NCJ Number
92353
Date Published
1983
Length
7 pages
Annotation
Replacing the social reform and treatment approach to preventing gang violence with an approach based on deterrence may be ineffective, because interagency conflicts and related problems place limits on the implementation of such approaches.
Abstract
Since 1970, gang programing has undergone a major reorientation. The deterrence model has replaced the value transformation model as a result of the escalating level of gang violence, the availability of firearms, and the more punitive attitudes of the public as well as community and criminal justice leaders. The Community Youth Gang Services Project (YGS) in Los Angeles represents the deterrence model and is patterned after the Crisis Intervention Network in Philadelphia. Its basic elements are the provision of heightened street visibility and surveillance by project staff, focus on geographical area rather than specific gang, attention to violence rather than general delinquency, and intergang mediation efforts. Its central feature is the reactivation of visible community controls and the rapid response to violent and crisis events. Funded in mid-1981, YGS is part of a coordinated multiagency task force to reduce gang violence. Since its beginning the program has faced major obstacles to implementation and operation, particularly intraorganizational and interorganizational conflict. Frictions between YGS staff and law enforcement staff resulted from the mandated rather than voluntary nature of their relationships, differences in operating methods and style, and problems in exchanging information. Other problems were the nature of media attention, personnel turnover through both firings and resignations, and the political nature of the interventions. The failure to resolve interagency conflict may lead to the destruction of the program, regardless of purported evidence indicating achievement of the program's stated goals. Notes and 17 references are provided.