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TALLAHASSEE, FL – Attorney General Bill McCollum and members of the Coordinating Council on Gang Reduction Strategies today joined elected and government officials, law enforcement, nonprofit group leaders and the business community in Southwest Florida to continue implementing Florida’s first-ever statewide gang reduction strategy. The strategy is being implemented using regional task forces throughout the state, and today’s organizational session at the Lee Civic Center in North Fort Myers follows last month’s regional task force meeting in Kissimmee.

“We are definitely seeing momentum build across the state to address and ultimately eliminate criminal gangs in our neighborhoods,” said Attorney General McCollum. “The buy-in and participation of our communities, law enforcement and business leaders is so critical to this effort, and it is rewarding to see this initiative we started last fall expanding to reach all sectors of our society.”

Gang activity in Florida has grown to more than 1,500 active criminal gangs with over 65,000 gang members. In Southwest Florida, there are more than 50 named gangs with well over 2,000 identified members operating within the region. The prevalence of gang activity hurts business as well as neighborhoods, as organized retail theft costs the industry $32 billion nationwide every year.

Key to the strategy’s success is a cooperative and collaborative effort that addresses the three goals of stopping the growth of gangs in Florida, reducing the number of gangs and gang members, and rendering the remaining gangs ineffectual. Participants at the Region 6 Gang Reduction Task Force Organizing Session are focusing on the areas of prevention/intervention, law enforcement, and rehabilitation and re-entry. Region 6 consists of Manatee, Desoto, Charlotte, Glades, Highlands, Okeechobee, Hendry, Lee, Collier, and Sarasota counties.

“The Attorney General has taken the lead on many issues, none as important as the gang problem in our state,” said Manatee County Sheriff Brad Steube, who will serve as chair for the region’s task force. “The Gang Reduction Strategy blends law enforcement with other facets of each community to target prevention, intervention, education and rehabilitation. This is a problem that will take a collaborative effort by many to resolve.”

An important objective is providing effective intervention programs for young people who are the most likely targets of gang recruitment and identified young gang members. Present at today’s meeting were representatives from local faith-based organizations, Boys and Girls Clubs, the YMCA, and Big Brothers/Big Sisters as well as other community groups whose core missions are to provide Florida’s youth with a safe and productive alternative to gangs.

The law enforcement community actively participated in today’s initiative to discuss improving data collection and information exchange among state and federal authorities on gangs and gang members and their activities. This component will also focus on coordinating law enforcement and prosecution efforts by setting priorities and targeting the most problematic and dangerous gangs, gang activities and gang-related prosecutions all over Florida. Representatives from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, sheriffs, police chiefs, members of the Florida Highway Patrol and others were on hand to provide insight and begin planning how to meet their objectives.

The strategy also emphasizes the importance of working to provide gang members currently incarcerated with job training and other essential rehabilitation skills. One of the rehabilitation and re-entry objectives is to expand programs designed to help incarcerated gang members prepare for re-entry into society upon completion of their sentences. Re-entry objectives include counseling and mentoring these former gang members so they will turn toward becoming productive members of society when released. The Department of Juvenile Justice, the Department of Corrections, and other parties involved in this particular aspect of the strategy were all present today.

More information about the gang reduction strategy and a full list of Coordinating Council members is available online at: http://www.safeflorida.net/safestreets. The next organizational session will be held in Tallahassee on December 16, 2008.