The collaboration between law-enforcement agencies, schools and community groups to keep kids out of gangs in San Juan Capistrano and other cities is an excellent approach, the Orange County Grand Jury said Tuesday, but noted that more young kids are joining gangs than ever before.
Janet Buell, the grand juror who authored the report, said the county’s Gang Reduction Intervention Partnership—GRIP—relies on multiple groups working together. The program includes classroom lessons for kids aimed at keeping them out of gangs, parent meetings to help them identify early signs of gang involvement and instruction for teachers to also help them identify gang behavior.
“The GRIP program is one considered by the Orange County Grand Jury to be one of the most effective programs in existence,” Buell wrote in the report. The report notes county gang membership has dropped to all-time lows in 2006 and 2007, but also says the number of gang members under age 14 was higher in 2007—the last year statistics were available—than ever before. The report shows about 275 gang members under 14.
Officials said the younger membership is because gangs are having to recruit kids earlier—older kids are either in jail or named in one of the anti-gang civil injunctions covering San Clemente and other county areas.
Programs such as GRIP can be expensive, the Grand Jury noted, but cited a Vanderbuilt University study that found it’s far less costly to keep a kid out of a gang than deal with him after he’s committed a serious crime. The report cited the San Clemente-San Juan Capistrano clash that left a 14-year-old boy dead and seven others under arrest. In addition to the pain the incident caused the families, the clash will ultimately cost taxpayers millions of dollars, the Grand Jury says.
Click here to see a Washington State Institute for Public Policy report on the benefits of early intervention.
Click here to see the Vanderbuilt study on the costs of intervention and enforcement.
Click here to see a video of the presentation, including remarks from Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas.
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2 comments:
It is a great program to join.
It deserves thumbs up. Anti gang program is a program that we all should support. They are trying to stop gang from doing things that can hurt people. And also trying to fix all the lives of gang members.
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