13B - COUNCIL CTM RPT- PUBLIC SAFETY

Home Browse Search

harassment and police brutality in this area. Medina asks for more programs, job opportunities, educational opportunities, things that will better lives. He does not believe the gang injunction is the answer. Tony Ortuno: here on behalf of Boys and Men of Color. California detains 43% of youth subject to ICE holds, high level of mistrust in Orange County with the police and law enforcement in general, continuing this type of enforcement with the gang injunction only increases the distance between what could be between communities and law enforcement. Continue to criminalize communities through policies like this, and families will continue to be broken up because they are incarcerated or because of their immigration status. Pablo Avila: here on behalf of Boys and Men of Color. City has been trying to be transparent as to its decision on creating policies here. However, he not seen the transparency to implement the gang injunction and one of the requirements of the gang injunction is to have community input. Many of the people in the area were not aware of the SAPD and the OCDA's intentions. Avila would like to see the crime data in the Townsend area. Maria Esquivel: paralegal for the ACLU Foundation in southern California. Esquivel offers the ACLU office and its attorneys as a resource to members of the community. Beatriz Negrete: social worker with LA County and also a resident in the city of Orange where a gang injunction was initiated. Negrete speaks about the impact on families including her personal experience. Her brother was listed on the injunction and her whole family was stigmatized although he had no active participation. She said preventative programs are more effective when dealing with gangs than punitive as is evident by the overcrowded jail system. Madeleine Spencer: resident of the city of Santa Ana; came in support of SACRED. Specifically referred to the Townsend injunction and the issue of transparency, she said there is no dialog with the community. Spencer said that after the LA riots, when communities felt like they were under a double threat, both from the police and gangs, it created a huge problem. She recommends that instead of an adversarial process, look at a dynamic and educated process, instead of looking at people as individual cases, start looking at the pattern analysis of whole communities, including having liquor licenses in the downtown and the crime rate going up. Ignacio Rios, Jr.: here on behalf of Boys and Men of Color. Rios believes the gang injunction will not only affect those on the list, but entire families. He states that gang injunctions are for life so children in the elementary schools can be put on the injunction by being in the safety zones and by simply knowing people. He stresses the need for prevention strategies, not just punishment. Rios reads from an essay by Dr. Victor Rios, a Professor of Sociology at Cal State - Santa Barbara, who has studied gang injunctions. 13B -3