Word: antigang
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Perez counsels teenagers to go public with their desire to quit a gang only as a last resort. "It beats getting killed or blowing somebody's brains out," he explains. Most antigang workers are adamantly against such advice under any conditions. "That would be like telling the kid to go kill himself," says Swope. Then there are folks like Marianne Diaz-Parton, a gang- intervention worker for the Community Youth Gang Services Project in Los Angeles, who actually condone the beatings...
There is little hope that police action alone can contain or eliminate the gang problem. After leaving the problem largely to local authorities for the past two decades, Washington is rejoining the fight. But with 5 of every 6 federal antigang dollars going to police and prosecution, some say the effort is seriously misdirected. This year, for example, the Justice Department will spend most of its nearly $500 million gang budget on law enforcement, while the Department of Health and Human Services has disbursed only $40 million on prevention and early-intervention programs since 1989. And the FBI's announcement...
...spread of gang activity to cities across the country is part of the reason the FBI is reinforcing its antigang effort. Bureau officials believe that, in conjunction with local police, they can use federal laws like rico and Continuing Criminal Enterprise statutes to attack drug trafficking and other organized-crime elements of gang activity. "Many of these gangs are very heavily involved in drug distribution, and we have a lot of experience in the drug business and a lot of expertise in organized crime that will transfer very well into this effort," says Charlie J. Parsons, special agent in charge...
Lying facedown in the dirt -- the place where young men netted by the Los Angeles police department's vaunted antigang sweeps frequently wind up -- Javier Gonzalez, 18, watched in terror as an officer slammed Lewayne Williamson's head into the ground. "The cop asked if he was in a gang. Lewayne said no and was hit," Gonzalez recalls. "He said no again and was hit again. By the time they got to me, five or six people had already been whacked." Fearful of being beaten, Gonzalez blurted yes when asked if he was a gang member. Over the next...
...sweeping arrests only aggravate another Los Angeles problem: overcrowded jails. The county prison system, designed to hold 12,800, now houses 22,600 inmates. Gates' combined antigang task forces have arrested more than 1,100 gang members in the past five weeks, an impressive performance that is marred by the fact that the county sheriff was forced to give early release to 1,200 prisoners in order to make room for the newcomers. "We have $500 million in jail construction in progress," says James Painter, who, as chief of the Los Angeles sheriff's custody division, oversees a jail system...