|
 Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca announced that his agency will open the Southern California Gang Emergency Operations Center – a clearinghouse of anti-gang initiatives, social programs and information databases that will be modeled on the county’s natural disaster center.
Sheriff Baca said the high numbers of deaths from gang activity has reached a crisis point and that his department was compelled to come up with a new model for fighting gangs. “We’ve lost less than 500 people in natural disasters, but when we come to gangs, we’ve lost 5,000 people,” Baca said.
The sheriff told editorial board members of the Los Angeles Times that he hoped to open the center in January and that $3 million dollars had been budgeted for the project. The staff of about 30 analysts will help coordinate anti-gang operations across all county jurisdictions and will involve police and social service agencies, as well as religious and community groups. Baca compared the operations center to a “fusion center” established by county law enforcement agencies and the FBI to combat potential acts of terrorism.
“A fusion center in the world of intelligence gathering or the world of gang information is where all the different sources of data can come into one place and be analyzed,” Baca said. The operations center will help coordinate all aspects of anti-gang work, including gang suppression and gang tracking.
The center will also coordinate gang intervention services and prevention programs. Baca said there was a great need to coordinate existing gang programs that currently are spending over $82 million dollars a year but lack coordination, focus and adequate communications between the programs. Los Angeles County is home to over 80,000 gang members.
The center will permit information on specific gang members and trends in criminal activity to be shared across municipal boundaries. The sheriff said the center will not be another layer of bureaucracy.
“This is not a service agency,” he said. “It is a coordinating body for existing programs.” Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites        
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed