Would you like to hear some good news about crime for a change? Here it is: Gang-related crime is dropping, sharply. It continues a trend which began about two years ago in Salt Lake and Davis counties. News Specialist John Hollenhorst reports.
Why the decrease? You get a different answer from almost every cop you talk to. But maybe they're all right. They've been trying many different strategies in Salt Lake and Davis counties, and perhaps they add up to winning combination.
In Bountiful, the gang-busting weapon of choice is the bicycle, at least in summer months. The cops get out and mix with the citizens. During the school year, the same cops go into the schools full-time for close-up personal policing.
Wade Owsley of the Bountiful Police Department explains, "Even the graffiti in our school has gone down because we get to know the people involved. We're right there on hand."
Fellow officer, Jeff Jolley, agrees. "We're right there to help them. We're not there just to bust them or cause trouble, but we're going to address their other needs," he says.
Bountiful never had a big gang-problem. But in the last two years, it shrank from 184 incidents to a mere 44.
In Davis County overall, the sheriff estimates gang crime is down 70%. Layton's police chief, Doyle Talbot, doubts it's dropped that much. But he says progress is being made, partly because citizens organized neighborhood watch programs. "Well, it was just a whole group of additional eyes and ears that was telling us what was going on," he says.
But he also credits undercover police work, and tougher enforcement directed at known gang-members. He says most of them ended up in prison or jail.
In the Salt Lake valley, gang crimes peaked in 1995, and then dropped in 1996 and 1997. The trend looks even stronger this year.
Lt. Carroll Mays of the Salt Lake Area Gang Project says, "I won't say that it's startling. But it's making me very happy."
Salt Lake strategies include intervention programs, even the Boy Scouts, to steer young people into healthier activities. But they also added a new investigative unit that helps send gang leaders to prison.
"They're not out on the street doing drive-bys," Mays explains. "Their fellow gang members see that and see them sitting around out at the prison and say, maybe this isn't as cool as we thought it was."
Just to give you an idea how good the trend is looking in the Salt Lake Valley... last year by the begining of June police counted 13 gang-related murders. The first of June this year--not a single one.