Early August 2007, a meeting between Allen Moore, our Public Information Officer, and Chief Michael Tidwell resulted in the concept of a community-based initiative where inmate labor would be used to clean up graffiti throughout Orange County. 

Although minimal, compared to cities similar in size, Orange County was seeing an increase in graffiti vandalism. As the department’s Gang Unit Coordinator, in 2007, Allen informed me of the Chief’s directive to begin developing this initiative.

The Orange County Corrections Department prides itself in being a model for others to look to for leadership and this initiative would be unique in the since that many communities throughout the United States do not recognize the importance of having a graffiti removal program.

Graffiti, if not removed immediately, will only proliferate and eventually lead to the decrease in the quality of life within the affected community and most see graffiti as a minimal issue that has no relevance to the "significant" problems facing the community. What is overlooked more times than not is that it’s the “insignificant” things that if ignored can eventually be the root cause for a much more serious problem in the future or what is known as the "broken windows" theory.

The “Broken Windows” Theory goes into the signaling effect of urban disorder and vandalism on additional crime and anti-social behavior. In short, if we pay attention to what most would consider insignificant and maintain the community in a well-ordered condition, you may prevent further vandalism as well as an escalation into more serious crimes.

Graffiti is loosely defined as the deliberate defacing of public or private property by way of writings, drawings or symbols without the consent of the property owner.

Graffiti is an act of vandalism and is described as a kind of urban decay. It is costly and destructive and places a significant burden on the local and state budgets, which ultimately impacts tax payers. According to the U.S. Department of Justice; “an estimated $12 billion a year is spent cleaning up graffiti in the United States.”

Graffiti can also generate fear of neighborhood crime and instability resulting in a genuine threat to the quality of life, incalculable economic losses to businesses and can lead to the general deterioration of the area in which you work and live.

Statistics show that graffiti lowers property values and sends a message that people are not concerned about the appearance or well being of their neighborhood. According to the National Association of Realtors, properties located in neighborhoods where there is graffiti vandalism lose 15% of their property value.

In recognizing the increase in graffiti and identifying the resources available to us through inmate labor, establishing a graffiti removal program would be both proactive and a model initiative that would benefit the community.

At that time, the Orange County Code Enforcement Division coordinated the county’s graffiti removal efforts and Orange County Roads and Drainage Division provided the personnel, paint and supplies. It was later said, due to using their staff and contractors; graffiti was costing the county “a fortune.” After several meetings with Code Enforcement and Roads and Drainage, a partnership was forged, a plan was in place and protocols were developed.

The first location was on Laxton Road in the Wetherbee Estates subdivision where there had been graffiti reported on the street and sidewalk.
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Within 24-hours, the site was photographed to determine if the graffiti was gang-related and an Inmate Worker Crew was scheduled to remove the graffiti. With that first successful removal, the Graffiti Removal Program was operational.

With the objective being to eliminate graffiti within Orange County, we named the initiative the "Gang Graffiti Eradication Program." This too was unique as most programs use the word “abatement,” which means to “reduce” or “decrease” so the more appropriate word “eradicate” was chosen, which means to “get rid of.”      

The 311 Call Center would be the public’s avenue to report the graffiti and the call center would in turn assign the work order to the Orange County Corrections Gang Unit where we would determine if the location was on public property or private property and assign it to the appropriate office. 

Due to public vs. private property concerns, it was determined that if it was on public property it would be assigned to our office and if it was on private property it would be assigned to Code Enforcement.

On January 9, 2008, the official on-site media event and demonstration of the program in action took place on Woodbury Road in east Orange County.

The last three years have been productive, as our tracking statistics have indicated a steady decline in graffiti removal work orders, since the program’s inception.

According to our records, the following statistics indicate the number of work orders assigned each year to either the Gang Graffiti Eradication Program or Code Enforcement.

Total Work Orders Assigned

2008:   Corrections – 64          Code Enforcement – 79           Total – 142*

2009:   Corrections – 43          Code Enforcement – 41           Total – 87

2010:   Corrections – 35          Code Enforcement – 11           Total – 46

Total Reduction by Percentage

2008 – 2009 – Approximately 39% Reduction

2009 – 2010 – Approximately 47% Reduction

If we were to measure the reduction in work orders since the program started in January 2008 through December 2010, there has been an approximate 68% reduction in graffiti work orders. 

There are many reasons why the Orange County Corrections Department should be proud of this program’s success but the most important is that we effectively reduced graffiti in Orange County and provided a valuable service to the community.​

In the 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment an estimated 33,000 gangs representing some 1.4 million “documented” gang members “reported” by law enforcement agencies in the United States. That number is up from approximately 1.0 million representing approximately 20,000 gangs in 2009. 
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According to the 2015 National Gang Report:

• Approximately one-third of jurisdictions report an increase in threats to law enforcement. The attacks that were carried out against law enforcement and judicial o cials over the past two years were violent and brazen. 
• Over 68 percent of survey respondents indicate prison gang membership has increased over the past two years. The greatest threat of prison gangs lies in their nexus to street gangs and in their ability to corrupt prison o cials.  
• Larger OMGs have established new chapters and have attracted many new members. The surge in membership has incited clashes for geographic dominance, which has created higher levels of violence. OMGs continue to engage in all types of violent crimes to include: weapons possession, threats and intimidation, assault, arson, extortion, and drug tracking.  
• Gangs continue to foster partnerships with MTCOs. Survey respondents identi ed more than 96 gangs involved in cross- border crimes. Sureños, Barrio Azteca, and Tango Blast rank as the top three most criminally active gangs along the US/Mexico Border, while the Sinaloa Cartel emerges as the MTCO with the most gang ties. 
• Approximately 26 percent of jurisdictions and 44 percent of prison facilities report that  gang members joined domestic extremist groups. A mutually bene cial arrangement, extremists use gangs to spread their doctrine, while gangs turn to extremists to increase membership and facilitate collaboration with other criminal organizations.
• Approximately 15 percent of respondents report that gangs in their jurisdiction engage in human tracking. According to law enforcement reporting, gang involvement in sex tracking has increased over the past two years. 
• Social media and other forms of technology play an essential role in the illicit activities of gang members. Gangs use a number of sites, applications, and platforms to recruit prospects, facilitate communication, target rivals, and to thwart law enforcement e orts. Over the past two years, gang members’ utilization of technology, social media in particular, has risen signi cantly, enabling gangs to more readily further their criminal objectives. 
• Survey respondents indicate that over the past two years known or suspected gang members from over 100 jurisdictions have applied for positions or gained employment with the US military, law enforcement agencies, corrections facilities, and within the judiciary. Employment with the US military ranked as the most common, followed by corrections, law enforcement, and the judiciary. 

As you can see, at a time when more attention, training, intelligence and enforcement operations at all levels of government are being applied to gang reduction strategies, gang membership continues to increase. Some of this can be the attributed to better reporting – some to better trained officers and some to political acceptance but a vast majority of it – the ugly or what I call the undeniable truth is gang membership is rising and those gang members are not just getting older or younger – they are getting both. We are finding that more adults are joining gangs and younger and younger kids are joining gangs with ages as young as 8 years old committing crimes of violence.

Gangs can now be identified in all 50 states and D.C. with a national average of 48% of all violent crime being attributed to criminal street gangs with that percentage reaching as high as 90% in several cities nationwide.

Gangs are actively involved in both street and white collar crimes to include but not limited to:

• Murder
• Assault
• Firearms Trafficking
• Drug Trafficking
• Cybercrime
• Identity Theft
• Credit Card Fraud
• Healthcare Fraud
• Mortgage Fraud
• Counterfeiting
• Money Laundering
• Bank Fraud
• Organized Retail Crime
• And much more.

According to the National Retail Federation, last year, 94% of retailers (Large Department Stores) said they were victims of Organized Retail Crime. The gangs of yester-year are no longer and tomorrow’s gangs are going to be more active, more technically advanced, better equipped and more difficult to identify, track, arrest and convict than ever before.

We have seen an increase in the connection between criminal street gangs and the Mexican Cartels as the cartels know the street gangs control the drug sales and the streets are their store fronts.

We have seen today’s criminal street gangs identify with and go as far as travel to fight side-by-side with known terrorist organizations in the Middle East.

We have seen unofficial estimates as high as 10% of today’s United States Military Personnel could have some level of association and/or affiliation with documented criminal street gangs and carry their gang loyalty to boot camp and onto the front lines where they engage in tagging armored vehicles with gang graffiti, hold meetings, recruit other military personnel, commit crimes and in a few cases – attack each other up and to include shootings.

So what does all this mean? For starters – we have a much greater gang problem in this country than most elected officials, agencies, schools, jails and prisons like to admit. We need to realize that the gang threat touches every community, every citizen, every child and every member of the criminal justice profession. No one discipline is immune to their reach and impact.

Agencies have a training and intelligence gap as it pertains to gang education and current trends. We spend the most time, money and effort training those assigned to a gang unit and/or task force​ when they make up the smallest part of the criminal justice “enforcement” group. This position leads everyone else in criminal justice to believe they do not "need to know" even the basics of gang knowledge, training or intelligence when more times than not they will be the ones who make first contact with the possible gang/gang member suspect.

What about the Road Patrol who pulls over a car for a broken tail light with a gang member inside or a School Resource Officer who makes first contact with a gang member in his/her local school or when the corrections officer assigned to booking, housing unit or a rec yard makes first contact with a new inmate or even when the crime/intelligence analyst processes information on a new suspect only known to the gang unit for his nickname, tattoos, or modus operandi?

Would even the most basic of gang knowledge assist them in not simply being more effective and diligent in their duties? Would the increased knowledge increase their situational awareness or their personal safety better preparing them to protect the public?

Do gang members steal cars, commit homicides, or commit cyber fraud? Absolutely, so why are Robbery, Homicide and Cyber Detectives not trained in gang structure, operations, tactics and trends? Why do Gang Officers who transfer into Homicide Units cancel their gang association memberships removing themselves from a vast network and a wealth of current trends and tactics analysis reports?

The point is this – you are not going into “law enforcement” or “correction” or “intelligence” – you are going into “criminal justice” and as criminal justice professionals you are positioned to make first contact with a gang member, a terrorist, a drug dealer, human smuggler, active shooter of even a contract hit man. If you are in the criminal justice profession – no matter what discipline, unit or assignment; it is imperative that you take it upon yourself to be better educated – better equipped – better trained and better prepared in all threats and apply that knowledge to your day-to-day career.

We need to do better – we need to do better at educating every discipline of the criminal justice profession about the current state of the nation’s gang threat and how they – how you and not just the gang unit are part of the intelligence, enforcement, prosecution, and reduction equation.

There are many things that criminal justice professionals are charged with doing in the year 2014 and those will no doubt continue to increase and that makes this one of the most challenging, dangerous and unforgiving professions in a world more dangerous than ever. 

Are you prepared?

I along with countless others have spent thousands of our own money over the course of a career attending conferences, seminars, meetings, advanced education opportunities, traveling abroad, building international networks and seeking certifications through organization and association involvement long after employment with an agency so to be as prepared as one can be and to invest in our own careers – you cannot wait for an agency to carry that financial burden.

In today’s law enforcement, one must be willing to sacrifice beyond the job to stand out from the crowd of career advancing professionals you are competing against. You must do the work to get noticed and not wait to you get noticed to do the work. If you are not willing to invest in yourself how can you expect your agency to? If you are not, someone else is.

You are a Warrior – a Sheep Dog – A Protector of the People. Whether training, education, information or contacts, it is up to you to fill in the gaps of preparation that your agency will no doubt leave open.

My grandparents instilled in me to know as much about what you are doing as you possibly can. If it impacts you – know about it, learn about it, and make every attempt to master it. It’s not about a need to know anymore. It’s about being “in the know.”

One of the quotes that has been on my desk since the day I started is; “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” Surround yourself with people who are only going to lift you higher and never settle for not knowing what you don’t know.​