Keeping kids out of gangs

0 Comments | Insight on the News, July 6, 1998 | by Tiffany Danitz

While many officials deny the existence of gangs, some police departments and school administrators are struggling to teach kids to reject the call of the streets.

Thirty-five sixth-graders file into the gymnasium of a school in a troubled neighborhood in Northeast Washington. The girls are wearing dresses and the boys are wearing ties and shiny shoes. They are all cleaned up for a ceremony marking their graduation from the Gang Resistance Education and Training program, or GREAT. Above them at a podium on the stage stands a Washington Metropolitan Police officer in her dress blues, brass buttons catching and reflecting the light. "Good afternoon, Officer Crawley," the children politely say in unison.

Eleven-year-old GREAT graduate Rhonesha Bufore tells Insight that she knows older kids who are involved in drugs and gangs. But she premises she isn't going to associate with them because, she says, they may get her into trouble. Bufore, who is studying hard so she can go to "Yale or Princeton" and become a lawyer when she grows up, says, "It is an excellent program. It teaches kids what they need to know to survive on the street, about drugs, alcohol -- lessons about how to treat people."

The police-administered program is one of a number of government and nonprofit efforts to prevent children from ruining their lives by getting involved in gangs, crime and violence. Other grass-roots programs are springing up in long-neglected communities to intervene against gang activity and unify divided neighborhoods against vice and crime. There are approximately 75 documented gangs or crews (used interchangeably) operating in the nation's capital, which isn't bad compared with other major cities, claims Lt. Lawrence W. Thomas, commander of the intelligence section that monitors and investigates gang activity for the Washington Metropolitan Police Department. That estimate, however, is in question.

The Thomas figure pales in comparison to a 1996 report released by the school system's gang task force, which estimated 250 crews, mobs, and posses were active at 10 different high schools, eight junior-high schools, two middle schools and two adult-education centers. That same year, the chief of police pinpointed 80 gangs and 246 "smaller, looser groups," a distinct departure from an alleged police policy of claiming no gang problem exists in the district.

Denial has been a national problem, explains John Moore of the National Youth Gang Center Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in Tallahassee, Fla. The center is charged with the daunting task of trying to determine the scope of the gang problem across the nation. Moore says that police often deny gangs exist so as not to legitimize them. But as long as cities deny a gang problem, they are unable to obtain vital federal financial assistance to fight or prevent gang problems.

The flip side of the coin is that gang crime can be exaggerated. It is a situation where law enforcement, schools and communities need to work together, according to Moore. Most gang members are between the ages of 16 and 25, says Thomas. Think prevention: "What about the brothers and sisters of the gang members? How do we keep them out of gangs? If we expel a kid from school for gang activity what do we do with him? Does he just get to hang out all day?" Moore asks.

Hence, the GREAT program, which works with kids in the fifth, sixth and seventh grades. Officers go into the classrooms for one class period per week and talk to the children about what happens to kids in gangs, how to set goals and resist peer pressure, as well as how to resolve conflicts and problems without resorting to violence. The students really enjoy the program because of the perks, which include day trips and summer camp, all paid for by the police department. And camp is something 11-year-old Melvin Bray and 12-year-old Stanley Greenhill are looking forward to this summer. It may just be keeping them in the program.

But the gang problem in the district can't just be dumped into the laps of the local police -- much more help is needed to deal with this issue. For instance, Moore asks, "Is anyone going to give this kid a job? Does he need a role model? The cops do a wonderful job as best they can, but they can't do the whole thing."

Stylish and bold, Nakia Jackson, 12, offers the advice her grandmother gave her for dealing with a desperate neighborhood riddled with violence. "Grandma told me to pray for them," Jackson says. And prayer is exactly what eight men in a low-income Northeast community were engaged in on Sunday nights when they decided to form a group called the Alliance of Concerned Men. The fifty-something ex-felons and former drug abusers want to help young people avoid the crime, drugs and violence that they were caught up in while growing up in these same communities.

On a winter night about six years ago, the eight men met for their weekly prayer group. But this night was different, for they were haunted by the murder of one of the community's children. Darryl Hall, 12, had been kidnapped as he walked home from school, brutally beaten and murdered. So disturbed were the men that they swore to invoke the authority of God to loosen the grim grip that violence had on their community.