Into the Abyss: What Neighborhood Residents Could Do

Solutions

	The Gang Reduction Program (GRP) The Gang Reduction Program, instituted in 2003, was piloted in four cities in the United States (L.A., Milwaukee, Richmond [VA], and Miami). Read about its five-pronged approach to gang reduction (primary prevention, secondary prevention, intervention, suppression, and reentry).
	Gang Summits and Truces: "Gang summits and truces negotiated by local residents may be more effective than those brought about in other ways. In the District of Columbia, members of the Alliance for Concerned Men negotiated a truce among warring gangs that had been terrorizing Benning Terrace.

"In January 1997, with the help of NCNE (1999), which assisted in strategic planning and provided a neutral meeting location, the alliance stepped in after a period of escalating violence. Six homicides had occurred in Benning Terrace in 1996. Following the alliance's intervention, there were no homicides from January 1997 to August 1998 (National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, 1999)." (Howell, 2000, site)

The Pied Piper Walked to School:
Several of the cities I visited had programs where specially trained adults stood on pre-designated street corners in residential neighborhoods and waited for children who they were to accompany to school in the morning. They, or another adult, went to the school at the end of the school day and walked the children back to their respective corners.

This is an easy way to provide security for children and to make a statement about taking one's neighborhood back from gang members who are threatening the children on their way to school or back home. It also provides the adults with information on who, if anyone, is still attempting to harass the children.

Field Note: A police gang unit supervisor told me about what the residents in one of the city's neighborhoods did. "Under the pretense of walking their dogs, the residents donned orange baseball hats and patrolled their neighborhood. They called and gave us the car license plate numbers and vehicle descriptions for suspicious looking drivers and, after a year of doing that, gang members finally left the neighborhood."

Best Practices of Youth Violence Prevention: A Sourcebook for Community Action
These programs are drawn from real-world experiences of professionals and advocates who have successfully worked to prevent violence among children and adolescents. As a CDC publication, the sourcebook also documents the science behind each best practice and offers a comprehensive directory of resources for more information about programs that have used these practices.

Work Collaboratively:
Work with public agencies and other organizations - neighborhood-based or community-wide - on solving common problems. Don't be shy about letting them know what your community needs. Neighborhood-based organizations include schools, local businesses, and the faith community organizations.

Community-wide organizations may include social service agencies (look in your telephone Yellow Pages under "Social Service and Welfare Organizations for a list of agencies to contact), task force groups, and committees established by your mayor or other local politicians.

Provide activities for neighborhood youth:
Find positive ways for youth in the neighborhood to spend their spare time - through organized recreation, tutoring programs, part-time work, volunteer opportunities, and whatever else you and your colleagues can dream up.

Contact a local college or university and see if they have a "Service Learning" or community service program which could provide students to act as supervisors for after-school athletic games, volunteering (there's lots of organizations, nursing homes, and other places that could use the help of local youth) or other activities (a tour to the museum, a bakery, a local manufacturer, etc.).

Create a Neighborhood Watch Program:
Working with local police, create a Neighborhood Watch program or a residential patrol (then search that web page for residential). working with police. Make sure streets and homes are well lit at night and that sidewalks are even and easy to walk on (that means residents will likely use them more and gangs do not like crowds).

A Neighborhood Watch program doesn't mean anything if the neighbors don't "watch." The National Crime Prevention Council has some good ideas on how to start a Neighborhood Watch program and keep it active.

Familiarize yourself with the people and cars in your neighborhood. When a stranger or unknown car appears, be alert to the potential of danger. If you are at all concerned, call 911 and report the incident to the local police. If you can get a description of the person or the car (including the license plate number and the color and make of car), all the better!

Oxnard's (CA) Neighborhood Watch Patrol:
Have you ever thought of organizing your neighbors to become a civilian watch patrol? The Neighborhood Watch Patrol Handbook offers good ideas and should get you motivated to become active in organizing your neighbors for needed action. The City of Oxnard (CA) has implemented a watch patrol strategy for reducing gang-related activities and believe they have been successful in their endeavors.
Regarding the ideas presented in the Handbook, the authors of the Handbook states "The recommendations and suggestions are just that, suggestions. We do not intend to say that this is the only way a watch program will work. Each neighborhood is different and has different problems and requirements. Use what you can and adapt the techniques to fit your own neighborhoods circumstances." (Neighborhood Watch Patrol Handbook)

Build a partnership with police:
The partnership should focus on solving problems instead of reacting to crises. The partnership will make it possible for neighbors to report suspicious activity or crimes without fear of retaliation from offenders (possibly gang members).

Partnerships such as this are being sought by police departments across the country and are part and parcel of problem-oriented or community-oriented policing efforts.

When it comes to gangs, share what you know with the police. They will assure you that whatever you say will be held in confidence. If you prefer, meet your local beat officer someplace away from the neighborhood so local gang members don't see you together. That way you need not fear retaliation.

The Community Policing Consortium provides some useful information. At Community Policing Index you can find a wealth of information and resources on community policing. Here's a source of grants for community policing efforts.

There's strength in numbers:
Take advantage of safety in numbers to hold rallies, marches, and other group activities to show you're determined to drive out crime and drugs.

It's the same way with graffiti. If you remove it every time it appears the gang members will stop putting it there (they may just go elsewhere but at least it's not in your neighborhood any more).

Removing the graffiti is as bold as the act of creating the graffiti and communicates to those who put it there that neighborhood residents will not tolerate it, that the residents are in control, not the gangs. Did you already read about the four "Rs" of graffiti?

There's usually a local community service agency, private business, or individual who will remove graffiti if they're told about it. To find out if that service is available, contact your local police, juvenile officers, or probation/parole officers.

Clean up the neighborhood:
Involve everyone - children, teens, young adults, senior citizens. Graffiti, litter, abandoned cars, and run-down buildings communicate to criminals that neighborhood residents don't care about their neighborhood, property, or each other. Call the city public works department and ask for help in cleaning up.

You can reach local youths more effectively by contacting your local schools and asking if they would be willing to take on a community service project and help clean the neighborhood.
Make a weekend of it and have a free lunch for everyone who participates in the clean up. Maybe your local grocers will provide some hot dogs and other things you'll need. With a little work, everything could be provided free of charge except for the labor to cook it up - you and your neighbors can do that.
Having a clean neighborhood tells gang members that you care, and that you're there. It's your neighborhood, not theirs. If you'd like to know a little more about removing graffiti, visit the site of the Columbus (OH) Police Department. You can also read about how Chicago has tackled the problem of graffiti.

	Be creative: Ask local officials to use new ways to get criminals out of your building or neighborhood. These include enforcing anti-noise laws, housing codes, health and fire codes, anti-nuisance laws, and drug-free clauses in rental leases. For a sampling of the kinds of city ordinances and state laws which may be used visit Gang-Related Legislation here in Into the Abyss.
	Form a Court Watch: In order to help support victims and witnesses, create a Court Watch program and see that criminals get fairly punished. A Court Watch program finds neighbors sitting in the court room as members of the audience. This makes a statement to the judge and prosecutor that residents of the community care about what they are doing and that the residents want justice.

Local prosecutors are usually in elected positions. They need your support and vote at election time. Show them that you care about your local youth and the problems some of them are creating for the neighborhood.
It won't take long before the prosecutor begins to respond to youthful law violators in a way which ruins misbehaving in the neighborhood. Here's an example of a court watch program which focuses upon cases of driving under the influence (DUI). Here's a description of the Canadian Court Watch program.
Invite your prosecutor to a community forum and invite him/her to join your community task force on gangs and youth violence, if you have one. Prosecutors, given the power they have and the relationships they have with judges and police, are a powerful ally in your fight to protect your neighborhood and its children against victimization by gang members.

Work with your neighborhood social institutions:
Work with schools to establish drug-free, gun-free zones; work with recreation officials to do the same for parks. Work to have a gang-free zone in your neighborhood.

According to the Wilmington (NC) Police Department you can create a gang free neighborhood if you and your neighbors "Develop positive alternative in your community. Share transportation to after school programs. Ask older kids to tutor or mentor younger ones. Ask your child what interests them.
"Get organized against the gang organization. Get help right in your community. Try these kinds people in addition to the police; priest or minister, family counselor, community association, school counselor or principal, athletic coach, youth-serving agencies and others." (Wilmington (NC) Police Department)

Here's a family guide to keeping your children drug-free.

Create a resource book of youth-serving agencies:
Develop and share a phone list of local organizations that can provide counseling, job training, guidance, and other services that neighborhood youth might need. Look in your telephone Yellow Pages under "Social Service and Welfare Organizations for a list of agencies in your area. Many of the services these agencies are free of charge to those who avail themselves of them. Here's an example of a Resource Guide as prepared by Dan Schepers, Greene County (MO) Juvenile Services, for the Interagency Task Force on Gangs and Youth Violence (scroll down and look on the left side of the screen for "Resource Guide to Agencies and Services").