Mara Salvatrucha.  The Mexican Mafia.  The Bloods and Crips.  Whether they are new to this country - creeping up from Central America and Mexico - or have been around for years, gangs still plague the nation's streets and prisons.  But, no matter where they originate from, they present the same types of problems and require a joint effort among criminal justice agencies to deal with them.

The nation's lawmakers hope to impact the gang problem with new legislation that recently passed in the House of Representatives - the Gang Deterrence and Community Protection Act of 2005, which promises harsher penalties for gang-related crimes and more resources for the prevention effort on the streets.  But some gang experts believe that the best way to combat gang violence is for agencies to team up and fight it together.

According to Ed Cohn, Executive Director of the National Major Gang Task Force, agencies are partnering together more today than ever before to address gang issues.

"The main thing that I see is that there is an increase in cooperation among agencies now - corrections and law enforcement and the military - so that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing, or at least we are trying to stay on top of it," Cohn said. 

No one agency can take a bite out of the gang problem on its own, he added.

"I think that a concentration in the streets is not necessarily the answer.  A concentration in the prisons is not necessarily the answer.  A concentration at the federal or the local level is not necessarily the answer," said Cohn.  "We all need to be able to reap the benefits and the resources and continue to work together as we have been [in] the last couple of years in order to try to get control over this."

In Pittsburgh, where the Gang Free Schools program began two years ago, the first step towards bringing different agencies to the same page regarding gangs was a thorough assessment of the types of gang crimes that were being committed and where and when they were taking place.

"We were able to narrow things down like that," said Errika Fearby Jones, Gang Free Schools Director for the Pittsburgh Public Schools.

With that information in hand, Jones said she was able to create criteria to help law enforcement, the schools and community agencies determine what classified a gang member.

"We were actually able to identify young people who were in gang," said Jones.

Clear-cut definitions for gang members and gang activity helped agencies, including police, juvenile and adult probation, the schools, county heath and mental health services, and drug and alcohol treatment providers, come together to fight this problem, Jones said.

These different entities gather around the same table twice a month to discuss the children who have been enrolled in this program by the schools, the police or their probation officer.  Anybody who is part of this community intervention team is able to refer a candidate to the program, Jones said.

Once children become part of the Gang Free Schools program, they receive intensive case planning to help them break free from the gang lifestyle. 

"We have all these people from different directions case planning," said Jones. 

Program participants are linked with different treatment services they might need and they receive assistance in finding jobs in the community so they will be spending their time working, rather than running with a gang.

For added support, the kids also have connections to a street outreach worker who keeps an eye on them in the community. 

"Outreach workers model pro-social behavior, lead [people] and connect them to resources," Jones said.

While many of the children in the program have probation officers, the outreach workers are able to spend more time with them and help them work through the issues their POs have identified.

"Probation officers can not necessarily give that individual one-on-one attention," said Jones. 

She said the outreach workers are able to more closely shadow those young people to ensure they are going to work, attending treatment sessions and making the necessary attitude adjustments to stay out of gangs.  For program participants who truly do want to change the way they live their lives, the outreach workers are able to give them that extra push, she said.

While probation officers work closely with the street outreach workers to alert them to problems kids may be having or have experienced in the past, they also work hand-in-hand with the police department to keep information flowing. 

According to Jones, police officers ride along with probation officers when they make their checks on their clients.  Together, the two entities are able to get a feel for what is going on in the streets and document gang trends, Jones said.

As a result of the Gang Free Schools project, Jones said that the police department has also made some changes to the way it collects data.  She explained that prior to the program's implementation, the police would record any type of murder as a general homicide.  After the program began, the agency started to specify which homicides were gang related.  This helps the agency and its partners to keep better track of gangs and gang violence, Jones said.

While agencies in the Pittsburgh-area have teamed up to fight gangs in the community, the same type of effort is going on in other areas of the country, as well. 

Making Connections in Missouri

In the Missouri, the Southwest Missouri Interagency Task Force on Gangs and Youth Violence has gathered a variety of agencies together to discuss and deal with the issue of gangs in middle America.

"It's incredibly important to have all the key stakeholders involved," said Chris Davis, Administrator of Prevention Services for the Community Partnership of the Ozarks, the coalition from which the Task Force was spawned.

The Task Force includes members from the Springfield, Mo., Police Department, the Greene County Sheriff's Office and Juvenile Services Department, the Missouri Department of Probation and Parole, the Missouri Division of Youth Services and Southwest Missouri State University.

By working together, the agencies can avoid duplication and create synergy in their gang prevention and suppression efforts, Davis said.

According to Davis, the group meets monthly to share information and talk about what they are seeing in terms of gangs.  That information is then taken back to the community so that citizens know what to look for and can identify gang activity in their own neighborhoods.

Davis said that by informing community members about gangs, he hopes they are more educated and empowered to report what they see in the streets.

According to Robert Walker, a gang expert with six decades of law enforcement and corrections experience, community involvement is key in this battle against gangs.

"Gangs need to be addressed through the community and by the community," said Walker, noting that there need to be more opportunities for kids to find jobs or join clubs after school.  "We are not where we should be and that is because too many communities, too many states, too many departments are still in denial [about having a gang problem]."

Communities need to snap out of that denial and inform their citizens about what is really going on, Walker said.

"We don't need to put fear into everyone, but the people of the community have a right to know that there is a problem and it needs to be addressed," Walker said.  "[You need to] come out of denial and attack the gangs.  I am not saying that is the solution, but it's a start."

Debate Over Legislation

Walker is a strong proponent of the legislation that was recently passed in the House, although some organizations, like the Children's Defense Fund, are speaking out against the bill, which allows for some youth to be prosecuted as adults for gang related crimes.

But Walker believes that if juvenile gang members commit crimes, they should pay the price, despite their age.

"When you murder somebody, that is an adult crime," said Walker.  "I have no problem at all putting a 16 year-old in jail for the rest of their life for murder."

Some community leaders, however, including Jones, are worried that tougher laws like these may hinder what she is trying to do with the Gang Free Schools program in Pittsburgh.

According to Jones, the relationship between community organizations who are trying to help gang members start new lives are already naturally at odds with law enforcement personnel, whose main concern is to keep the streets safe. 

A bill like this, she explained, could put some pressure on the strong working relationship community organizations have developed with the police there.

"There's already a natural clash there," she said.  "You add this legislation on top of it [and] you are going to have a struggle."

Others fear that the legislation may not only strain relationships, but the corrections system, as well, with the potential for more gang members to be incarcerated for longer periods of time. 

"On the positive side, if the risk is greater than the reward, [it's] less likely for people to get involved in gangs," said Davis.  "The downside is we already have an overburdened corrections system."

Cohn agrees.

"Obviously, this [legislation] has an effect [on the corrections system] because, number one, it's going to increase the prison population and most of the states' and the federal government [facilities] are overpopulated," said Cohn.

But Cohn said that if agencies know they will be having an influx of gang members arriving at their facilities as a result of a bill like this, they will be able to accommodate that increase by planning head.

"It's a matter of having personnel on hand to maintain control over these individuals," said Cohn.  "Each administration in each facility - whether it's a max, supermax, high [security] or medium [security] - [has] to have a plan."

And whether the legislation passes, or not, staff at the nation's correctional facilities need to be prepared, said Cohn.

"We're in a volatile business.  It doesn't necessarily have to be a gang member that increases the potential for our staff getting hurt," said Cohn.  "Our people have got to be aware of who they are dealing with, every shift, every week," he said.  "We can't shut an eye.  We can't turn a back."

Resources:

NMGTF http://www.nmgtf.org/

Jones (412) 622-3921

Davis (417) 888-2020 or http://associations.smsu.edu/nogangs/

Walker (803) 407-3080 or http://www.gangsorus.com/