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Multiagency Initiatives

Many cities and counties claim success in pooling resources with Federal and State agencies to combat youth and adult gangs and related violence.11 Multiagency initiatives generally are of two types. The most common type is Federal, State, and local law enforcement collaboration across jurisdictional boundaries. In other instances, crime control agencies (e.g., police, prosecutors, courts) collaborate in targeting gangs.

Los Angeles Metropolitan Task Force

California has become a leader in designing and implementing multiagency initiatives that draw on both Federal and local resources (National Criminal Justice Association, 1997). One of the most successful antigang initiatives, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Task Force, grew out of the city's 1992 riots, in which youth and adult gangs were blamed for much of the damage. Its original mission was to identify and prosecute individuals responsible for the riots (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1996). Led by the FBI, in collaboration with local police, the Los Angeles task force was assisted by ATF. This assistance included the use of Federal laws and authority (e.g., with prosecution, wiretapping, and witness security); money to purchase firearms undercover and pay informants; and logistical support. More than 2,000 arrests were made between February 1992 and September 1995, of which nearly 1,000 were for violent crimes (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1996). Nearly 300 Federal and State convictions resulted from these arrests, more than three-fourths of which were for violent crime charges.

Some Federal and local officials interviewed by U.S. General Accounting Office staff in 1995 and 1996 credited the Los Angeles task force with reducing crime rates in some neighborhoods and making it safe for children to play outside again. As a general assessment, most line officers mentioned "long-term, proactive investigations of entire gangs as an advantageous element differentiating the federal task force approach to violent crime from the local law enforcement approach, which generally involves short-term, reactive investigations of individual gang members" (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1996:3). The U.S. Department of Justice (1996) has noted the success of the task force.

Boston Gun Project

The Boston Gun Project is a suppression program that targets youth and adult gang members in a multiagency effort (Clark, 1997).12 It is based on an analysis of homicide among Boston's youth (age 21 and under) that determined that this violence is gang centered, neighborhood based, and concentrated in a small number of repeat-offending, gang-involved youth. The program was initiated in individual neighborhoods with an explicit communication campaign. This campaign begins with an orientation for community groups and is then often carried out face-to-face with gang members, who are given the message that gang violence has provoked a zero tolerance approach and that only an end to gang violence will stop new gang-focused suppression activities. The long sentences that offenders receive are publicized in high-crime neighborhoods. The program components described above build upon and integrate the efforts of grassroots organizations and the faith community.

A multiagency, coordinated task force of 45 full-time Boston police officers and others from outside agencies suppresses youth and adult gang violence and gun use (Kennedy, Piehl, and Braga, 1996). Suppression tactics include "pulling levers" to impose costs on offenders related to their chronic offending by serving warrants, enforcing probation restrictions, and deploying Federal enforcement powers (Kennedy, 1997).

Under another component of the program—Operation Night Light—police and probation officers, working in teams, make nightly visits to the homes of youth on probation to ensure that they are complying with the terms and conditions of their probation. This helps target tough enforcement efforts against gang leaders. City "streetworkers" (gang prevention and mediation specialists) also work in tandem with police and probation officers, helping resolve conflicts and linking youth who want help with needed services.

Simultaneously, the Boston Gun Project seeks to interrupt the self-sustaining cycle of fear, weapon use, and violence that appears to be driving youth violence in the city by reducing use of guns with a "coerced use-reduction" strategy and reducing access to firearms (Kennedy, Piehl, and Braga, 1996). To carry out this deterrence strategy, gang mediation specialists are deployed to gang hotspots, which are generally already known through mapping that shows gang overlap, intergang conflicts, and gun-related crime. Heightened surveillance for shootings, assaults, and other selected incidents triggers deployment of interagency crisis intervention teams with "swift and comprehensive attention." After this "calming" operation, patrol officers continue to monitor the hotspot for reoccurrence of gun violence.

The strategy that reduces access to firearms, using gun-tracing capabilities of the Boston Police Department and ATF, seeks to disrupt the illicit gun market. The rationale supporting the supply-reduction strategy is that disruption of the illicit market will interrupt fear-driven gun acquisition and use, thereby reducing gang violence in Boston. Using Federal firearm laws, the project "makes the market much less hospitable by strategically removing the most dangerous gang and drug offenders from the streets, and stemming the flow of firearms into Massachusetts" (Kennedy, Piehl, and Braga, 1996:5).

Evaluation results are not yet available, although gun homicide victimization among 14- to 24-year-olds in Boston is reported to have fallen by twothirds since the project began (Kennedy, 1997). Because homicides were dropping nationwide among this age group during the project period, the evaluation will compare Boston's homicide trends to trends in a sample of other cities (Kennedy, 1997).

Bureau of Justice Assistance Gang Suppression Prototype

The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) (1997a, 1997b) has developed a suppression prototype for drug-trafficking youth and adult gangs that focuses almost exclusively on law enforcement and prosecution strategies (see also Kelling et al., 1998, for information on BJA's comprehensive community programs that target youth and adult gangs). It is modeled after BJA's Urban Street Gang Program and is composed of projects in seven demonstration sites, some of which are administered by police departments, others by prosecutors' offices. The prototype consists of six key program elements: planning and analysis, gang information and intelligence systems, gang suppression strategies and tactics, interagency cooperation and collaboration, use of legal mechanisms, and evaluation of operations. The BJA Report Urban Street Gang Involvement provides detailed information on each of these elements. Gang suppression strategies and tactics in the BJA prototype include:13

  • Confidential informants and undercover officers.

  • Surveillance/arrest, buy/bust, and reverse sting operations.

  • Interdiction, barriers, sweeps, and warrant execution.

  • Other investigative approaches, such as surveillance, followup investigations, and multijurisdictional task forces.

  • Suppression through patrol, including directed patrol and community oriented policing.

  • Suppression through enforcement of health, building, and zoning codes and nuisance abatement ordinances.

Descriptions of two examples of multiagency strategies that are consistent with the BJA prototype follow.

A small multiagency task force successfully dismantled New York City's Puerto Rican Black Park Gang, so named because it shot out lights surrounding its base of operations in a park to avoid police detection (Bureau of Justice Assistance, 1997b). It was a very violent drug gang—believed to be responsible for 15 murders—that trafficked in drugs and used the proceeds to buy legitimate businesses through which it laundered drug profits. The investigation was led by the homicide investigation unit of the New York County (Manhattan) District Attorney's Office and joined by the New York City Police Department, other New York agencies, and several Federal agencies, including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and ATF.

Tactics used included intensive study and initial surveillance, infiltration of the gang by undercover officers, cultivation and use of confidential informants, electronic surveillance, cooperation with probation and parole officers, and asset forfeiture. The success of the effort resulted in initiating recreation programs in the park sponsored by the Police Athletic League and renaming it White Light Park because lighting had been restored (Bureau of Justice Assistance, 1997b).

The Jurisdictions United for Drug Gang Enforcement (JUDGE) program in San Diego coordinates investigations, prosecutions, and the sanctioning of criminal youth and adult gang members (Bureau of Justice Assistance, 1997b). This suppression program, headed by the district attorney's gang unit, targets violent members of drug-trafficking gangs. Several elements are deemed critical to its success: a motivated and reliable informant; a vertical prosecution team that works with investigators from the operation's beginning; a principal prosecutor freed from responsibility for other cases; videotape corroboration of drug transactions using paid informants; coordination with judges; and coordination with the jail before a sweep to allow preparation for the increased number of detainees. Still in operation, JUDGE also enforces conditions of probation and drug laws and provides vertical prosecution for probation violations and new offenses involving targeted offenders. The JUDGE strategy has been replicated in Oceanside, CA, and in Seattle, WA.

Minnesota Statewide Task Force

Minnesota created a statewide gang task force, composed of 40 members from local, county, and State police agencies, enabling law enforcement to collaborate effectively across jurisdictions (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1999). Members are deputized, have statewide power, and conduct long-term investigations using a gang database. This task force grew out of Minnesota HEALS (Hope, Education, and Law and Safety), a public-private partnership initiated by Honeywell, Inc., that has more than 60 members, including several other corporations, State and local law enforcement agencies, and a wide variety of other representatives. Gang suppression activities are concentrated in the Minneapolis Anti-Violence Initiative, which employs police-probation teams modeled after Boston's Operation Night Light program (see also Corbet, 1998; Corbet, Fitzgerald, and Jordan, 1996). These teams target gang members who possess weapons and are multiple offenders. Suppression strategies include saturation patrols, rapid response teams to prevent retaliation, gun tracing, Federal prosecution in cases involving guns, and vertical prosecution. Decreases in gang-related serious and violent crimes have been attributed to the Minneapolis HEALS partnership (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1999).

Federal Initiatives

Violent and drug-trafficking gangs are targeted in the Clinto Administration's Anti-Violent Crime Initiative through the use of Federal, State, and local interjurisdictional task forces (Office of the Attorney General, 1995; U.S. General Accounting Office, 1996). The Attorney General (1995) reported that the Drug Enforcement Administration uses Mobile Enforcement Teams (MET's) that work with State and local law enforcement authorities to dismantle drug organizations. The Houston, TX, MET was deployed in Galveston, where a high rate of juvenile homicides was attributed to drug-trafficking problems caused by three street gangs. MET made 17 arrests of gang members, 13 of whom were charged with violent crimes.

TARGET

The Tri-Agency Resource Gang Enforcement Team (TARGET) integrates and coordinates the work of the Orange County, CA, police and sheriff's departments, the Orange County District Attorney, and the Orange County Probation Department (Capizzi, Cook, and Schumacher, 1995). Its aim is to reduce gang crime by selectively incarcerating the most violent and repeat gang offenders (based on their criminal records) in the most violent gangs in Orange County. Once identified, these offenders are monitored closely for new offenses and undergo intensive supervision when on probation for violation of probation terms and conditions. TARGET ensures close collaboration among law enforcement staff, probation officers, and prosecutors by housing TARGET teams in police and sheriff's departments. Each team consists of police officers who serve as gang investigators, a probation officer, a deputy district attorney, and a district attorney investigator. The TARGET process "involves quickly identifying the leaders of gangs, concentrating on them (targeting) for enforcement efforts, conducting searches, and making arrests" (Rackauckas, 1999:9). Police gang investigators are well trained to deal with hostile witnesses, and deputy district attorneys and district attorney investigators are experienced in the vertical prosecution of cases through the court system, which appears to be a key element in program success. Begun in Westminster in 1992, TARGET has been replicated in six additional areas within Orange County. Currently, 12 TARGET teams are operating in 8 cities in the county and in the South Orange Sheriff's Department.

The effectiveness of the TARGET teams is impressive. During its first 2 years of operation, TARGET teams identified and verified 647 individual gang members, 77 of whom were targeted as high-rate offenders and gang leaders. Two-thirds of them were placed in custody while awaiting trial, and a 99-percent conviction rate was achieved along with a 62-percent decrease in serious gang-related crime (Kent and Smith, 1995). This level of success has continued with TARGET's subsequent expansion. In 1998, there were 3,475 filings of criminal charges against gang members, which included more than 2,600 Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention (STEP) Act charges and/or enhancements (Rackauckas, 1999). All types of criminal incidents—except for drug-related offenses, which do not constitute a major gang activity in Orange County—have dropped steadily since 1994, including a 57-percent drop in gang homicides since 1993 (Rackauckas, 1999). An evaluation of the program showed a sharp increase in incarceration of gang members (in juvenile detention and correctional facilities, jails, the California Youth Authority, and State prisons) and a cumulative 47-percent decrease in gang crime over a 7-year period (Kent et al., 2000). In one case, the Costa Mesa TARGET team dismantled a gang by convicting and incarcerating the gang's leaders and placing on restrictive probation gang members not sent to prison (Orange County Chiefs' and Sheriff's Association, 1999). In another initiative, the Santa Ana TARGET team—the Street Terrorism Offender Project (STOP)—set out to reduce violence between two rival gangs and other gang crime in the hotspot area in which they operated. An evaluation using Gang Incident Tracking System (a database of gang crime incidents and arrests in Orange County) data showed that after an initial increase in arrest incidents involving the two gangs (as a direct result of STOP actions), crimes involving the two gangs and the overall level of gang crime in the targeted hotspot decreased significantly over the next 2 years to near zero (Wiebe, 1998).

Klein and colleagues (1995:292) suggested that "focused efforts of this type can produce positive effects in smaller gang cities." TARGET won the National League of Cities 1993 award for Exemplary Local Government Criminal Justice Programs.

11 Many of the programs and strategies reviewed in the remainder of this Summary are used to target adult criminal organizations, which sometimes are called "gangs," and purely drug-trafficking gangs, which are not normally considered youth gangs (Klein, 1995a). Unfortunately, research and practice to date do not permit distinguishing which interventions are most likely to work best with youth gangs versus other (mainly adult) criminal groups that are also called gangs.

12 Gangs were defined here as a "self-identified group of kids who act corporately (at least sometimes) and violently (at least sometimes)" (Kennedy, Piehl, and Braga, 1996:158).

13 See Bureau of Justice Assistance (1997b:62–72) for detailed descriptions of these suppression tactics.



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Youth Gang Programs and Strategies
OJJDP Summary		 August 2000