New Funding for Anti-Gang Project Sought

An anti-gang program credited with significantly reducing crime in at least six Los Angeles County neighborhoods will soon run out of money and be forced to curtail work at a time when gang slayings are rising.

Under the tight state budget, $2 million was sliced from the project for 2002, leaving top law enforcement officials--including Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley and Sheriff Lee Baca--scrambling to find ways to save the program.

The Community Law Enforcement and Recovery Program was launched in 1995 after Stephanie Kuhen, 3, was fatally shot by gang members when her family mistakenly drove into Cypress Park. The killing galvanized support for a multi-agency task force to stifle gang hot spots.

Operating out of half a dozen police and sheriff’s stations, CLEAR mobilizes the forces of the city attorney and county district attorney’s offices, LAPD, sheriff’s and county probation departments, and the state Department of Corrections and concentrates on enforcement in small, defined areas.

“We discovered something that works,” Cooley said. “It would be a tragic loss if this program is eliminated. It’s a modest amount of money for a highly successful program.”

The district attorney’s office and LAPD said they would be forced to disband the program if funding does not come through.

Program coordinators had sought $3 million from the state to match the money provided by participating agencies. But they learned in July they would receive only $1 million, which means CLEAR’s coffers would empty by the new year, Cooley said.

Officials said their budgets could not sustain the salaries and other costs of more than 100 staff members--including police, attorneys and probation officers--some of whom were specially hired or assigned to the group.

No one would be laid off, officials said. Instead, their positions would be absorbed into their departments and be lost over time through attrition.

The district attorney’s office, for instance, hired new deputies to replace experienced prosecutors who were transferred to the program, Nancy Lidamore of the district attorney’s office said.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Gray Davis said the program was among many victims of state budget constraints but that the governor insisted on leaving at least $1 million for it in the budget.

“It just got lost,” Cabinet secretary Susan Kennedy said. “Everybody got reduced. Every program took a hit. But everyone [in the governor’s office] recognizes this is a very important program.”

Kennedy said the state is seeking grants through its Office of Criminal Justice Planning to keep the program running, but she did not know how much or how soon money would be available.

The Los Angeles Police Department reported 86 gang-related slayings from January to April, up from 43 for the same period last year. The city experienced a 20% increase in gang slayings from 1999 to 2000.

CLEAR Had Hoped to Expand Program

Before state budget cutbacks, CLEAR officials had hoped the program would be expanded in light of its achievements.

Crime at the six program sites has either dropped or risen at a lower rate than surrounding areas, according to Lodestar Management/Research Inc., a Los Angeles firm that compiles statistics for the program.

From April 2000 to June 2001, the district attorney’s office convicted 461 juvenile and adult offenders stemming from 1,352 arrests made through the program by the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Peter Shutan, the administrative director of the program, said that more than 90% of the CLEAR-related jury trials resulted in convictions.

Originally, the program received money from the Clinton administration’s anti-gang initiative and other federal grants. Before federal funding dried up two years ago, the program expanded from its first site at LAPD’s Northeast Division to the Newton, Devonshire, Foothill and Pacific divisions and the sheriff’s Century Station in Lynwood.

Hands-On Approach Increases Effectiveness

What makes the program effective, officials say, is the immediate availability of detectives, police officers, sheriff’s deputies, district attorneys, city attorneys and probation officers to a defined gang area within a division. Officers consistently patrol the area to generate intelligence on gang activity. The goal is to suffocate crime by intervening before it starts, they say.

“People know me by my first name,” said LAPD Det. Bob Lopez of the Northeast Division. “We put a human aspect to it. The community learns to trust us.”

The program also stays in close contact with schools, social service groups and other organizations within a community.

“We’re not only focused on gang-related crime,” Shutan said. “We focus on quality-of-life issues, such as graffiti, trash pickup, kids hanging outside liquor stores or intimidating the neighborhood.”

To cut down on crime, probation officers maintain pressure on people convicted of misdemeanors, as well as felony parolees, Shutan said.

“CLEAR is a very important part of our new gang strategy,” said Richard Shumsky, chief probation officer for Los Angeles County. “We just hope there’s some funding after December. We’re confident something will happen.”

The long-term goal is for the six participating agencies to fund the program without state assistance, but Shutan said he did not know when that would occur. Baca said he would consider finding extra money in his budget and the LAPD has steadily increased participation in the program since its inception, Shutan said.

Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks), who sponsored the bill that created the program six years ago, called it a cost-effective way to fight gang crime.

“It should be replicated,” he said. “For every place that has a gang problem, I’d like to see this collaborative effort in place.”