IN THE MIX:Get to the kids before gangs do

I guess it’s not as obvious at it seems. Preventing youths from getting into gangs in the first place seems like a logical way to reduce the number of gang members in our area and it seems like it would reduce the long-term costs of dealing with gang members in the legal system. There are those who would disagree.

The Costa Mesa City Council voted Tuesday to approve part of the proposed plan to fight gangs in the city. The plan was brought to them by Costa Mesa Police Chief Chris Shawkey and Capt. Ron Smith.

They unanimously approved the enforcement section of the proposal including two gang officers, one probation officer to the gang detail, two other officers, a surveillance program and participation in the TARGET program with the Orange County District Attorney’s office.

What they didn’t approve, 3-2, was the gang-intervention specialist position. That person would have been a liaison between the Newport Mesa Unified School District, through Project ASK, and the police department.

While the federally funded Project ASK has a lot of people working with children and the city has organizations like Save Our Youth, Smith said the department was suggesting this position in order to coordinate the efforts of those people at the schools and officers working with gangs in the police department.

“It just makes sense to have a strong partnership with the school district. That’s where they’re coming from,� Smith said during the council meeting.

It seems obvious that the system would be a lot more effective if the school district and the police department were communicating on a regular basis. That’s what the police asked for, that’s not what they got.

Mayor Allan Mansoor and Councilwoman Wendy Leece told me they are willing to consider all options if they are shown prevention programs are effective, but they haven’t seen proof that they are. They both want to see numbers that show a clear reduction in truancy and the number of children joining gangs.

“It will take some time to see if the tax money spent effectively derailed young people from becoming gang members,� Leece said.

I completely agree with Mansoor, Leece and Councilman Eric Bever they should have proof that prevention is effective. I read what the report said, and all those experts, but I wanted to hear for myself. I talked to Pepe Montenegro, a crisis counselor with Project ASK.

When I first called him he was in the office with a sixth-grader at Rea Elementary School who was just getting the idea that gang life was the way to go, and Montenegro had a different opinion to share with the lad.

Montenegro is a former gang member who has worked in the district for 11 years. He has met with thousands of children and said there is no doubt he has changed the paths of many of them. He told me he is in contact with former at-risk children he worked with who are now adults living a gang-free life.

He said saving youths already in a gang is more difficult, but possible.

“The gang member has to want help,� he said, “and there has to be people there who want to help.�

Leece is concerned that prevention programs are still too untried to trust. She equates the prevention concept with flighty programs she’s experienced in her past education career such as the whole language reading method that she said took far too long before the method was debunked.

It’s fair of her to have these concerns, but with so many people involved with at-risk kids saying that this is the most effective way to stop them from joining gangs, it seems like the evidence is already in.

The study given to the Council by Shawkey and Smith referred to gang experts including the president of the California Gang Investigators Assn., Wes McBride.

The experts’ conclusions included, “Incarcerating gang members does not stop gang association, gang activity or participation in gangs. In some cases, incarceration increases the degree of involvement, the propensity for violence and the criminal sophistication of gang members.�

Also, “Programs that target at-risk children before they become gang members show the greatest promise of preventing future gang participation and are more cost-effective.�

There’s more — you can read for yourself in the council agenda packet found on the city’s website.

Though it may seem like the council majority was disregarding the expertise of the top-level police officers, Mansoor wanted to make it clear that he has complete respect for these officers and added that he was highly impressed with the work the department did concerning the shooting and arrests last week near Pomona Avenue and James Street. There’s little doubt that Mansoor does respect the police and does want to reduce crime in the city, there’s just a little disagreement about the best way to achieve this goal.

In an effort to alleviate the council’s fears, Shawkey told them in the meeting that he is a big believer in accountability. He even said he thought it was the right decision for the city to eliminate the DARE program after studies showed it to be ineffective. He assured the council that the plan was to monitor the intervention specialist position to make sure it was effective.

Capt. Smith sat at that meeting and indicated that he’s a cop through and through.

“I love to put crooks in jail, especially gang members,� he said.

The man has been a police officer for 29 years. After making it clear that he’s no wimpy hand-holder, he went on to tell of the absolute necessity of prevention in the battle against gangs. He equated the gang problem to a dirty tub. He said they keep trying to drain the dirty water from the tub by arresting all the gang members but the tub keeps filling up because the faucet is still on. He said prevention and intervention programs are designed to turn off the faucet.

The good news is, even without the approval of an intervention specialist position Costa Mesa still has the federally funded Project ASK on its side. The organization is not an anti-gang program, but because it focuses on at-risk youths and their parents, its counselors do encounter children who may be considering the gang life.

Hopefully, between the groups already in place, even without the coordination that would be offered by an intervention specialist in the police department, Costa Mesa can reduce the number of children getting into gangs. Can you really put a price tag on saving a child’s life?