Tacoma leaders want to know how many gang members live in the city, what crimes they commit, what programs might get them out of gangs, and what attracted them to the lifestyle in the first place.
To find out, the City Council last summer set aside $50,000 to do a comprehensive assessment of the gang situation. The city recently hired Executive Interface LLC, a Missouri-based firm, to do the work.
After months of planning, the assessment is to begin next month and involve a host of city departments, criminal justice agencies, schools, social service organizations, youths and gang members.
It’s the first in-depth study of the city’s law enforcement, intervention and prevention efforts. Similar assessments have been done in Durham, N.C.; Fairbanks, Alaska; Houston; and Pittsburgh.
Tacoma leaders want the assessment, which is slated to be done by the end of the year, to include recommendations for policy changes or new programs that can address Tacoma’s continuing gang problem.
“We are looking for system change,” said Linda Villegas Bremer, director of the city’s Human Rights & Human Services Department.
City leaders say the assessment could help them land federal grants and decide which programs will get money from the City Council in the future.
At present, the city spends more than $2.2 million on 25 programs to counter or prevent youth violence.
“There is not going to be a lot more money to throw at this problem,” said City Councilwoman Victoria Woodards, who chairs the executive steering committee for the 2011 Tacoma Gang Project.
The assessment also could help police target their efforts.
“It should give us a crystal clear picture of the gang problem in Tacoma,” police Lt. Bart Hayes said recently.
IT BEGAN IN THE ’80s
Gangs sprouted in the city in the mid-1980s when gang members from California drove up Interstate 5 and brought crack cocaine – and the violence associated with rivals warring over street corners – into Tacoma’s neighborhoods.
They’ve been a part of the city ever since.
A 2008 survey by the National Gang Intelligence Center estimated 2,500 to 3,500 people were members or associates of dozens of gangs in Pierce County. The survey was based on information and data from law enforcement agencies.
While gang violence has fluctuated over the years, it sharply increased in 2006. Gang rivalries escalated, drive-by shootings riddled the East Side, and a shooting downtown involving two rival gangs left one teen dead and another paralyzed.
In response, the Police Department formed a full-time gang unit and focused its patrol officers on youth violence.
Meanwhile, block watch groups, social service agencies and others worked to combat neighborhood-level crime and steer gang members and youths away from criminal life.
The Police Department, Safe Streets and others got federal grants in recent years to work on the gang problem.
“We have been successful at keeping it under control,” Assistant Chief Bob Sheehan said of gang violence. “We have got to get to the root.”
WHY AN ASSESSMENT?
The idea for an assessment came up early last year during a retreat for City Council members, Mayor Marilyn Strickland said.
City leaders had noticed that requirements for federal grants were increasingly asking cities to have comprehensive gang assessments. In addition, the council wanted an in-depth look at what prevention and intervention programs are available in Tacoma.
“It is far more cost-effective to focus on prevention and intervening than to arrest and send them through the system,” Strickland said of gang members.
City leaders have been getting set up for the assessment ever since.
A representative from the National Youth Gang Center visited Tacoma in January and provided advice for how the city should craft its proposal for a gang assessment.
Two steering committees were formed to guide the project and implement changes. The committees are comprised of department and agency heads and public officials as well as community leaders.
The assessment will focus solely on the gang problem within the city.
Those doing the assessment will gather data from the Police Department, talk with organizations providing programs to youths, and interview teens involved with gangs.
“It’s not just a cops thing. It’s not just an administrator thing. It’s not just an adult thing,” Woodards said of the assessment. “Kids are pretty articulate.”
The assessment will not include a list of names of gang members that police can target. Instead, it will evaluate the problem and the programs already in place and point out gaps in services provided to youths.
“We want three to five concrete things we can implement,” Woodards said. “We want to turn this into action.”
Stacey Mulick: 253-597-8268
stacey.mulick@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/crime
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