LOS ANGELES, CA
L.A.’s heavy gang presence and sheer size are new challenges for the group violence
reduction strategy. But its commitment to tackle both drugs and gangs at once may
multiply the results, and previous initiatives against violent crime in the city have
shown that it’s a fight that can be won.
Introduction
Los Angeles, California, is the second largest city in the United States, and has long held
the distinction of “gang capital” of America. Los Angeles, along with Chicago,
represents one of the two principal concentrations of U.S. gangs. Gangs affiliated with or
inspired by gangs founded in Los Angeles—including the Bloods, Crips, Mexican
Mafia/La Eme, Mara Salvatrucha/MS13, and others—now dominate gang activity in
many U.S. jurisdictions. Violent crime by gang members (often committed against other
gang members) represents a large and disproportionate share of overall violent crime.
Gang homicides account for at least half of all homicides in Los Angeles;i were less
formal definitions of violent groups used, that proportion would probably rise
substantially.ii Los Angeles is also a primary hub for the distribution of illegal drugs to
markets across the country, and the city itself exhibits a large number of overt drug
markets, often controlled by street gangs,iii which are associated with high levels of drug
crime, violent crime, and community quality-of-life issues.
Thanks to fundamental shifts in departmental management and accountability structures,
crime overall and violent crime in particular is significantly down in Los Angeles since
2000.iv However, according to current LAPD estimates, there are still approximately 450
gangs in L.A. with 45,000 members.v Violent crime remains a very serious problem in
many Los Angeles neighborhoods, particularly those also dominated by gang activity and
overt drug markets. Two of L.A.’s four bureaus, Southern and Central, comprised nearly
70% of the city’s homicides in 2007, with a similar proportion of rapes, robberies, and
aggravated assaults.vi Gangs, drug markets, and violent crime are interwoven problems
that Los Angeles continues to face.
In 2007, the Advancement Project, a policy and public action group, published a report
and recommendations for reducing citywide gang activity, which drew intense attention
from law enforcement, community representatives, and policymakers. The report stated
that “the petri dish of Los Angeles high crime neighborhoods have spawned a violent
gang culture unlike any other…. small and isolated gang prevention programs cannot
reverse an entrenched epidemic.” It went on to call for a Marshall Plan to end gang
violence, including comprehensive, neighborhood-based strategies to reduce violence in
high crime areas, pull communities with growing violence back to safety, and keep areas
safe.vii
Los Angeles now stands on the brink of a great opportunity. Enhanced law enforcement
performance, gang prevention programs spearheaded by the Mayor’s office, and the
LAPD’s collaborative approach to working with gang outreach workers have created a
window of opportunity to address gang violence in a new and potentially more effective
way in the city.
History
As Boston’s now-famous Operation Ceasefire was starting up in 1996, a different
innovation was being developed in L.A. The CLEAR (Community Law Enforcement &
Recovery) Program was an anti-gang initiative begun in 1996 which continues on in
selected parts of the city to this day. Through CLEAR, city and county criminal justice
agencies collaborate with community members to reduce gang crime. Unlike Ceasefire, it
doesn’t have call-ins, and unlike Ceasefire it includes prosecution of non-violent gang
crimes like graffiti. But the innovation of CLEAR was its use of vertical prosecution
within the CLEAR unit to target specific gangs and specific areas. The National Network
initiative can build on that history of collaboration, and the call-in may make it less
suppression-heavy and more effective, LAPD Captain William Scott says. “Although
CLEAR was very successful, I think this can take that a step further,” Scott says.
Another initiative took root in L.A. in 2000, when the National Institute of Justice funded
the RAND Corporation to determine if the Boston Ceasefire model could be adapted to
other jurisdictions. Over several months, a working group in the Hollenbeck area of East
Los Angeles designed an intervention to quell a rising tide of violence in the
neighborhood through the use of “levers” including increased LAPD patrols, more
stringent enforcement of housing codes for properties used by gang members and of drug
or firearm possession in public housing, more stringent enforcement of parole and
probation conditions, serving outstanding warrants on gang members, and referral of gun
law violations for federal prosecution.
Unfortunately, the project lacked several important components of a gang violence
reduction strategy, and was not implemented as planned. It diverged in a few key ways:
social services were not made consistently available, since the initiative was implemented
before social services were in place;viii the intervention was not applied in a dynamic
fashion, but continued to focus on the two groups involved in the initial triggering
incident; and sanctions for violent behavior were not consistently directed against the
entire group but rather were focused primarily on offending individuals.
However, even this poorly-implemented intervention in Los Angeles found a reduction in
violent crime of about a third in the project neighborhoods.ix According to the project’s
analysis, “Perhaps the most important success of the program was the success of the
working group—using data analysis and with collaboration from many different
agencies—in achieving a well-designed intervention.”x Therefore, the Hollenbeck
initiative gives reason to believe that a better implementation of a group violence
reduction strategy in L.A. will produce even stronger results.
Current Status
Los Angeles is in the early stages of designing a two-pronged crime reduction strategy,
focused on drug markets and group violence as two drivers of serious crime in the city.
The first prong is group violence reduction. Chief Charles Beck says that, though the
gang situation in L.A. is especially complex, he was attracted to the National Network
group violence reduction strategy because “it’s proven to be very effective in a number of
cities. And even though L.A. may be different, I know there are places here it will apply
perfectly.”
The group violence reduction strategy will complement other initiatives of the LAPD,
according to Chief Beck. “Our suppression strategies are some of the most evolved in the
world,” Beck says; but the other parts of crime reduction—prevention, intervention, and
reentry—will benefit from greater emphasis under the National Network strategy.
Additionally, Captain William Scott says, the city needs to find a less resource-intensive
alternative to suppression-heavy gang enforcement.
The second prong is drug markets. Tackling drug markets is essential if overall crime is
to be reduced in the city. As the first city of its size committed to designing and fully
implementing both strategies in a coordinated fashion, L.A. may achieve multiplicative
crime reduction impacts over and above impacts seen in jurisdictions that have
implemented only one strategy or the other.
Group violence reduction strategy
Captain William Scott oversees the Mission Area, the selected pilot region for the L.A.
strategy. The area is on the city’s north side and has a population of 250,000; five key
gangs operate in the Mission Area, Scott says, comprising approximately 2,000
documented gang members, though the number of active members may be only about
200. The area’s gangs are primarily Hispanic and are heavily influenced by the Mexican
Mafia.
The group violence reduction strategy is still in its beginning stages in L.A. Ride alongs
and preliminary assessments of the Mission Area have been performed by National
Network staff. The next step will be completion of a formal agreement with the city,
after which formal qualitative research will begin, and a working group can begin to
shape the details of the L.A. initiative. Given the work to be done, it is difficult to say
with any precision when an actual intervention might be fielded.
However, many of the necessary resources are already in place in the Mission Area, so
implementation might proceed more quickly than usual once design is completed. The
Mission Area was a promising candidate location partially because of the quantity of city
resources already directed there. The area is one of the Mayor’s Gang Reduction and
Youth Development (GRYD) zones. In each zone, the GRYD office coordinates
community-based organizations, educational programs, and gang intervention workers.
Additionally, the Mayor’s office sponsors the Safer Cities Initiative, which allots a
contingency of officers to the Mission Area above and beyond its regular deployment to
work on specific problems. So, with these existing initiatives, social services, gang
intervention workers, and enforcement presence are all loosely in place, Scott says.
Furthermore, because there are a small number of gangs in the Mission Area, he says, the
gang landscape there could be more manageable than in parts of the city where a different
gang operates on every block.
Intervention efforts are well established in L.A. and will be a valuable resource for the
group violence reduction strategy. An internal notification system distributes messages
from the LAPD to 150 contracted intervention workers throughout the city and solicits
their responses. The city has also just implemented a professional training program for
gang interventionists, the Los Angeles Violence Intervention Training Academy, which
graduated its first class in June 2010. The six-week course trains former gang members to
be peacemakers.
It’s too early to know how the group violence reduction strategy might be scaled up in
L.A., but the LAPD says that with such a varied gang presence it doesn’t expect any one
strategy to work for all of L.A.’s gangs. Chief Charles Beck says the gangs he would first
target with the National Network strategy are those that are not multigenerational, not
affiliated with the Mexican Mafia, and are small to medium-sized. In addition, Capt.
Scott says, the LAPD will likely establish an executive board similar to that of the
CLEAR Program; the board, which included executives from each of the involved
agencies, had the authority to keep the program on track, Scott says.
Drug market intervention
The drug market intervention in L.A. will likely follow the contours of the intervention as
applied in other cities, Scott says. Plans for the drug market intervention are not as far
along as those for the group violence reduction strategy; the LAPD is still looking for a
good candidate pilot location. The intervention also will not likely be as widely
applicable throughout the city as the group violence reduction strategy, Chief Beck says,
because many of the city’s open-air drug markets have disappeared because of increased
suppression. Most deals are now done by cell phone, Beck says.
However, drug markets are an essential piece of the violence-reduction puzzle in L.A.
Because narcotics markets are so tied up with violent crime, Capt. Scott says, “to impact
one without impacting the other, I don’t think we’re really doing justice to the potential
of this program.”
Success in the drug market intervention is usually measured by reductions in the crimes
and associated disorder that normally accompany overt drug markets—drug arrests,
prostitution, shooting, robbery, property crime, vandalism and calls for service. These
community impacts, included regaining public space and safety, are the primary goals of
the intervention; while the outcomes of individual dealers who are called-in are
important, they are a secondary measure. Success is also measured by quality-of-life
measures and the opinions of community members.
Conclusion
As the biggest city so far to join the Leadership Group, and the “gang capital” of
America, Los Angeles will provide valuable lessons to further refine the National
Network’s strategies. The city’s commitment to implement both the drug market
intervention and the group violence reduction strategy promises to make real gains
against two of the primary drivers of violence in L.A., and to demonstrate the power of
the strategies’ synergistic effects on a national stage.
i
Egley, A., & Major, A. K. (April, 2004). Highlights of the 2002 national youth gang survey.
Even in less gang-involved cities, careful reviews of homicide tend to show that up to three-quarters
involve members of violent groups as either victims or offenders.
iii
National Drug Intelligence Center. Los Angeles High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Drug Market
Analysis 2009 April 2009. http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs32/32773/distro.htm
iv
LAPD. http://www.lapdonline.org/crime_maps_and_compstat
v
Interview with Capt. William Scott.
vi
LAPD. http://www.lapdonline.org/year_in_review
vii
“A Call to Action: A Case for a Comprehensive Solution to LA's Gang Violence Epidemic.” The
Advancement Project. 2007. http://www.advanceproj.org/index.php?q=/c/resource/sc/up_call_to_action
viii
This occurred in part because of community concern about rising violence. Some members felt that the
situation demanded immediate action and could not wait for the social service component to be ready.
ix
Tita, G., Riley, K. J., Ridgeway, G., Grammich, C., Abrahamse, A., & Greenwood, P. (2003). Reducing
gun violence: Results from an intervention in East Los Angeles. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
x
Ibid.
ii