After a decade of restrictive court injunctions to battle dangerous street gangs, some Los Angeles officials fear that key provisions have unfairly held back young people struggling to go straight, the Los Angeles Times says. Police Chief William Bratton said yesterday that though he wants to expand the use of a tool that has proved effective in the fight against an estimated 39,000 hoodlums, he and City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo will conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the injunction program.
City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who represents a district plagued by some of the worst gang violence in the city, said the injunction program appears to be doing harm as well as good. She is concerned because no one has ever succeeded in getting removed from an injunction’s official list of restricted gang members; some of the injunctions date back 13 years. Young people covered by injunctions can have trouble getting jobs because the injunctions show up in employment background checks. The use of injunctions has made Los Angeles a model for anti-gang efforts. Mayors from other cities are coming to Los Angeles next week to hear about the program at a summit sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Link: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gang23mar23,1,4705848.story?coll=la-headlines-california