NCJ Number
167470
Date Published
1996
Length
45 pages
Annotation
This report presents the fourth-year activities and achievements of the Westminster Police Department's (California) Tri-Agency Resource Gang Enforcement Team (TARGET), which uses multi-agency cooperation and selective incapacitation to reduce gang crime.
Abstract
The TARGET program involves the cooperation of police detectives, a probation officer, and a prosecutor, who work together in the same office at the police department. The team aims to incarcerate gang members who, on the basis of their criminal history, are expected to commit future crimes. The program's goal is to remove potentially dangerous gang members from the community so as to reduce crime, thereby increasing public safety. A total of 3,462 members of street gangs that impact Westminster have been documented and cumulatively logged since 1990. As of the end of 1995, 71 individuals had been selected for intensive police investigation, probation supervision, and prosecution. All suspects arrested remained in custody from the time of sentencing through their incarceration term. The rate of conviction or sustained petition for all cases tried to date is 99 percent. Violent gang crime has decreased by 52 percent, and overall gang crime has decreased by 70 percent since the program was first implemented. 37 tables, appended forms and subject selection criteria, and 3 references