Friday, June 21, 1996

Abilene's gang activity declining

By ALYSON WARD
Staff Writer

Gang activity activity in Abilene has dropped off dramatically, in contrast to its increase across the majority of the country, local police say.

Though up to 700 or 800 gang members were in Abilene in the late 1980s, that number has dropped to about 100 and remained steady, said Lt. Ken Merchant.

"We really don't have as bad a problem here as in some other cities" that are comparable in size, said police officer David Spraberry, criminal justice education officer at Cooper High School.

The problem is not out of control here, Merchant said, partly because gangs in Abilene are not like the gangs in Los Angeles, New York City or Chicago. The gangs here are "more fluid," Merchant said. The membership is subject to change; no "hard-core leader" rules over a group and, in fact, leadership can even change hands; and the gangs sometimes disappear when a leader moves or is arrested.

Spraberry said the groups in the public schools are not well-formed and highly organized, strong characteristics of real gangs. These groups are what the police call "wanna-bes," he said - a group or a clique of kids who wants to be seen as a gang.

Another reason membership is dwindling in Abilene, Merchant said, is the average age of gang members continues to rise.

Most of the members in Abilene are in their late teens and 20s.

"We don't find a lot of younger kids that are being recruited" to join gangs, Merchant said, so as gang members get older, fewer new ones are there to continue the cycle.

People say that if a city has a problem with gangs, "the police need to cure it," Merchant said.
But it takes a community and neighborhood effort to make changes, he said - "it's not just a police problem."

Merchant said that the community programs such as Support Neighborhoods and Parents (SNAP), a program started in 1994, have helped to locally reverse the national trend.