Beck, mayor: LA youth programs help reduce gang crime by 15 percent

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Los Angeles Police Department gang unit officers stop and frisk a known 18th Street gang member in the Rampart district of Los Angeles.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief Charlie Beck say the city’s youth programs helped reduce gang-related crimes by 15 percent last year.

"I estimated that I’ve stood over a thousand dead young men killed by gang violence," said Beck, recalling the bloody 1980s and '90s.

Civil rights activist Connie Rice, long a critic of the LAPD, now helps the department work with former gang members and neighborhood leaders to reduce crime. Rice says that the collaboration has played a key role in reducing gang crime.

"This is an extraordinary effort," Rice extolled, "where everyone gets in the boat and rows in a comprehensive, wraparound community-driven effort."

The Mayor's Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development helped 22-year-old Jesse Monarrez stay out of a gang by hiring him to mentor kids during the summer. He works in the place he grew up — the Ramona Garden Housing project on L.A.'s east side.

When asked what about the program kept him out of a gang, Monarrez said it was "just the little things."

“Waking up in the morning and going to work," Monarrez said. "Brushing my teeth. Taking a shower. Not that I didn’t do that... It just gave me a set schedule and time."

Villaraigosa says he’d like to expand the Summer Night Lights program, but can’t because of the city's budget deficit.