I believe one of the most important responsibilities our Government has is to protect its citizens. No place in Provo is this as important as with our current gang situation.
Current estimates place the number of gang members in Provo between 200 and 300 hundred. While I believe Provo currently to be a safe city, this gang situation threatens our future safety. We all know that gangs are best dealt with in their infancy. Like cancer, gangs grow and as they take root it becomes very difficult to take back lost territory. If we want strong neighborhoods we can’t tolerate gangs in Provo.
As Mayor I would push forward in three fronts to deal with our gang issue.
Prevention: We know many of the kids in Provo that fall into a high risk category. We know which are vulnerable to becoming gang members. Prevention involves the community in providing mentors, BYU students partnering to work with these kids while they are young, providing a solid foundation which they can build on and not end up relying on a gang family for their internal support system. Prevention sees the schools, the churches, the city and the community all partnering together with after school homework centers and recreation etc. in the heart of the at risk areas.
Suppression: An important role in attacking our gangs lies in the hands of our police department. Their job is suppression. They must be tough on gang related crimes. Zero tolerance for minor infractions has proven to be a great deterrent to more large scale crime.
In order for our police department to fulfill their responsibility with gangs we need to give them the proper tools. Currently we only have one police officer assigned to gangs. This is not enough. Can you imagine one officer trying to stay on top of hundreds of gang members? They need an undercover car, they need the city council to take advantage of State law and pass the law that allows them to break up gangs who hang out at our mall. Orem has this law so guess which mall gangs hang out at? They need all 96 Provo officers to be trained and they need a city willing to make this a priority.
Intervention: Once our youth are involved in gangs we need to intervene and do all we can to help them out. This is the most difficult of all the steps and takes much persistence. As in Prevention the responsibility of this belongs to the community. We must team with organizations and groups that can help us with this effort. Churches, United Way and other charitable organizations are doing great work in our city and we need to support them and do all we can to help them succeed. Our city recreation programs need to find ways to reach out to these kids.
As Mayor, I will do all in my power to keep Provo the wonderful, safe place we all know it to be for our children and grandchildren.
