation we knew
who our players were, this is not the case now.
Our network approach on this issue has not clicked
yet." The city administration and police
department, although they have moved somewhat
forcefully, have also not been as effective in
dealing with the problem, as they were with the
traditional gang problem. Furthermore, the low
number of juvenile drug cases may be the result of
reporting procedures. The drug cases, juvenile or
adult, are handled by the narcotics division, but
they may not have specifically identified the
juvenile cases.

Finally, Sergeant Roach of the Juvenile Division,
Police Department, observes that CYS recently
sponsored a reunion of former gang members. "The
purpose was to see what was happening with the
gang situation in Fort Wayne. It was a big
success. Over 300 people turned out. Some of the
former gang members were now in school. Some had
jobs. They didn't seem to be interested in gangs
anymore. This led us to believe that gang activity
is at a standstill."

Conclusion

Our knowledge of the changing or disappearing gang
problem in Fort Wayne is handicapped by
insufficiency of data and lack of consistency in
definition and reporting. Nevertheless, there is
sufficient evidence to conclude that there was an
emerging gang problem in the city in the early
1980s and that a process of collaboration among
schools, police, and agencies was effective in its
control or reduction. The reduction of traditional
gang activity occurred also within a context of an
emerging, larger scale and more complex drug
problem that probably involved some gang youth and
older gang or former gang members.

The collaboration of key persons or organizations
dealing with the gang problem was mainly at the
interagency level and employed a primary deterrent
strategy by a variety of actors, supplemented by
social intervention. It is not clear that
significant preventive or community mobilization
efforts were employed, e.g., parenting classes,
use of special curricula, remedial education;
police based-sponsored community education about
the gang problem; or that efforts to mobilize
concerned parent or other direct citizen
involvement were significantly developed.

Some of the comments of informants regarding the
causes and response to the problem include concern
that there is social isolation of significant
sections of the black community and xenophobia or
racism by key elements of the white population.
One informant notes that all of the juvenile gang
members institutionalized on battery charges were
blacks. "If these kids would have been white
middle class, they probably wouldn't have been
sent away."

Another informant indicates there may have been
some violations of confidentiality of information
and youth privacy. The identification of juveniles
as gang members and their subsequent placement on
gang lists that were circulated and used as a
basis for the actions of various agencies were
based both on suspicion or hearsay as well as some
good evidence. Better criteria and procedures were
needed to establish and verify gang membership.

The remarks of the Fort Wayne informants were
extremely open and honest, reflecting deep concern
with the welfare and social development of Fort
Wayne youth as well as the safety and protection
of the broader community. Yet, Frazier, the YMCA
(CYS) associate coordinator and outreach worker,
perceives the current situation pessimistically:
"The streets are now more dangerous than before
and drug dealers have been able to more easily
penetrate communities because of the worsening
economic situation." On the other hand, Duane
Hinshaw of Juvenile Probation emphasizes that at
least one aspect of the gang situation, probably
as narrowly defined, has improved: "The number of
youths involved in shootings or caught with
weapons has actually gone down in recent times."
Despite some of these different perceptions, Fort
Wayne represents one of the best examples of a
tight networking approach spanning criminal
justice and non-criminal justice agencies of all
the cities examined in our survey (n=45).
Community agencies were mobilized and a generally
consistent approach, mainly suppression but also
social intervention, was established and
successfully implemented.

References

Young Mens Christian Association (YMCA). undated.
"Coalition for Youth Services." Fort Wayne,
Indiana.

------------------------------

CASE STUDY 3

Draper Cottage
Ethan Allen School for Boys
Bureau of Juvenile Services
Division of Corrections
Department of Health and Social Services
Wisconsin

Background
(Quotations, unless otherwise identified are from
oral written remarks by Draper Cottage staff or
Superintendent Oscar Shade.)

The Draper Cottage of the Ethan Allen School for
Boys is located in Wales, Wisconsin, a relatively
short distance from Chicago. It is one of the very
few programs in the country which attempts to deal
with the distinctive problems of gang youth in a
residential or institutional context. This
institutional program may be unique in its focus
on gang youth, its variety of activities, and its
intentions and plans to evaluate the effectiveness
of its correctional and rehabilitative efforts.

It is difficult to include corrections along with
other components of the justice system in a site
visit to a city, since correctional institutions
are often isolated from or not significantly
related to community programs. However, since gang
youth tend to be at higher risk than other kinds
of delinquents of being sent to a correctional or
residential facility, it seemed important to
specifically visit and describe such a program.

The Ethan Allen School for Boys is one of two
medium security youth corrections institutions for
the most serious and difficult to manage juvenile
offenders in Wisconsin. It is 125 miles northwest
of the Chicago Loop, located between Milwaukee and
Madison in a rich farm and resort area. The
institution contains two types of structures set
on a campus surrounded by a wooded area. The large
buildings were constructed early in the 20th
century as part of a tuberculosis hospital
complex. Other well constructed cottages date from
the 1960's. The School is visibly separated from
its environment by a high, 14-foot fence topped
with a 3-foot roll of barbed wire. Entrance to the
institution is through two sets of electronically
operated security doors. Once past security, the
School appears to be an attractive campus with
relatively free and open access for residents and
staff, albeit within the secure enclosure.

The institution has a recent history of relatively
liberal and humanistic administration. The School
was established in its present location in 1959.
The first administrator developed a cottage system
which provided youth with a considerable degree of
privacy and personal freedom. Each youth had his
own room and was permitted to wear his own clothes
and keep personal belongings. An approach which
emphasized education and personal change, in
addition to discipline, was inaugurated during the
26-year tenure of the first superintendent.

Dr. Oscar Shade is a 58-year-old African-American
with a Ph.D. in Education who has been the
superintendent since 1984. He has continued and
further developed the humanistic approach of the
School. His chief innovations thus far have been a
democratic, decentralized administration and a
specialized set of programs. Considerable
responsibility resides in program managers and
social service staff for different programs and
operation of the cottage complex. Special programs
and cottages have been established for the
following kinds of problem youth: drug and alcohol
abusers, sex offenders, serious delinquents, older
offenders, younger offenders, those requiring
intensive treatment, as well as hard-core gang
offenders. Vilas Hall, known to the youth
residents as the "hole," is the "discipline"
cottage. Dr. Shade's aim is to optimize
communication between different types of staff as
well as with the youth offenders for purposes of
improved rehabilitation and preventive work.

The Ethan Allen School for Boys emphasizes
education and preparation of youth for future
learning. More specifically, its purposes are to
prepare youth for return to the community with
changed attitudes and values that emphasize
legitimate behavioral career goals. Less
explicitly, its mission, of course, is to protect
the community from serious juvenile offenders. The
means to achieve these social educational purposes
include the provision of opportunities for basic
remedial, developmental, and exceptional
education, as well as industrial arts and
recreation. Social and psychological services,
psychiatric consultation as well as security
arrangements are present. A qualified and
certified staff is available to operate the
program.

Three hundred twenty-two (322) youths were
residents at The Ethan Allen School for Boys in
May 1989. The average age of offenders was 16-1/2
years; 60.5 percent are black, 31.7 percent are
white, and 7.1 percent are Hispanic. The age of
offenders and the proportion of minority youth
have been going up in recent years. The majority
of youth in the institution have a history of 4 or
5 prior placements for offenses. Youth are
referred to Ethan Allen School mainly for property
crimes (e.g., burglary, robbery) but also for
sexual assaults and batteries. Four or five have
been sent to the institution for homicides. There
is a reported increase in gang affiliated youth in
recent years. The average stay of offenders is 8
to 10 months, although there appear to be
pressures from legislators (for economic reasons)
and community reformers to reduce time spent at
the institution. Upon discharge, approximately 70
percent of the youth are released to alternative
placements in the community, the remainder are
sent home.

It should be noted that the institution does not
determine length of stay of inmates. A juvenile
review board establishes the disposition based on
the needs of the particular youth within a
philosophy of least restrictive placement, but
also with due regard for community safety and
protection.

The Draper Cottage assigned for designated hard-
core or committed gang youth presently contains 27
residents. The average age of Draper Cottage youth
is about 17-1/2 years. A recent analysis indicates
that 84.8 percent are black; 10.3 percent
Hispanic, and 1 youth, 3.3 percent are white. In
other words, the cottage contains relatively
older, more minority and fewer white youth than
the institution as a whole. Draper Cottage youth
are also more serious offenders, with longer
histories of assaultive crime. The pattern of
offenses for which gang youth are referred to the
institution and placed in Draper Cottage has
changed in recent years, with more involvement in
drug offenses and participation in organized
criminal behavior. Twenty-two of 30 youth most
recently resident in Draper have been charged with
drug trafficking. Draper Cottage Youth generally
stay longer than those in the institution-at-
large.

Two hundred sixty-two (262) staff are assigned to
deal with Ethan Allen's youth population, as
follows: 143 youth counseling staff, including
supervisory personnel, 50 teachers, 14 social
workers, 10 food service workers, 20 maintenance
staff, and the remainder administration and
supervisory personnel. Each cottage houses 20 to
30 boys. Staffing is staggered so that on the
first and third shifts, when the boys are either
at school or asleep, one counselor is on duty at
each cottage. Two counselors work during the
afternoon and evening hours.

The cost of the Ethan Allen School for Boys
program is $33,000.00 to $35,000.00 a year per
youth. Reliable data on recidivism are not
available at this time. Estimates vary from 50
percent to 70 percent. "In a four year study about
50 percent entered the adult system on either
probation or incarceration. While a significant
percent of the youth released from Ethan Allen
School do return and thereby recidivate, a
significant percentage of these are returned for
rules violations rather than new violations of the
law."

The apparent high recidivism rate, however
computed, may be due in large measure to selection
factors. The worst or most serious juvenile
offenders in the state are present in Ethan Allen.
Community pressure is also building to close one
of the two youth correctional institutions in
favor of less costly and perhaps more effective
programs, including intensive probation
supervision, more youth employment programs, and
more front end preventive programs, including
court orders for youth to remain in school in the
community.

Draper Cottage

The creation of the Draper Cottage for gang youth
(i.e., a specialized correctional gang unit) may
be traced to several factors: more and more youth
were arriving, especially from Milwaukee, whose
crimes seemed to be gang-related or inspired; the
Milwaukee Police Department had formed a gang unit
and thereby influenced the development of a
specialized unit in the institution; the
specialized program pattern by the institution of
assigning youth with similar problems to the same
cottage; and the Superintendent's belief that the
school had a special responsibility to teach and
assist minority youth, especially gang youth, to
modify their behavior and pursue a more productive
course.

Between 1984 and 1986, an institutional study
committee was organized to learn "about the issues
of youth gangs" and to discover what was occurring
in the field to deal with the issues. Several
adult and juvenile institutions were visited or
contacted by mail. Nothing was published or
available that could be used as a guide. "Most
agencies were dealing with the phenomena by simple
suppression of the behavior." According to Dr.
Shade, "Our own experience, the behavior of the
residents as well as what they were telling us,
made it abundantly clear that the issues were far
more significant than could be dealt with by
suppression alone."

A staff work group decided to develop a "gang
program" that would work not with gang-affiliated
youth but those who had assumed positions of
street-gang leadership, who had a history of
aggressive-assaultive behavior, and who "to the
best of our intelligence gathering, had a
connection between their delinquent acts and their
gangism." The decision was made to "provide a
broader educational and social-psychological
rehabilitation" program within the institution for
those "residents who posed the greatest risk to
the community."

Ethan Allen School invested "a great deal of time
and resources in the training of staff" in the use
of relevant psychological approaches for dealing
with criminally oriented youth, e.g., "Behavioral
Errors in Thinking." A special consulting
psychologist, Dr. Dave Smith, was hired to teach
the model and its implementation. The counseling
model is a cognitive approach to rectifying poor
decision-making and is based upon the work of
Stanton Samenow and Samuel Yechelson.
Nevertheless, it is not clear that staff have
received adequate training specifically relevant
to youth gang phenomenon, particularly its group
and community-related aspects.

Some staff turnover has been experienced in the
Draper Cottage program, but this is no more
serious than in any other program operated by the
institution. Turnover is not specifically related
to the type of program being developed at Draper.
The management and control problems of youth in
the Cottage are typical of those generally
encountered in most institutional settings. A
recent report observed, however, that "although
the residents still require a great deal of
monitoring and control, they respond to the
permanent staff and generally have few problems in
the Cottage; however, when relief staff work in
the Cottage without a permanent counselor, it is
not uncommon to experience behavioral problems --
particularly with youth recently assigned to the
Cottage (A Program and Operations Review 1988, p.
111)."

The Ethan Allen School approaches the problem of
rehabilitation of gang youth emphasizing social
education as well as a community-based strategy of
suppression and control. Primary contacts are made
with law enforcement departments in Kenosha,
Racine, Beloit, and Madison, as well as Milwaukee,
to obtain gang-related information prior to
arrival to the school, as a basis for diagnosis
and cottage placement, as well as for monitoring
the youth's progress when he goes on furlough and
determining whether he remains out of the gang
after his release from the Draper Program. A
relationship has also been established with the
Midwest Gang Crime Investigators Association for
staff training and policy guidance purposes.

Specific procedures have been formulated to carry
out monitoring and supervisory objectives. The
Draper Cottage Program depends on the correct
identification of youth who are gang members, the
nature and severity of their gang-related
offenses, and whether gang youth return to gang
affiliation and gang-motivated offenses upon
release. Law enforcement information and
cooperation is essential to the effective
implementation of these facets of the School
program. The Ethan Allen School relies heavily on
police-level information to determine the
eligibility of the youth offender for the Draper
Program. In turn, the police are notified when a
Draper Cottage youth returns to the community. A
questionnaire is also directed to the police
department to determine whether the youth
continues to associate with gang members and
whether the criminal acts he may commit are gang-
related. The designation of a former Draper
Cottage youth as gang-affiliated is made if the
youth is seen by the police department (in
Milwaukee), with other gang members on five or
more occasions.

In addition, there is some interaction by the
School with community-based aftercare programs.
The Career Youth Development Agency in Milwaukee
has established ties with the institution to offer
a variety of services to youth upon their
discharge (See below). Major aftercare linkage,
however, is carried out through field parole units
and contracted group homes and half-way houses.
Ethan Allen staff also exchange information on
gang-related matters with other adult and juvenile
correctional institutions in the state, for gang
management and control purposes.

Cottage Selection Criteria and Special Youth
Characteristics

The Draper Cottage Program addresses the problems
of gang youth in terms of not only their
distinctive personal and social needs but in
relation to their potential influence in the Ethan
Allen School at large. Only 20 to 30 gang youth
are selected for admission to the Draper Program,
but in fact 150 or almost half of all resident
youth are estimated to be gang-affiliated. Only
the most serious gang-affiliated youth (i.e.,
highly aggressive, core or leadership gang youth)
are selected for the program. Broader programs
that involve peripheral gang youth or youth at
risk of gang membership in the institution have
not been yet developed.

The purpose of the Draper Cottage Program is to
address the problem of "gangism" and how it may
affect the gang member's delinquency "in an effort
to diminish both." "Gangism," however, is not
specifically defined or described. Group and
contextual factors are at least partially
addressed. Distinction is made between gang-
instituted crime, which grows out of gang
structure, interests, and processes, and other
types of more individually related crime. It is
assumed by program staff that the immediate
genesis of gang behavior is in the needs of youth
for adolescent peer affiliation and for social and
recreational purposes.

However, distinctive cultural, economic, and
social structural factors are viewed as accounting
for the different kinds of gang youth and their
behaviors which the program must confront. It is
assumed that black gang youth are more committed
to criminal organization and economic interests,
that Hispanic gang youth are more identified with
collective group interests and turf traditions,
and that white gang youth, in their gang-
equivalent Satanic cults, are not only often
committed to racist ideology but have more
disturbed personalities than blacks or Hispanics.
Nevertheless, most gang youth come from
dysfunctional and/or single-parent families, or in
some cases homes where parents and other family
members have been gang members or have criminal
histories.

The specific characteristics of youth which become
a basis for program intervention include the poor
educational preparation of gang members. They tend
to be high-school dropouts, although there is no
evidence that they are more in need of one kind of
special education than another. They tend to be
highly aggressive with low self-esteem. A number
of them are substance abusers. Some are fathers
and in need of parenting information. Staff are
continually struggling to understand distinctive
but changing gang linguistic and behavioral forms
to make their interventions meaningful. Youth
apparently do not want staff "to understand their
linguistic and behavior forms." This poses special
challenges for staff.

Program Elements

The basic aim of the Draper Cottage Program is to
"contain gang-related behavior in all activities
. . . and try to teach them to use their skills to
move beyond negative gang behavior and work toward
becoming a better person and citizen, . . . to be
successful without being dependent on gang
activity." The primary model of intervention is
directed at the development of "cognitive skills
of decision-making and the use of rational
thinking rather than emotional response as a means
for determining action and response." A behavioral
framework, including positive reward and negative
consequences, as well as an educational and
recreational resource approach, are also utilized.
The following program opportunities are provided:

- Behavioral Errors in Thinking Counseling (BE-IT)

- Perception and Communications Training (PACT)

- Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse (AODA) Counseling,
Individual and Group

- Anger Reduction Training

- Association with Career Youth Development Inc.
(CYD) for Community Alternatives

- A Reward System at the Cottage Level for
Treatment Progress

- Primary Counselors Providing Direct Counseling
Service

- Post-Ethan Allen School Evaluation

The primary counseling method is the application
of the Behavioral Errors in Thinking (BE-IT),
modified in order to find a "shared language" with
gang youth and to facilitate discussion of gang-
related behavior. These primary errors in thinking
are the basis for encouraging change on an
individual as well as on a group basis: "Victim
Stance"; "Lack of Concern for Others"; "Fears of
Being Put Down"; "Refuses a Trust or Obligation";
"Shows Weak and False Pride"; "Using Anger in a
Wrong Way"; and "Poor Planning and Decision-
Making." The Cottage residents are required to log
daily behaviors that are a result of errors in
thinking, identify the specific error in thinking,
and develop in its place a strategy that would
have been successful. Residents also receive daily
instruction around the errors model.

A second set of activities of the program
emphasizes Perception and Communications Training
(PACT). The mini-course of 12 sessions focuses on
how people communicate with each other, what is
successful communication, and values
clarification. The Cottage also offers Alcohol and
Other Drug Abuse (AODA) counseling through
programs presented by Career Youth Development in
Milwaukee, as well as through the Waukesha Council
on Alcoholism. Anger Reduction Training utilizes a
group process to teach youth skills to control
their anger reaction to various stimuli. The
Career Youth Development Agency provides
counseling mainly on an aftercare basis. Youth are
also encouraged to seek out the agency after
release to complete their G.E.D.

Affiliation with a specific gang is deliberately
not a criterion for residence in the Cottage
program or participation in its activities.
Members of rival gangs are not only housed
together, but participate in the same activities.
The mixing of opposing gangs "does generate some
management challenges," but the design is
justified since it "keeps the gang behavior from
going underground and undetected," and provides
opportunities for staff "to challenge gang values
and participation." Whether staff are fully or
adequately aware of the consequences of mixing
members of different gangs and are able to
confront such behavior is discussed below.

Various gang behaviors are proscribed and
different demerits or punishments are meted out
for different degrees of gang behaviors.
Apparently the way the institution views certain
gang behaviors has changed over time. For example,
"signing is no longer regarded as a major
violation of the rules," particularly when other
more serious gang-related behaviors occur. Youth
are also randomly tested to see if they have used
drugs during weekend furloughs from the
institution.

Assessment

The program has been in existence in its present
form for less than two years. It is too early to
assess the success of the program, which is still
undergoing significant change and development.
Staff are aware they are engaged in an extremely
difficult and challenging enterprise. They are not
sure that they have been successful. They believe
they are doing some things "right" and that the
program may prove worthwhile in the long term.
While it is not possible to assess the program in
terms of recidivism rates, varying aspects of
program implementation may be considered.

Staff regard the Be-It activities as a
particularly important effort to change behavior
and achieve overall program goals. One staff
person believes that youth who complete the Be-It
program recidivate less. A cursory review of
statistical information reveals, however, that
only about a third of the Cottage residents appear
to have attended 10 sessions or more, and another
third have attended zero or one session. PACT
sessions seem to have been poorly attended, with
the majority of youth not attending any sessions
and others attending between four and seven
sessions. These statistics, however, may not take
into consideration that youth who don't accept the
re-education process may be "resistive" and are
then subject to the "discipline process" and a
stay in the so-called discipline cottage, after
which they must start group sessions over again.
The Superintendent estimates that "most youth upon
departure" [from Ethan Allen School] have attended
a range of 24 to 30 sessions.

AODA sessions were also poorly attended. The
majority of youth presently in Draper Cottage
attended two or fewer AODA sessions. However, the
intent of these sessions is to bring youth into
contact with community agencies, as they are being
prepared to leave the institution. In any case,
this program has been recently restructured,
providing more intensive treatment and education.
It now incorporates youth from the entire
institution.

The relationship between frequency of attendance
at these activities and behavioral adjustment
within the institution is also not clear. For
example, there does not appear to be a statistical
relationship between frequency of attendance at
Be-It sessions and the number of days spent in
Level IV, the maximum security for serious rule
violation.

This is not to deny that some youth in Draper
Cottage are making optimal use of program
opportunities, are currently doing well in terms
of conformity to Cottage rules, and have
incorporated -- or at least express -- "desired"
values. Some youth indicate they have profited
from the Draper Cottage activities. We note that
in a recent non-random survey of gang youth in six
different programs, mainly community based, the
youth at Draper Cottage reported the most varied
participation in services and that they were most
often helped by them. To what extent this
acknowledgement is translated into positive
community adaptation is not yet known. On the
other hand, it is possible that a sizable group of
Cottage youth is "playing it cool" and "lying
low." Some may already be committed to organized
criminal careers, particularly in the drug trade.
Drug use within the institution has admittedly
occurred. Its nature is not known or at least
revealed. Some gang recruitment occasionally takes
place. There have been other serious rule
violations by individuals.

Staffing a pioneer demonstration effort such as
the Draper Cottage Program is difficult and
challenging. Better specifically trained gang work
staff is admittedly required. Only one staff
member is a minority group member and from an
inner-city community. Selection of appropriate and
sufficient staff is limited by civil service
requirements. There has been some problem with
staff turnover. It is not clear that staff are
trained to understand the complexities of the
youth gang problem and to develop appropriate
strategies and procedures of intervention in an
institutional context. Expertise to remedy this
deficiency seems not to be readily available.

A staff "wish list" reveals uncertainty about the
value of the program and its prospects. There is a
general sense that the program needs to be
strengthened. Group therapy opportunities should
be expanded. "Criminal thinking behavior" needs to
be better monitored with "immediate constructive
feedback and consequences as appropriate." Staff
is unclear whether there are two few "program
resources" or "too many luxuries" presented to
youth. One staff member was looking for a "quick
fix" to solve the gang problem; for example, a
special procedure, event, or ceremony to "initiate
youth out of the gang." The integration of both
support and control or supervision activities in
regard to gang youth while in the institution and
after release needs to be better conceptualized.

Additionally, the staff seems unclear as the
Draper Cottage Program needs to be further
developed and encapsulated or whether there is a
need to develop a broader, institution-wide
approach. The gang problem appears to be pervasive
in the institution, at different levels of
severity. Many non-Draper staff at Ethan Allen
School are not aware of gang-related behavior by
youth residents and may not respond appropriately,
creating an inconsistent, or at least not a
generally informed, approach. The response to
gang-related behavior is generally well recognized
and consistently addressed within Draper Cottage.
Staff in the Draper Cottage are impressed with the
seriousness of the gang problem and the
difficulties of dealing with it. Some would like a
more isolated, longer term, concentrated, and
restrictive program for seriously committed gang
youth. Other staff favor an earlier, more
preventive approach. "Get the kids at a younger
age," 13 or 14 years at the time of their second
or third offense. Older adolescent gang youth may
be too far gone for a rehabilitative program.

Staff believe that they have worked very hard and
have accomplished a good deal, but are clearly
uncertain how effective their efforts have been.
There is a sense that a variety of factors over
which they have no control, such as general
institutional policy, legislative, criminal
justice system, and community pressures will
significantly influence the future of the program.

We remain unsure about the extent of the gang
problem in Ethan Allen School. However, the
Superintendent estimates that based on police
reports, 50 percent to 60 percent of youth
generally at the institution may be regarded as
gang-affiliated at some level. Draper Cottage
addresses only about 20 percent of the most
serious gang offenders. To what extent the
problems that staff have to contend with in regard
to Draper Cottage youth reflect problems of
institutionalization or problems of gang
affiliation, or both, remain unclear. The
Superintendent, nevertheless, declares that the
institutional "gang problem is in better control
and management today than at any other time in
recent history."

Conclusion

The Ethan Allen School for Boys has recognized
that a youth gang problem exists both in the
institution as well as in the community and has
attempted to deal with the problem in its various
manifestations in meaningful ways. A dedicated
professional staff and administration are
confronting the problem in a humanistic manner
consistent with community interests and values.
There are few, if any, guidelines for staff to
follow in this challenging effort. It is not clear
that an appropriate overall design to deal with
the problem has yet been developed or that certain
elements may prove effective. At this time, the
program seems to be in a state of clarification
and further development. The institution is
commendably committed to an evaluation of the
effectiveness of its program. To what extent the
program has sufficient external support and
consistency of internal direction and staff has
the knowledge to mount an effective program remain
to be determined. There are apparently a number of
obstacles to creation of a special institutional
program geared to the youth gang problem. Research
results on this unique and remarkable program are
expected to be forthcoming in 1990.

References

Shade, Oscar D. 1988. "A Program and Operations
Review." Ethan Allen School. Bureau of Juvenile
Services. Department of Health and Social Services
Division of Corrections, Wisconsin. December.

------------------------------

CASE STUDY 4
Columbus, Ohio

Background

Columbus, a city of over half a million, situated
in Franklin County, is located in the center of
the state with major roads to other large cities
in Ohio as well as to Detroit and Chicago.
Columbus has been expanding into the county for
almost forty years. It now contains an area of
about 200 square miles, with an increasingly
diverse population. Blacks comprise 22 percent of
the population, a sizable number of whom are poor,
congregated in low-rise, low-income public housing
on the near east side of the central city.

Columbus is the capital of Ohio with a thriving,
well-balanced economy. A major high-tech industry
has grown up over the years, partly around Ohio
State University, including a world renown
research center, Battele Memorial Institute. A
well-trained, highly educated work force is
associated with state government, industry, and
the university. Columbus has a relatively low
unemployment rate of 6 percent compared to other
large cities in the Midwest. Still this is an
increase from 3.8 percent in 1970. Columbus has
fewer manufacturing jobs than in an earlier
period. The available jobs now require higher
levels of education and training than many members
of the black population, particularly its youth,
possess. The drop-out rate for black youth is 50
percent or more, with estimates for gang youth of
90 to 100 percent. Nevertheless, Columbus
continues to have a reputation as a typical
American city, with a stable middle class
population, conservative politically but with a
rich tradition of innovation in education and
social service fields.

The Gang Problem

Columbus recently identified a youth gang and
youth violence problem. While the youth gang
problem was mainly a black inner-city problem, it
also affected Franklin County, including
predominately white suburban communities, such as
Washington and Ground View. The problem was
different in different communities. For example,
some youth gang members were mainly disruptive at
football games and shopping malls. However, 90
percent of the youth gangs are estimated to be
black (Huff 1989, p. 526).

A youth gang problem emerged between 1983 and 1984
and peaked around 1987. Huff observes that between
April 1986 and May 1988, there were 20 "separately
named gangs," but "the number of truly separate,
viable gangs at present is approximately fifteen"
(Huff 1989, p. 526). Since then a "crack" problem
has developed, resulting, according to many
sources in the city, from "outside penetration by
older gang members from Detroit and Los Angeles."
The "crack" problem has also been associated with
rising rates of robbery, theft, and burglary as
well as individual-level violence. The youth gang
problem apparently began when several street
groups engaged in break dancing or "rapping"
evolved into youth gangs. Members of street groups
engaged in property crime, auto theft,
shoplifting, and burglary before they developed
gang names, symbols, colors and engaged in gang
conflict. Some of the gangs in the early period
were white, however, most are now black, or at
least the problem is recognized and defined as
black. A United Way source indicates that a youth
gang problem, in fact, exists in several white
suburban communities, but police, schools, and
parents in these communities state they "do not
have a problem." The current coordinator of the
Youth Outreach Program adds that the "drug problem
is not exclusively a black problem as evidenced by
the recent arrest of suburban whites and other
ethnic group members."

A variety of reasons have been presented for the
development of traditional -- although not
necessarily turf-based -- gangs and their later
transformation to drug dealing groups or cliques:
the busing of students from opposing gang
neighborhoods to the same high school; the
presence of a family with gang-wise youth recently
moved from Los Angeles; the splintering and spread
of gangs; the expansion of the narcotics trade
from Detroit to Columbus; and deteriorating
economic opportunities for mainly poor, relatively
unskilled, and isolated black youth; although the
current unemployment situation may be beginning to
affect some white youths as well.

Youth gangs are viewed as aggressive and coercive,
engaging in a broad range of criminal behaviors.
One source indicated that two to three killings
could be attributed to gang activity in the early
period. However, much of the youth gang activity
occurred in and around roller rinks, recreation
centers, shopping centers and buses. Students at
some of the schools began to wear colors, signify,
i.e., "throw gang handsigns," and engage in
recruitment activities in the early period.
Although some gang altercations occurred at school
football games, no substantial evidence of drug
use or trafficking was reported on school grounds.

Youth gang structure and activities have changed
in the past three years. The number of gangs has
declined from an estimated 15 or more gangs with a
membership of 800 in the mid-1980s to an estimated
5 to 8 gangs with a total membership between 50
and 400, currently. Youth gangs have become
smaller, better organized, less visible and more
closely related to older youth and young adults
engaged in drug trafficking. However, it is not
clear that gangs per se have gone into the drug
trafficking business. It is more likely that gang
or former gang members are involved in the drug
trade on an individual or small clique basis.

One justice system source claims that youth 12
years and possibly younger are now used as
lookouts and runners; those 13 to 16 years are
employed as street dealers and runners; 17 to 19
year olds may be used as the drug holders, and
those who are older play significant roles in
running the crack houses. The youth are mainly
from poor, single-parent families, dropouts with
little prospect of obtaining well paying
legitimate jobs. However, a number of middle class
clean-cut black youth, some who do well at school,
are said to have recently become involved in the
drug trade. But it is not clear that these youths
are also youth gang members. Some black youth do
not see "themselves having a stake in the future
through legitimate channels." However, only two of
the gangs are reported with a primary commitment
to drug dealing. Drug use and trafficking play a
secondary role to traditional youth gang
activities for the majority of youth gangs.
Companionship, status, protection, intimidation,
and partying remain primary gang activity.

Community Response

Certain events may have precipitated the
community's awareness of a gang problem and the
need for agencies to do something about it. The
media paid a great deal of attention to two
instances of gang attack on youth in Columbus in
1985 and 1986. The Governor's daughter and the
Mayor's son were attacked in separate gang
incidents. A gang leader who was interviewed on
T.V. and made threats against another gang was
killed in a drive-by shooting a few days later. A
school superintendent, caught in the middle of a
gang altercation at a school football game,
"jumped out front" in getting the community to do
something about the problem. The Mayor also met
with a group of gang youth who informed him of
their lack of training and consequent inability to
find job opportunities.

A group of community and agency leaders, including
representatives of local city government, the
Metropolitan Human Services commission, and
service agencies began to meet in 1985 (Foulk
1987). The group focused on law enforcement,
coordination of existing youth agencies, and the
development of a special program entity, the Youth
Outreach Project (YOP), to both divert core-gang
members into the "mainstream" and also to provide
youth at the "fringe" of gangs with alternatives
to gang activity (Ibid., p. 1).

Responsibility for funding YOP and/or providing
in-kind services was undertaken mainly by the
United Way of Franklin County, the City of
Columbus, the Columbus Board of Education, and the
Columbus Foundation. The project was administered
over the first two years by United Way. The
schools provided the first and later the second
project coordinator. In each case, school
administrators were released for the special
assignment. The Franklin County Youth Coordinating
Committee provided general oversight and
evaluation of the project. It comprised senior
officials and administrators from the Franklin
County Juvenile Court, Franklin County Children
Services, United Way, Suburban Police
Department(s), and the Metropolitan Human Services
Commission. They had the power to make decisions
and obligate funds. Operational guidance and
assistance in the development of the intervention
models was lodged in the Franklin County
Coordinating Task Group comprising executive
directors of agencies actually involved in the
project as well as representatives of the Columbus
City Schools, Columbus Police Department, and the
Franklin County Juvenile Court. The task force
group was responsible for the details of program
administration.

The YOP program was planned so that all community
participants would have a stake in the success of
the project. There was also an effort to establish
flexibility of goals so that the program could be
refocussed with changing problems and needs. The
United Way was able to play facilitator and
coordinator roles, they "were able to get key
funders involved directly with providers [and]
reach into various communities and municipalities
to get resources together."

The project commenced activity in the spring of
1985 and its goals were to: 1) draw upon the
natural strengths of families and communities; 2)
provide for better coordination of information and
services; and 3) explore several different models
for interacting with youth. The first year's
objectives were development of information about
the scope of the problem and establishing initial
relationships with youth and the agencies to which
youth would be referred. The second year's
objectives focused more specifically on reduction
"of the incidence of youth violence" as perceived
by a wide range of officials and agencies' staff;
and improvement of the "behavior of target youth
by way of direct intervention and linkages to
appropriate social service programs."

The project structure plan included a coordinator,
assistant coordinator, 8 to 10 outreach workers
based in three "magnet" youth serving agencies --
under dual supervision of the coordinator and the
particular magnet agency, a crisis intervention
mobile team, a neighborhood Advisory Council --
which apparently was not established -- a part-
time suburban worker, and a community youth
liaison worker. The outreach effort was modelled
in part after the Chicago YMCA outreach worker
program developed in the 1960's. Workers were sent
out to the gangs in the streets to establish
relationships, to obtain information to be shared
with police and schools, and most importantly to
refer youths, particularly from the schools, to
youth-serving and other agencies for needed
services.

The major goal of the Youth Outreach Program was
the development of a network of information for
purposes of monitoring the gang problem, assisting
other agencies to deal with the problem, and
helping youth mainly through referrals. This set
of purposes required that youth agencies,
community organizations, and components of the
juvenile justice system, especially the police,
collaborate with each other. Turf issues and gaps
in communication among agencies were to be
overcome.

Earlier separate efforts to deal with the youth
gang problem by the Columbus Police, Columbus
schools, and various agencies had apparently not
proved sufficient. The police developed a Juvenile
Task Force which did not have sufficient manpower
to deal with large congregations of disorderly or
antisocial youth groups. The Columbus schools
outlawed "colors" and tightened disciplinary
standards, as did the city's recreation centers.
The YOP was to be an important step in the
direction of a comprehensive community approach to
the problem, including not only deterrent
objectives, i.e., more organized and greater
police involvement to reduce the incidence of gang
violence in Franklin County; but social
intervention objectives, i.e., improving the
behavior of targeted youth through appropriate
social service programs and provision of
"effective and targeted prevention effort"; as
well as community development objectives, i.e.,
increasing the responsiveness of the local
community to the needs of targeted youth; and also
research evaluation, i.e., determining the
project's impact on the youth it served and the
current magnitude and severity of youth violence
and related problems in Franklin County.

Youth Outreach Project

Based on reports of actual activity over the past
two or more years, the project has focused on its
second priority, social intervention for a range
of youth, including not only core and teenage gang
members, but youth at risk and non-gang members.
Its current practices and procedures (Youth
Opportunities Project, 1988) were stated as
follows:

"A. Case Review

A review of the youth is conducted routinely to
determine if the youth is achieving the set goals
and objectives that were developed prior to any
in-depth involvement by the outreach worker.

The primary objective is to relegate the dependent
youth to independent status . . .

The Outreach Workers, the Assistant Coordinator
and Community Liaison Person meet twice a month to
discuss the status of each youth . . .

B. Pilot of Prevention

. . . The Project is consistently engaged in
`agency networking . . .' I the workers are
assigned hot spots (i.e., skating rinks, athletic
events, parties, etc. (Workers) assist youth in

1) conflict resolution
2) employment skills
3) drug/alcohol education
4) behavioral modification programs . . .

C. Explore Employment Services

. . . this project has taken the following steps
to assist youth seeking employment.

1. The referral process for employment has been
revised in order to centralize contact for
participating employers.

2. Work readiness workshops are held . . .

3. A referral procedure is utilized in placing
youth with agencies whose primary function is to
provide employment for youths.

D. Inventory Local Prevention Services

E. Summarize Use of Referral Information

F. At-Risk Data Base

. . . As the Project begins its third year,
changes in the activities of targeted youth have
facilitated an emphasis on individuals rather than
groups or gangs . . .

These 'individual at-risk youth' will include
youth:

1. referred by the school system as having unruly
behavior, truant, suspended, expelled (for various
reason) and in need of outreach intervention as a
means of prevention.

2. referred by the courts due to criminal acts, on
probation or need of intervention to curtail
future problems . . . "

Youth who are referred to the project do not
necessarily fall within specific problem criteria
in order to receive assistance.

"Cooperation, with the agencies and programs has
`open[ed] the door' for the Outreach Project to
direct youth to the proper agencies that can
provide more adequate services . . .. The project
has taken the responsibility to guide 'troubled
youth' in the direction where assistance is
available."

Two research reports were commissioned to
"evaluate" the project, but in fact provide mainly
a description or some sense of what the activities
of the project have been in 1987 and 1988. Very
little funding was allocated to the research
effort. The findings indicate that core-gang
members did not comprise a large proportion of
youth served. The percent of core-gang member and
gang leadership served was 15.9 percent and the
percent of non-gang and fringe youth served was
47.7 percent in 1987. Those percentages include
adult contacts as well. In the second report of
1988, 64.6 percent of youth served were "at risk,"
non-gang, and other youth, while 32.2 percent are
gang leaders and core-gang youth. There was
apparently some greater attention paid to gang
youth in the second year, nevertheless the primary
target of service remained non-gang core or
leadership youth. The age range of youth served
was between 14 and 19 years, although most of the
youth contacted were between 14 and 17 years.

The pattern of service to these youth appeared to
shift between the first and second year. Much time
and effort apparently was taken in the first year
to get to know youth on streets, to identify their
problems, and establish relationships. There was
much general discussion but little crisis
intervention (3.3 percent), job search (2.5
percent) or school-related counseling (3.3
percent). In the second year, project efforts seem
to be more focussed and directed to job search
(39.6 percent) and school-related activities (31.1
percent). Those latter percentages have to be
reduced by about a third since the proportions of
services provided add to considerably more than
100 percent. Unfortunately, no specific data is
provided as to which kinds of youth were referred,
what the nature of school-related problems were,
how many youth were referred to how many jobs, and
how long the youth stayed on them.

According to the reports, a variety of problems or
issues were identified in the conduct of the
program over the first two years. The agency
operators believed that expansion of the program
and more funding were required. Dual supervision
for outreach workers at the magnet centers created
some problems. A need was expressed for better or
expanded clinical case review involving social
workers with youth outreach workers. Referral was
clearly regarded as "an essential method," and the
evaluators found that consistent community contact
across agencies on behalf of YOP youth served had
been achieved.

Police

The Columbus Police Department has been a major,
if not the primary, player in the city's efforts
to cope with the gang problem. Huff notes that the
Youth Violence/Crime Section is unique "in its
centralization of all four major gang control
functions (intelligence, prevention, enforcement,
and investigation) in one police unit (Huff 1989,
p. 532). In recent years, however, the gang
problem has evolved and has been more and more
defined in individual violence and drug
trafficking terms. The police have taken an
increasingly broad community approach. Huff
comments that the police now take a "balanced
approach," having realized that "a total
suppression strategy" is not the solution. At the
same time, the commanding officer of the Youth
Violence/Crime Section states that the unit is
"geared to high visibility enforcement" and this
strategy has contributed to a reduction of the
youth gang problem in Columbus.

In light of the purposes and structure of the
Youth Outreach Program, the police and YOP should
have a close interdependent relationship. This
does not seem to be substantially the case,
however, even with some sharing of information on
the gang problem, the provision of some training
by the police at YOP seminars, and the
participation by representatives of the police in
the YOP Franklin County Coordinating Task Group.
The director of YOP notes that "the police and our
project work hand-in-hand, but stay independent in
our activities. We don't want youth to associate
us with the police." The police are also quite
cautious in their relations with YOP staff. This
was so particularly during the first year of the
program.

Questions were raised initially by the police
about the quality of outreach workers, their
possible over-identification with gang members,
their occasional "interference" with law
enforcement operations. The fact that some of the
YOP workers had criminal arrest records was
troubling to the police. YOP no longer requests
the assistance of the police in criminal history
screening of all new YOP staff candidates, since
they are of a higher caliber. Almost all YOP staff
now have some college education.

A manual of Procedure of the Columbus Police
Department, dated October 1988 and revised
February 1989, states that the mission of the
Youth Violence/Crime Section is "to reduce or
prevent violent acts and crimes committed by and
against the youths of the City of Columbus. This
mission will be pursued by using strict
enforcement of the law against those individuals
who are active members of violent groups, gangs,
and by following up on those crimes committed to a
successful prosecution in courts. The mission will
also be pursued by steering youths to agencies
that may help them, counsel them, and giving
presentations on the negative aspect of gangs and
drugs."

The mission of the Youth Violence/Crime Section is
implemented by its Investigative and Enforcement
Units and through its Juvenile Narcotics/School
Liaison Unit. The latter unit works with the
schools through investigative and enforcement
activities as well as presentations to school
youth on the negative aspects of drug use and
trafficking. Police officers in the unit concerned
with gang activities are expected to "identify
gang members . . . write intelligence reports
. . . use aggressive enforcement against gang
members and others involved in youth violence
problems . . . keep photographs and information on
these people . . . talk with witnesses, victims,
suspects, other officers, and citizens about their
knowledge of the gang members who cause youth
violence. . . use free time to patrol the areas
known as gang hang-outs. . . Transit Authority
buses, and school activities for gang problems --
devote some time to talking with younger teens
. . . become aware of various city services that
can help those p