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Gov. Gregoire signs comprehensive gang legislation

For Immediate Release: March 31, 2008

Sheriffs, police chiefs to partner with the state on gang prevention efforts

OLYMPIA � Signaling her commitment to fighting gang activity, Gov. Chris Gregoire today signed the criminal street gang measure, House Bill 2712. In addition, the governor and Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC) announced that community involvement in gang prevention and intervention program planning will be a required component of all grant applications for enforcement funds.

In expressing her appreciation to the law enforcement community and legislators for participating in a work group upon whose recommendations the bill was built, the governor said she wanted to do more.

�I am concerned specific prevention program language was not included in the final gang bill,� Gregoire said. �I believe an effective response to addressing criminal street gangs requires a prevention component.�

The budget bill, which has yet to be signed into law, contains an appropriation to WASPC for grants to local communities for short-term strategies in enforcement and graffiti abatement. Budget language allows enough flexibility to include a prevention and intervention planning component to the grants.

The law enforcement association shares the governor�s concerns and agreed to require that grants it funds must promote prevention activities.

�We share Gov. Gregoire�s concern and we�re eager to work with her to ensure that prevention programming is a part of our state�s approach to combating the gang issue,� said Don Pierce, WASPC executive director. �As the Work Group on Gang-Related Crime articulated, we can�t arrest our way out of the gang issue facing some of our communities. Law enforcement officers know firsthand that we must prevent our youth from entering gangs in the first place.�

�I thank the sheriffs and police chiefs for joining me in making sure that prevention planning is part of our comprehensive approach to eliminating criminal street gangs,� Gregoire said.

The anti-gang bill is based on the recommendations of the work group that met last year. It convened community meetings across the state to develop a comprehensive plan to combat criminal street gangs. The group was composed of legislators from both parties, defense attorneys, prosecutors, juvenile justice advocates, criminal gang experts, police and sheriffs.

�Gangs are on the rise in every corner of Washington state,� said Rep. Chris Hurst, D-Enumclaw, who authored the bill and co-chaired the work group. �This law is how we fight back to prevent these gangs from terrorizing communities and to stop them from recruiting kids into this dead-end life.�

�In traveling across the state with the task force, it is clear that gang violence is erupting in every community across Washington. Gang violence is a corrosive crime that ruins neighborhoods and holds innocent citizens in fear,� Rep. Charles Ross, R-Naches. �Today the state is laying the foundation of law that will help us combat gang violence for years to come. I thank the governor for her support and the city councils who have adopted local gang ordinances that helped bring forward the gang task force.�

In addition to setting out community involvement and prevention efforts, the bill:

  • Provides funding to WASPC to set up grant programs to fund local law enforcement activities and community graffiti and tagging abatement programs;

  • Establishes a gang database to help law enforcement in tracking gang activity statewide. The bill provides greater protections than current federal law because it contains specific protocols for entering, retaining and purging information in the database to protect individual civil liberties;

  • Creates a new category of crime to punish adults who involve juveniles in a felony offense, and makes any crime that is committed for the benefit of a criminal street gang subject to a sentencing enhancement. It also imposes a term of community custody upon release from incarceration for any gang member who commits a crime involving a firearm;

  • Creates a category of crime that targets criminal street gang tagging and graffiti. It allows property owners to recover civil penalties and costs from an offender who caused physical damage to their property;

  • Allows the Department of Community Trade and Economic Development to establish a witness assistance program in criminal street gang trials; and

  • Directs the Department of Corrections to study and establish best practices to reduce gang involvement and recruitment among offenders.

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