$2.5M to fund anti-gang efforts
Matthew E. Milliken
The Herald-Sun, Durham, N.C.
MORRISVILLE, N.C. — Federal officials announced Tuesday that Washington will provide Durham and Wake counties with some $1.25 million each over the next three years to fight gangs.
Durham and Wake counties will split $1 million for law enforcement activities, another $1 million for preventing youngsters from joining gangs, and $500,000 more for re-entry programs meant to help former prisoners become productive citizens.
Most funds will be spent separately, but the counties will share resources and hold joint training and meetings.
Durham Mayor Bill Bell called Tuesday “a great day ...”
Durham’s efforts will focus on a so-called bull’s-eye area in North-East Central Durham that is just 2 percent of the city. A study has shown 17 to 20 percent of the city’s shots-fired complaints, drug complaints, violent gun crimes and gang-member residences are in a two-square-mile neighborhood centered on the intersection of Alston and Morning Glory avenues.
Officials believe that they can curb those issues.
“Local government really can address this problem if given resources, and we think this is a great start,” Bell said during the announcement of the grant from the U.S. Department of Justice at Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
Anna Mills Wagoner, the U.S. Attorney for Durham and other central North Carolina counties, was also on hand. “So many of the gang members are not only the perpetrators of crime, they’re the victims of crime as well, particularly in the Hispanic community,” she said.
George Holding, U.S. Attorney for Wake County and points east, said new programs will help keep youngsters out of gangs. “Not only are children and young people disproportionately victimized by gangs, they’re also what I consider the lifeblood of gangs,” he said.
Durham Sheriff Worth Hill, who just spent a weekend in Washington, D.C., with a local youth anti-gang program, welcomed the federal funding. “We need to do everything we can with young people to prevent them [from] getting involved with gangs,” he said.
Tim Henderson, a former New York youth corrections officer hired by the city in January, will oversee Durham’s anti-gang programs.
Planned enforcement tactics include beefing up police presence in North-East Central Durham; frequently searching probationers, especially gang members in the bull’s-eye area; continuing monthly meetings of local, state and federal authorities to review all Durham County gun arrests; using crime maps to target drug dealers and suppliers; training 180 officers in gang identification and investigation; and using improved software to share gang intelligence with other law enforcement agencies.
Anti-gang enforcement progress will be monitored by reporting every six months on the numbers of gang crimes, arrests and prosecutions. Authorities also will track drug seizures.
Federal funds will pay for more than 2,000 additional police hours, drug and gang informants, and surveillance equipment, plus new computers to help deputies investigate gang crime and prosecutors to deliver video presentations in court.
The prevention program involves identifying at-risk youth and delivering mental health services to them, boosting services to young victims and offenders and establishing an around-the-clock gang hot line. Police will work with the public schools and the Religious Coalition for a Non-Violent Durham on these efforts.
Local community agencies soon will be able to apply to the city for gang-prevention funding.
Re-entry money will help former gang members leaving prison find or pay for housing, jobs, GED and life-skills classes, transportation, individual, group and family counseling, physical and mental health and drug abuse treatment and identification and medical insurance.
The re-entry program, to be run by the county’s Criminal Justice Resource Center, will work with offenders anywhere in Durham County. Prisoners will be screened and selected for anti-gang assistance in the months before they are released.
The anti-gang program will track offenders’ employment, re-arrest and positive drug test rates.
Copyright 2008 The Herald-Sun