Salt Lake City is continuing toward its goal of implementing a nationally recognized gang prevention model -- and is encouraging kids to stay away from gangs by bringing teams of intervention workers into gang-plagued neighborhoods, Mayor Ralph Becker said Friday.
Becker started a Gang Reduction Forum last summer to address gang problems in the city after the death of 7-year-old Maria Del Carmen Menchaca in July.
The girl became the unintended victim of a gang-related shooting outside her Glendale home and ignited a firestorm in the community over how to stop neighborhood violence.
The forum, made up of representatives from the criminal justice system, Legislature, school districts, nonprofit organizations and community groups, brainstormed ideas for creating a "framework" to combat Salt Lake City's gang problem.
In March, Becker announced the forum would change into a steering committee, with a focus on implementing the U.S. Department of Justice's Comprehensive Gang Model in Salt Lake City.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's model, used in several major cities across the country, targets gang-involved youth younger than 22. It calls for agencies like grassroots volunteer organizations, law enforcement and the courts system to work together to attack gang problems through a mixture of programs and community activities.
Now organized, the city is starting to put ideas into action, said Leticia Medina, a director for the anti-gang Colors of Success program and co-chair of the gang reduction program steering committee.
"Gangs have an impact on everyone in the community," Medina said during a Friday press conference at Salt Lake City's Sorenson Unity Center.
"We believe gang intervention needs to be community driven. Not led by just police or our politicians," she said.
Becker has directed two employees in the mayor's office to serve as project directors for implementing the comprehensive gang model. The Salt Lake City Council in May approved funding to hire outreach workers that will work with gang-involved and at-risk youth.
Community groups such as the Boys and Girls Club, NeighborWorks and Colors of Success will work with the city's outreach workers to target families who need help in addressing gang issues with their children.
Working together is key to trying to curb the gang problem, Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank said at Friday's press conference.
"Gang violence is not going to go away. We need to do effective prevention and intervention, " he said.
Salt Lake City's effort to implement the comprehensive gang model complements an initiative unveiled by police in March called the Gang Community Action Team (GangCAT) program.
Salt Lake City's Gang Reduction Program is being led by a steering committee that is implementing a nationally recognized Comprehensive Gang Model. The model operates on five strategies:
Community Mobilization: Involvement of local citizens (including former gang youth and community groups and agencies) and the coordination of programs and staff functions within and across agencies.
Provision of Opportunities: The development of a variety of specific education, training, and employment programs targeted at gang-involved youth.
Social Intervention: Youth-serving agencies, schools, grassroots groups, faith-based organizations, police, and other criminal justice organizations "reaching out" and acting as links between gang-involved youth (and their families) and the conventional world and its needed services.
Suppression: Formal and informal social control procedures, including close supervision or monitoring of gang youth by agencies of the criminal justice system and also by community-based agencies, schools and grassroots groups.
Organizational Change and Development: Implementation of policies and procedures that result in the most effective use of resources within and across agencies to better address the gang problem.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention "Best Practices to Address Community Gang Problems."
