Addressing gang violence is not new, and there are many communities that Fresno County can learn from. Los Angeles (city and county) our neighbor to the south is one such community. While L.A. represents a huge metropolitan area, not often seen as a match to the rural communities found in Fresno County, but on a community level - neighbor to neighbor and person to person there are lessons we can learn from them in addressing gangs.

Reclaiming Youth: How Los Angeles Can Be a Model for Gang Violence Prevention was a moderated discussion hosted by The California Endowment in November 2007. To watch a rebroadcast of  the event visit here. It features three panelist: Connie Rice, civil rights attorney and co-director of The Advancement Project Los Angeles; Rev. Jeff Carr, Los Angeles's director of Gang Reduction and Youth Development; and Diego Vigil, professor of Criminology, Law and Society, University of California, Irvine. The panelists candidly addressed the impact of persistent gang violence on the health and well-being of our communities as well as possible solutions for safer and healthier neighborhoods.

A key message from Reclaiming Youth is that the L.A. community has a past history of funding law enforcement and suppression (with little monies for prevention and intervention) that has shown to exacerbate the issue of gang violence in pockets throughout the county. While crime overall is declining - certain areas of the county are seeing epidemic proportions of violence. Panelist, Connie Rice outlined that in the epidemic communities residents are 200 times more likely to experience violence than a large scale natural disaster such as an earthquake or tsunami.

No that statistic does not sound like any areas in Fresno County, but we have the amazing opportunity to prevent ourselves from getting to that point. We already have the realization from law enforcement that we can not arrest our way out of the problem and now the message is spreading that a broad community approach involving all sectors including education, political officials, law enforcement, business, residents, and young people is required.

Both the video and the Q&A session that follows are good viewing and I would like to hear your comments on the strategies the panelist propose and the ideas they present in terms of addressing gang violence.