Battling youth gangs at the source

Expelled from school for violence, youths become easy recruits

By KATIE PESZNECKER
Anchorage Daily News

Anchorage is furious about escalating youth violence and gang crimes and wants something done about it.

Now!

But what? The mayor commissioned a task force to figure that out and the group came up with a bunch of ideas, including this concept: Kids kicked out of school for violence shouldn't be roaming the streets, where they can bond with gangs and become part of the problem.

The task force said these expelled students should be required to attend a special school, where they'll be supervised, counseled and educated, whether they want to be or not.

The idea's not new. The district ran a similar program in the early 1990s, and it worked, said Candace McKenzie, a teacher who was there.

"I believe every kid is capable of changing," said McKenzie, a 26-year teacher with the district. "You just need consistency, you need people who are going to be there and be committed to it. You've got to have people working with those kids who believe they can influence them and turn them around."

The district's short-lived program was called REACH. McKenzie and other district officials can't remember what the acronym stood for.

The general rule is, violent students are banned from all schools. But the REACH program gave these kids a chance to keep up on classes and get counseling. The general goal was to teach them that fists, knives and guns weren't necessary to resolve unhappiness and conflict.

Two teachers spent a few hours a day with about a dozen dangerous youths in a portable classroom.

"In those days we didn't have a gang problem per se, but these kids acted like gang members," McKenzie said. "A lot of time was spent counseling, because they were just out of control. Several of those kids years later ended up in jail."

In juvie jail, meaning McLaughlin Youth Center, going to class is mandatory.

For a kid who's just kicked out of school, it's not.

Students kicked out for toting weapons or fighting sometimes never come back to the regular public school. Some earn their GEDs, get jobs and go on with life. Others graduate to serious offenses, age into legal adulthood and end up in real jail.

Education and law enforcement officials would like to help some of these kids get their lives together before they are forced to by the criminal system.

"For the kids who haven't committed a crime, there's no place for them," McKenzie said. "They fall through the cracks."

Many of these teenagers never deal with the issues that spurred them to pick up a gun or pick a fight, and officials say these troubled, unstable youths are prime targets for gang recruiters.
"I think everybody can agree there's kind of a hole in the system," said Mark Mew, former deputy police chief and now director of security for the School District.

"You can say the School District expels them and leaves them on the street," Mew said. "You could say (McLaughlin) releases them and leaves them on the street. You can also say the courts are cutting them loose and leaving them on the street. Certainly all these agencies have a part in the solution."

The mayor's Community Youth Violence Gang Response Team says a mandatory school for violent, expelled youths could involve agencies like the Division of Juvenile Justice and the Anchorage Police Department.

The task force said this area "needs particular attention" and "kept resurfacing as a recognizable and tangible problem. Research is consistent that youths who have low attachment/bonding to school or are not attending school are at higher risk of becoming gang involved. ... In our prior look at service gaps in the community ... some of the biggest ... were surrounding efforts to address ... drop outs."

It's unclear exactly how many students the program would serve. Each year about 100 middle and high school students are expelled. In the 2005-06 school year, at least 26 students were booted for fighting or bringing weapons to school.

Back when REACH operated, it served about a dozen students at a time. They used a portable classroom behind the district's bus barn for classes and group counseling sessions.

It only operated for a couple of years before it closed amid budget constraints and some complaints.

REACH had a session for students with drug and alcohol expulsions, and their parents said the program "ended up showing (kids) where to find more drugs," Superintendent Carol Comeau said.

And while the district could strongly suggest kids attend, "We never were able to compel anybody to go," she said.

Now years later, Comeau said the concept behind REACH "is coming back around full circle."
Back then, McKenzie's students were kids with drug problems, mental issues, screwed up family lives, spanning all ages. Many made it back to public school, and McKenzie credits REACH's fairly simple formula.

She and her teaching partner had counseling backgrounds and led structured, intense sessions. The group was small so the students got plenty of one-on-one teaching too -- important, McKenzie said, because many lagged far behind academically.

And McKenzie said they always made sure the students knew the teachers cared.

"We were their sounding board and we would listen to them," McKenzie said. "And there has to be people there qualified to teach conflict resolution because that's what it all boils down to. These kids don't get along with other people. They don't get along with anybody."

Today, at McLaughlin, McKenzie sees a different sort of problem child than those she counseled more than a decade ago. Back then, she said, they tended to be pure delinquents. Kids today have more drug problems and mental health issues, and of course, gang behavior is booming, she said.

"You're delusional if you think we don't have a gang problem," McKenzie said. "So if the district started a new program, it couldn't be in a little relocateable with a couple of teachers. It would need to be a real program that could probably hold 100 kids, because there's at least that many."

And McKenzie believes a similar program today would work only with a mandatory attendance rule.

"If you don't have that, there's no point in having the program," she said. "They have to know someone will follow through and put them in jail if they don't go. If that component's not there it won't work because the kids will just walk all over everybody."

So what next?

So far, nothing real seems to be happening.

Comeau said the district and other groups should band together to do something to target this group of violent youths.

"We cannot allow violent students to be staying in our schools, but it isn't helping the community when violent kids are expelled and don't go into some kind of mandatory program," Comeau said.

If it were mandatory, the courts would probably have to be involved, Comeau said, and security or some kind of police presence would probably be good too.

Also, given the complex and often hateful ties between city gangs, the program would clearly need a secure facility. And it would be nice to have licensed psychologists or psychiatrists, and even some former gang members to provide counseling, Comeau said.

But right now, the district can't afford any of that, she said. The 2007-08 budget shortfall tops $80 million.

"We struggle with this," Comeau said. "How do we find the resources and where do we house a program like this? Clearly it's not something the district can do by itself."

Mew, the former cop, said programs like this around the country work if done right. He sat on the mayor's gang task force and said this idea came up again and again.

Mayor Mark Begich said that the program is "definitely worth exploring" and that he's looking into similar programs in the Lower 48 for examples and ideas.

But people can't overlook the fact that the School District is in dire straits financially, and "under enormous pressure to just maintain what they are doing today," Begich said. "They can't be the only people out there doing this. But the issue is clear. We cannot allow these kids to roam the streets."