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US Youth Gangs Spread
Violence To Quiet Rural Area
By Alan Elsner
National Correspondent
8-24-1

WILLOWS, Calif. (Reuters) - In sleepy farming towns in California's fertile central valley, authorities are fighting an unwelcome import from the big cities -- violent, youth gangs.
 
Glenn County, around 100 miles north of the state capital of Sacramento, boasts 1,188 farms raising rice, corn, olives and almonds and a population of just over 26,000. It also has at least 12 Hispanic and Asian youth gangs and is the unlikely scene of a raging war between two rival Mexican gang clans -- ''Nortenos'' or northerners who wear red and ``Surenos'' or southerners who wear blue.
 
``We first started seeing gang graffiti around 1992 and 1993. At first, law enforcement tried to downplay it but that quickly became impossible,'' said Brandon Thompson, the county's supervising probation officer.
 
Police started seeing an increase in vandalism, assaults, car thefts, arson, sex offenses, school disruption and juvenile drug arrests. They have also logged one fatal stabbing and three handgun murders in the past few years.
 
Juan, 16, who proudly wears tattoos on both his wrists stating his membership of the Big Orland Trece gang, has been in juvenile hall 21 times for stints as long as three months. He has just celebrated the birth of his first child but is not considering renouncing his gang membership.
 
``The gang is like my family. I need it for protection. I've never not been in the gang,'' he said.
 
His fellow gang member Cesar, 16, has often been in trouble for fighting, which he regards as a normal part of life.
 
``I fight people who piss me off. Whenever it happens, it happens. If they give me a wrong look I fight them. I do bad but I do it real good,'' he said.
 
MARK OF PRIDE
 
To accommodate youths like Juan and Cesar, the county is expanding its youth detention facility from eight to 22 beds. Unfortunately many youths regard a month or two in 'The Hall' as a mark of pride and a source of status among their peers.
 
Gang violence has long been a serious problem in the United States. A 1997 Justice Department survey estimated that there were 30,500 youth gangs with more than 800,000 members active that year, responsible for 3,340 homicides. But the spread of gangs from big cities to rural areas is an alarming new problem.
 
The war between the Nortenos and the Surenos that has raged in California for decades started with a murder in San Quentin prison in 1968 after a dispute between two inmates over a pair of shoes.
 
Now, authorities in Glenn County are getting reports of children as young as 12 and 13 wearing gang colors and trying to tattoo themselves with illegal homemade tattoo guns. They are also seeing the first signs of girl gangs organizing.
 
In the county seat of Willows, population 6,000, a gang brawl developed two years ago outside the movie theater, the town's only place of entertainment. It ended with a fatal shooting.
 
To help tackle the problem, the county applied for and received a U.S. Justice Department grant of $275,000 a year for 3-5 years and hired three Spanish-speaking professionals to reach out to youngsters and try to guide them away from gangs. The program was known as Project Exito.
 
``We try to distinguish between the hard-core gang members and those we can still reach and shape,'' said chief probation officer Linda Shelton.
 
``Most of these kids are still redeemable. They want what everybody wants -- an education and a good job. They just don't know how to get there. As for the hard-core ones, if we catch them committing a crime we send them to prison,'' she said.
 
ANOTHER SIDE OF LIFE
 
Project Exito coordinator Danny Munguia said his team was working intensively with 27 gang members. He had found them summer jobs, taken them on day trips to San Francisco and organized basketball evenings. That counts for a lot in towns where there is literally nothing for young people to do and where the unemployment rate stands at around 11 percent.
 
``We're not there to bust them. We just want to show them there is another side to life, that they have more options and more possibilities than just joining the gang,'' Munguia said.
 
But luring kids away from gangs is tough. In some cases, gang membership runs through two or three generations of a family. In others, teenagers feel alienated from their parents, many of whom work very long hours in the fields and have little time or energy for their children.
 
Cesar has been driving a forklift, cutting grass and cleaning buildings. He said he liked the work and the money but he was not about to leave the gang just because of that.
 
Raoul, also 16, has been working in a kitchen and poses for a photograph proudly wearing his hair net. Project Exito took him to a Latino youth conference at a nearby college where he had a good time and learned about his history and culture.
 
But Raoul also recounted with relish his role in a major brawl at a high school football game which got him expelled and landed him on probation.
 
``Everybody was hurt,'' he said grinning broadly.
 
Even when a youth decides to leave a gang, it is not easy. A brochure from Project Exito advises: ``They should begin spending time doing other things and get good at making excuses ... They should never tell the gang they plan to leave. They may be beaten or even killed.''
 

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