Santa Ana will be receiving significant funds from the State of California, for gang prevention programs, according to inside sources.
I am told that Santa Ana consultant Chris Townsend was able to successfuly negotiate with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office to bring these funds to a city that has seen a veritable eruption of gang violence this year.
Here is what the San Francisco Sentinel is reporting about this new initiative:
“Governor Schwarzenegger today proposed an anti-gang initiative to fight gang violence in California . The California Gang Reduction, Intervention and Prevention Program (CalGRIP) will target more than $48 million in state and federal funding toward local anti-gang efforts, including job training, education and intervention programs, and will give law enforcement the tools to closely track gang leaders both inside state prisons and when they are released on parole. CalGRIP combines funding from different programs and directs them toward intervention, suppression and prevention. The Governor is also appointing a statewide gang coordinator, to coordinate all state programs and funding for anti-gang activities with local and federal agencies. “
This is great news for Santa Ana! Many local activists have been pleading for more gang prevention programs for some time now. Santa Ana Councilwoman Michele Martinez was instrumental in the formation of the city’s EPIC Commission, which is dedicated to gang prevention. I am sure she is very excited about the new CalGRIP program.
Townsend appears to be paying big dividends for the city. He also helped to get funding for the renovations at Eddie West Stadium. Ironically, Santa Ana Councilwoman Claudia Alvarez, who recently helped to find money for new gang enforcement police officers, has been sideways with Townsend for some time. Perhaps she will appreciate his efforts now.
The CalGRIP program is huge and very complicated. I recommend that you check out the Governor’s Anti-Gang website to find out more about it.
Here is my favorite part of the program:
CalGRIP Keeps At-Risk Kids Out of Gangs
- Gives 5,000 kids a safer summer. CalGRIP will help 5,000 young people attend summer programs in 2008 that keep them off the streets. Under the plan, $2 million will be allocated to eligible HIGA counties to expand summer programs in collaboration with community organizations.
- Funds juvenile justice programs. CalGRIP redirects $1.1 million in uncommitted, discretionary Juvenile Accountability Block Grants for programs targeting at-risk youth. Under the plan, local programs will match state funds at 25%, for a $1.375 million total impact.
- Gets youth into job training. CalGRIP sets aside 200 slots in California Conservation Corps summer programs for gang-involved young adults.
- Helps young people leave gangs. CalGRIP expands an existing CDCR pilot program for incarcerated youth who are trying to leave gangs. It increases the number of young people participating in the program from 280 youth to 455 and funds two new 10-bed facilities. ($820,000 from the State Penalty Fund).
- Protects kids from gang violence at school. CalGRIP provides $9 million in ongoing funding to HIGA county offices of education to hire approximately 120 additional school resource officers. Under the plan, counties must provide a 25% local match.
Thank you Governor Schwarzenegger for looking out for Santa Ana!
Art,
I thought you might be interested in this section of the new Immigration Reform Bill that is being proposed. I got it from the Heritage Foundation ( http://www.hertiage.org) website. They have posted a lot of information abut this Bill.
7. Amnesty for Gang Members: Under Section 601(g)(2) of the bill, gang members would be eligible to receive amnesty. This comes at a time when violent international gangs, such as Mara Salvatrucha 13 (or “MS-13”), have brought mayhem to U.S. cities. More than 30,000 illegal-alien gang members operate in 33 states, trafficking in drugs, arms, and people. Deporting illegal-alien gang members has been a top ICE priority. The Senate bill would end that. To qualify for amnesty, all a gang member would need to do is note his gang membership and sign a “renunciation of gang affiliation.”
Morning Coffee
What a waste of money. If they were really serious about reducing gang violance, they would do a better job at securing our borders. These animals are the anchor babies who are either brought here illegally, or are born to illegals who cannot afford to look after them properly. As such, they end up filling the ranks of local gangs.
Want to reduce gang violence? Close our southern border.
Morning coffee.
Amnesty for gang members. I had seen that in the proposal.
Excellent point. What were they thinking or perhaps what are they drinking.
Have a safe Memorial Day weekend.
Larry
Nothing short of the confidential proposal submitted to the City Council on February 5, 2007 will work.
The proposal is self funded.
Props to Chris Townsend and his crew for once again bringing BIG bucks back to Santa Ana!
#2 stop showing what an ignorant fool you grew up to become. Or perhaps you grew up to be one. Where should we send Skinheads, Drug Dealers, Pedophiles, Rapists, Mass Murderers? ‘Cause you know, White People have a hold on those crimes.
I meant to say to #2, “Or perhaps you were born an ignorant fool”.
On what do you base this claim #6?
A large number, probably a majority, of drug dealers and rapists in OC are not white.
#8. The fact that you use the word “probably” only shows your lack of factual findings. Why don’t you check your facts before you post.
NO, let’s see some research and proof for #6’s statement that Whites have a hold on the crimes of dealing drugs and rape.
#8 made a reasonable assessment based on the demographic makeup of the county, particularly those cities with the higher crime statistics.
The poster has forgotten what his hometown paper reported about research at his neighborhood UC campus in February:
Monday, February 26, 2007
Immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born, study says
UCI study cites census data and crime statistics.
By MARLA JO FISHER
The Orange County Register
IRVINE – Immigrants are much less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans, according to a study released Monday by a UC Irvine professor for the Immigration Policy Center, based in Washington D.C.
UCI sociology professor Ruben Rumbaut, who has made a career studying immigration trends, found that immigrants of all national backgrounds were incarcerated at much lower rates than their American-born counterparts, according to the 2000 Census.
His study also described a precipitous drop in crime rates nationwide over the last 15 years
The UCI article has no bearing on this discussion.
The comments had nothing to do with immigration.
If anything, this biased liberal study acknowledges American born children of various ethnicities are generating crime issues.
” He also said that the children of immigrants posed a crime problem not considered in the statistics.”
Based on OC demographics and even indirectly referenced in the article, the asessment that White people have a hold on certain crimes is a fabrication unsupported by facts.
Santa Ana’s gang prevention commission authored by Councilmember Martinez, is just another tool by hispanic activists
to divert money from much-needed neighborhood improvement programs to diversionary gang programs that will do very little to reduce street gangs in Santa Ana. Santa Ana residents have been saying over and over that keeping children out of gangs is the responsibility of parents, not of politicians!
You’re wrong that the UCI/Harvard study has no relevance to this post. The first few comments are about gangs and about supposed “illegal alien gang members” being the problem and “closing the southern border” being the solution. You’re also wrong when you attack the messengers as being “liberals.” I’m not fan of “liberalism” either, but you don’t know anyhting much about these researchers, certainly not enough to identify their ideological orientation. And even if they were >gasp< liberals, it does not prove the study is twisted in the way you baselessly claim. It seems you have not read the study, have not read the article, and didn't read the post and comments very carefully to see what the debate had become. All you're proving is that the facts are biased against you and that you'd therefore rather be wrong in as many ways as you can dream-up.
I think that it is a good thing what these anit-gang activist are doing to help the droubled youth.Sometime all we need is to hear that we have a person that wants to help us through our rough times i think that if we had activist all over the world.Then we wouldnt have to worry about wars and all of the and peolple will try to get along and if we wanted to help nobody would want to complain………….