Targeted Outreach - Governor's Office of Crime Control & Prevention ...

2 Targeted Outreach
Community-Wide Model. One strategy is designed to
help youth stay out of the gang lifestyle—Gang
Prevention Through Targeted Outreach (GPTTO).
The second initiative helps youth get out of gangs
and away from their associated behaviors and values—Gang
Intervention Through Targeted Outreach
(GITTO). These strategies were implemented with
funding from OJJDP. The evaluation, described in
this report, indicates that the initiatives appear to
have positive effects on the youth involved, including
reduction in delinquent and gang-associated behaviors
and more positive school experiences.
Why are Youth Attracted To and Joining
Gangs?
In designing their prevention and intervention initiatives,
BGCA sought to attract to their Clubs the same
youth who join gangs, offering them alternative
structures and support mechanisms that meet the
needs and interests typically served by the gang and
the gang lifestyle. As Irving Spergel (1995) describes
in his book, The Youth Gang Problem:
The gang is an important life experience for
a growing number of youth in low-income,
changing and unstable minority communities.
Gangs serve the interests and needs of
certain vulnerable youth, particularly during
the adolescent and young adult period, when
existing social, economic, and even religious
institutions do not function properly. Gangs
provide a certain degree of physical protection,
social support, solidarity, cultural identification,
and moral education as well as
opportunities for self-esteem, honor, and
sometimes economic gain.
From a developmental perspective, gangs appeal to a
youth’s—particularly an adolescent’s—search for
acceptance and a sense of belonging. For many
youth, the gang lifestyle also appeals to their interest
in seeking fun and excitement and taking risks
(Vigil, 1988). Some youth say they join and stay in
gangs for the potential financial gains from criminal
activities. Gangs can also provide a “substitute family.”
And, as some researchers note, in a setting that
is not and does not feel safe, joining a gang “may
result from a rational calculation to achieve personal
security” (Spergel, 1995). For youth who join a gang,
then, the gang becomes a basic support system they
may otherwise lack.
Youth also join gangs because of risk factors in their
lives that propel them toward gangs. These factors
exist in several domains: individual, family, community,
school and peer group (Hill et al., 1999). Thus,
youth need programs that address these risk factors.
Given the reasons that youth join gangs, prevention
strategies must accommodate both youth’s developmental
needs for safety, support and structure, as well
as their interest in having fun, seeking excitement
and making money. Intervention strategies provide
alternatives to gang involvement. Thus, both prevention
and intervention gang programs are promising
strategies for preventing gang membership and separating
youth from gangs (Howell, 2000).
Reaching Those Who Need Prevention
and Intervention
To succeed, gang intervention and prevention
approaches need to attract and serve the youth who
need them most. For example, after-school programs
that provide healthy alternatives for youth serve as
important resources for reducing youth crime, which
studies have shown to occur primarily in the hours
between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. (Snyder and Sickmund,
1999; analyses of the FBI’s 1991-1996 data). However,
some critics have questioned whether the youth who
would most benefit are attracted to or willing to
attend such programs (see Olsen, 2000).
Indeed, a dilemma many youth development practitioners
face is that they want to serve both troubled
youth—that is, youth already in contact with the justice
system, those involved with gangs or those with
serious academic difficulties—and those who may be
economically disadvantaged, but not otherwise at
risk. Practitioners fear that troubled youth may have
a negative effect on the other youth in the program.
These concerns are commonly voiced by program
staff, board members and participants’ parents.
However, in the absence of strategies developed to
work with more severely “hard core” youth, strategies
that provide them with the types of positive supports
and opportunities they need as much as other youth,
while at the same time dealing with the harder issues
they bring to the table (e.g., drug problems, academic
problems, dealings with the justice system)—
the funding poured into after-school programs is
going to miss these hard-to-reach youth.