The Temperature of Crime in L.A.
by Tony Chavira
(from John Gutman's series, "In the Street" - this image just felt right)
The Huffington Post have a special guest blog post by none other than our playboy mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, which is pure hype for how the city of L.A.'s gang reduction program is coming together:
Their just-released audit shows that GRYD has radically changed the way City Hall fights gang violence, implemented all but 1 out of 109 blueprint recommendations, and, best of all, brought gang crime down.
That's great progress.
Since our efforts started two years ago, gang-related crime has dropped 10.7% inside the 12 GRYD Zones. And at our Summer Night Lights parks, gang-related violence was reduced by 18% in the summer of 2008 and by 11% in the summer of 2009.
Now is the time to take the next step, and evaluate exactly which programs and services are causing the drop in gang violence.
The Urban Institute has been monitoring our efforts for over a year, and within the next 30 days will release the first of many reports evaluating our progress. We will use these reports to improve upon our already nationally-recognized anti-gang programs.
Our goal is to keep our children out of gangs and get them onto the path to a bright future. Our GRYD programs are reducing violence, changing the culture and bureaucracy at City Hall, and giving kids a way out of the gang life and keeping them from joining in the first place.
Actually, that's pretty much the whole article, but feel free and click the link to the HuffPo anyway. Being hype, this article's release is interestingly timed since (as luck would have it) the LA Times blog, L.A. Now, has it's own two cents on the gang reduction program's status today:
The mayor’s Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development has failed to evaluate its efforts, making it impossible to measure its success, the audit states. The Urban Institute was paid $525,000 to evaluate the program's effectiveness but after a year has provided no results, according to City Controller Wendy Greuel’s office.
“This is unacceptable,” Greuel wrote in a letter to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the city attorney and City Council members.
Tuesday's report was a follow-up to a 2008 audit by then-Controller Laura Chick that assailed city anti-gang initiatives for spending millions on unproven programs and scattering oversight among more than a dozen departments.
Villaraigosa's office in July 2008 consolidated the programs into the Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development, which has followed a three-pronged philosophy of gang intervention, prevention and suppression.
Since then, the office has made substantial progress in carrying out the controllers’ recommendations and has laid a strong foundation for a comprehensive antigang strategy, according to the audit.
The office, which has an $18.5 million budget, has made strides by increasing its staff from 22 to 37 and strengthening its collaboration with county agencies and the Los Angeles Unified School District, the audit notes.
However, zoned advisory committees lack structure and an organized purpose, and a cabinet of government agencies the office created to leverage gang prevention resources seems to lack direction and follow-through, according to the audit.
I'd otherwise say that now's a good time to do this study, since crime goes up with the temperature goes up, but I'd be 100% wrong about that. Good thing I never claimed to be an expert on criminal justice.
Anyway, it's good to see that the gang prevention program is working, but knowing that we're just throwing a crazy amount of money at it to make it work somehow doesn't really seem like a strategic way to approach using the city's cash in this climate.
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