Audit Urges Overhaul of Anti-Gang Program

Although it is supposed to be Los Angeles’ premier effort to keep young people out of gangs, L.A. Bridges is so poorly operated that it should be shut down and overhauled, the city controller said Friday.

In an extensive audit of the program, City Controller Rick Tuttle questioned whether the ambitious anti-gang initiative--which has cost taxpayers more than $28 million since 1997--has kept youths from joining gangs and committing crimes, as promised.

Despite the city’s considerable investment in the program, Tuttle noted in his report that juvenile arrests in neighborhoods around schools targeted by the program actually increased over the last two years.

“We firmly believe that the findings in this report point to the need to modify the way we are approaching gang and delinquency prevention and youth services,” Tuttle said. “To do less would shortchange the taxpayers who provide funds for these worthy endeavors.”

L.A. Bridges was intended to provide at-risk youths with after-school sports, counseling, tutoring and anger management training. Social workers acting under its auspices also mediate disputes before they turn violent.

Tuttle also alleges that the city’s Community Development Department--which administers the program--wasted money on things such as excessive administrative costs, which he says soaked up 34% of the budget. Had the program spent only 20% of its budget on overhead, an additional $779,000 could have been used to provide services directly to participants, Tuttle concluded.

“Some of the problems we discovered would have been found earlier and corrected had an independent entity been examining files and outcomes,” he said.

The controller’s findings are expected to touch off a heated debate at City Hall. Mayor Richard Riordan has made no secret of how chilly he feels toward the program, calling it “just pure pork barrel” in an interview last year.

Council members have been more supportive of the program, saying that it helps address one of the city’s most serious problems.

In the City Council chambers on Friday, initial reaction ranged from outrage about the high administrative costs to suggestions that the city be patient and try to make the program work.

“The question is what is our commitment to youth in this city?” said Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas. “Are we prepared to take the appropriate risks to try to determine the best programs we can to keep them from entering into gang activity or criminal behavior?

“I don’t know if there is sufficient evidence to warrant this program being scrapped,” he said. “We knew all along that it would have to be reviewed and improved.”

Sources said Friday that even before the audit was released, the mayor intended to sharply cut the program’s funding in next year’s budget. Nevertheless, a press aide said Riordan has not read the audit and would have no immediate comment.

The anti-gang initiative was started in the wake of the 1995 shooting of 3-year-old Stephanie Kuhen, whose family made a wrong turn into a Cypress Park alley and was ambushed by gang members. The killing sparked an outcry from politicians eager to address gang violence.

Serving nearly 7,000 students in 27 middle schools from the San Fernando Valley to San Pedro, L.A. Bridges set out to provide an array of services to boost school attendance and to keep the city’s youths away from gangs. However, Tuttle said, the scope of the program proved overly ambitious, a problem he attributed to pressure from council members seeking to boost city services in their districts.

“The likelihood of this program being successful is not good at all,” he said. “Bridges is not an anti-gang, [crime] prevention program. At its best, this is . . . an after-school program.”

If the city opts to restart the program, Tuttle suggested that lawmakers scale back the operation, providing gang intervention at five to 10 sites. He is also calling on the city to better coordinate its efforts with the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Police Department.

The controller argued that the anti-gang effort should be run by an agency other than the Community Development Department.

The department “simply has not run this program as it was advertised and as it should have been administered,” Tuttle said.

Parker Anderson, general manager of the Community Development Department, acknowledged that the program has had some problems, but said they mostly stem from the fact that it was intended as a small test program at a few schools but was expanded by the council to include half the city’s middle schools without sufficiently increasing funding.

The department contracts with consortiums of private, nonprofit social service agencies to carry out the program at each school.

“The program either needs to be scaled back so the remaining consortia have enough resources to be effective, or our expectations have to be scaled back,” Anderson said.

However, he said the program has made measurable progress in improving the behavior of youths. He said the suspension rate for participating at-risk youths has dropped 50%.

Anderson also defended his department’s management of the program, saying he “strongly disagrees” that L.A. Bridges should be transferred to another agency. Still, he said changes were recently made to provide more field monitoring of the program by city staff.

The program has been greatly hindered by the lack of an ongoing evaluation by outside experts. Proposals to hire consultants who would provide regular evaluations and suggestions for improving the program bogged down in a dispute between rival contractors and their council supporters.

On the front lines, the heads of social service agencies that are running the program throughout the city said L.A. Bridges is making a difference in young people’s lives and should not be shut down or scaled back.

“It would be devastating to the community,” said Ed Turley, director of Central Recovery and Development, the group that operates L.A. Bridges in six South-Central middle schools.

“It has absolutely done good,” Turley said. “But intervention and prevention has been difficult to document. As we go to a number-counting society, we try to make numbers out of saving lives, and that is hard to do.”