Gray Column: Who really needs the feds to combat gangs

Many of you read in the News & Messenger this week that northern Virginia could receive $300,000 funding for the Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force. The money would come via the Senate
Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science. Senator Jim Webb made the announcement.

Funding for the program still has to be voted on in the House and then signed into law by President Obama. The money would go towards combating gang violence and strengthening the task force with
additional police patrols.

Like many of you commenting on the announcement, I believe that $300,000 simply isn’t enough.

You can barely buy a house in this area for $300,000. Certainly it is not enough to combat something so troubling and wide spread as gang violence.

But then I saw some of the other communities around the nation that are dealing with gang violence and I had to change my mind.
Take, for instance, Yakema County in the state of Washington.

Yakema is located in the southern part of the state with a population of roughly 230,000 people. In comparison, Prince William County has a population of about 394,000.

Despite their smallness in size, Yakima County actually has one of the highest crime rates in America. According to rankings by CQ Press, Yakima County ranks 328 out of 344 major metropolitan areas
in America for the highest crime rates. The city of Yakima ranks 302 out of 385 cities for the highest crime rate.

Unfortunately for those folks in southern Washington state, this dubious ranking earned them $500,000 in the Senate Subcommittee funding — $200,000 more than what we are slated to receive if the
President signs the appropriation into law but nevertheless not nearly enough to deal with their problems.

Now obviously I would love to see our community receive more in funding for gang violence. But considering places like Yakema, I realize there are plenty of communities far worse off than ours.

In the Northern Virginia area we are actually seeing some declines in the number of major crimes linked to gang violence. If you go to preventgangsnova.org there is a report on the status of gang violence
in our area. The report is under NoVaGangAssessment and tells us what many of us know: gang violence is still a problem in our area, but one where progress is being made.

Violent crimes against people in our region are down 12 percent, aggravated assaults are down 4 percent and robberies are down 32 percent.

So while funding is down, so are the crime rates themselves.

Plus we all know that combating gang violence, like most crimes concerning youth, is about more than just adding money to put police on the streets. It involves good parenting, dealing directly with the
kids themselves by giving them stronger alternatives and having a strong knitted community working together with a passion for young people.

Helping to make a community where parents, kids and the community as a whole are involved in gang prevention is where more money will be needed in the future and hopefully that is what Senator
Webb and the rest of the Virginia delegation will strive to achieve.

So yes, receiving $300,000 to combat gang violence is a drop in the bucket for our area. But it could be worse. We could be in the position of Yakima, Washington -a community where the problem is at
an epidemic level without a lot of funding for the cure.

Davon Gray works in Washington, D.C., and resides in Woodbridge. Contact him at davongray@verizon.net.