Salt Lake police to reclassify gang crimes

In an effort to get a better handle on what gang members in Salt Lake City are doing, and to subsequently develop a better response with proper prevention and intervention programs, police are changing how they classify what constitutes a gang crime.

Salt Lake police are adopting the Comprehensive Gang Model definition, advocated by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The model is considered the building block on how to involve the community and community resources in dealing with gangs, said police Lt. Isaac Atencio.

In the past, police counted crimes that were gang-related, meaning the motive behind them had to do directly with gang activity, such as a drive-by shooting at rival gang member's house.

Now, crimes that simply involve a gang member, whether that crime was commissioned on behalf of a gang or not, and regardless of whether the gang member was a perpetrator or victim, will be counted. For example, if a gang member is involved with domestic violence, that crime will be counted in the department's gang statistics, even though what sparked the violence may have nothing to do with gangs themselves, Atencio said.

Some of the motivation for changing the way gang crimes are counted started with the shooting death of 7-year-old Maria Del Carmen Menchaca in 2008. Menchaca was not a gang member or even an intended target of gang crime. But the little girl, an innocent bystander, was killed by a gang member shooting at the house of a rival gang member.

The new way of counting gang crime will result in a huge spike in gang statistics, Atencio acknowledged. But overall crime rates will remain the same. For example, of the city's 14 homicides in 2008, only two were considered gang-related. Under the new definition, seven would be considered gang-involved, he said,

"This will give us a clearer picture into what is happening in our community with gang-involved activity, a better picture of what they're involved with," Atencio said.

The new way of counting will not affect the workload of gang detectives, he said. If there is a domestic-violence case involving a gang member, for example, it will be counted as a gang stat, but gang detectives will not be assigned to the case.

Patrol officers will receive some training to recognize a potential gang-related situation, Atencio said. They will ride with gang detectives to become familiar with how to recognize whether a crime has gang involvement or not.

"We'll be getting a more accurate, more clear picture of what gang members are doing," he said. "This is probably the most promising thing I've seen come across the table on getting an accurate picture."

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