Pubdate: Thu, 15 Mar 2007
Source: Los Angeles Daily News (CA)
Copyright: 2007 Los Angeles Newspaper Group
Contact: http://www.dailynews.com/writealetter
Website: http://www.dailynews.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/246
Author: Paul D. White, Guest Columnist
Note: Paul D. White is the co-founder of West Valley  Leadership Academy in
Canoga Park.

SOME WAYS TO HALT GANGS IN OUR CITY

The failed programs and millions of dollars wasted by  the L.A.
Bridges gang prevention program over the last  decade are a good thing.

Hopefully, it means that Los Angeles leaders are ready  to stop
pursuing strategies and activities that have  never really worked.
Perhaps now they will be more  receptive to proven anti-gang ideas
that attack the  root causes of gang activity, ideas that could have
L.A. gangster-free in three years or less.

Hold accountable the homes that breed and harbor gang  members. A fast
track for court hearings must be  established to prosecute parents who
provide safe  havens for minors involved in gangs, crime and the drug
trade. Parenting classes must be mandated for every  parent of every
child convicted of a crime.

Commit the majority of gang prevention funding to  subsidizing quality
job and internship opportunities.  The money wasted on the L.A.
Bridges program during the  last 10 years would have provided every
juvenile gang  member in L.A. with three hours of supervised work
after school every school day for an entire school year  at $10 per
hour. These jobs would be available only to  gang members who
voluntarily tested clean for drugs,  attended school regularly, passed
their classes and stayed out of trouble.

Expose the myth of "blood in - blood out" with L.A's  media to
encourage gang members to quit their gangs.  Here's a cause big enough
for all our entertainers and  athletes, politicians and clergy,
billboards, radio,  television and community events.

Stop using ex-gangster organizations as leaders and  spokesmen for
gang prevention. Almost without  exception, these groups are anti-law
enforcement and  preach a quasi-religious doctrine of racist paranoia
about our justice system. Many activities and  philosophies
implemented by these groups during the  past decade have made the gang
problem much worse.

Gang summit meetings, peace treaties and gang sports  have only served
to legitimize and glamorize the  criminal lifestyle. Contrary to
popular perception,  gangs are not tightly-knit cohesive groups, but
loosely  organized lost children.

Use L.A.'s faith community to offer free child care to  every
low-income, unwed mother under 30 who is employed  or going to school.

All it would require to provide this life-changing  opportunity would
be for each of our 2,000-plus  churches, mosques and temples to commit
their millions  of members to opening facilities two days per week to
a  maximum of six children each.

Get a commitment from Los Angeles Unified School  District to require
mandatory drug testing for all  extracurricular activities. There's
almost a 100  percent correlation between drug/alcohol abuse and gang
involvement.

Stop seeing graffiti as a minor crime, and start  enforcing the law.
Any criminal activity that costs  Angelenos $55 million a year,
spreads racist sentiments  and incites deadly violence is done by
committed,  arrogant criminals. When we start treating and  punishing
them as such, gangs will lose their ability  to freely publicize their
presence and activity.

Our goal should not be to reduce or manage our gang  activity, but to
totally dissolve it. A radical  commitment to gang prevention ideas
like these would do  just that - rapidly - and thus transform our city
and  our future.

Paul D. White is the co-founder of West Valley  Leadership Academy in
Canoga Park.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin