Forums will cover pre-empting gangs

No one’s saying there’s a gang problem in North Idaho, at least not the kind of crisis seen on TV crime shows – or even the streets of Spokane.

But that’s not stopping church and community leaders in Bonner County from tackling the issue.

This weekend, the founder of what’s described as the largest gang prevention program in the country will offer two public forums for as many as 1,000 people.

The Rev. Greg Boyle, founder of Jobs for a Future and Homeboy Industries of Los Angeles, will offer advice for connecting with disenfranchised teenagers and young adults, whether they bear the label “gang member” or not.

“If gangs aren’t a reality there, they’re at least a parable,” Boyle said in a telephone interview Thursday.

Law enforcement and community leaders agree that a specific gang presence is difficult to identify in Bonner County.

“We don’t have the gang graffiti here, we don’t have the drug trade,” said Donald E. Robinson Jr., local supervisor for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “If I came up here from L.A. and somebody were to tell me that North Idaho had a gang problem, I’d probably laugh.”

Robinson said local officials have no list similar to a record of identified gang members familiar to officers in Spokane. At the same time, he said, officials on the Idaho side of the border worry about the potential for gang-related violence and drug trade to travel east.

“Everybody’s concerned about the problem bleeding over here,” he said.

Particularly worrisome is the notion that teenagers and young adults who lack positive options might copy the gang culture they see on TV.

“People try to emulate a lifestyle,” Robinson said.

At the heart of that emulation is a desire to identify with a group, to bond with a band of like-minded people, said the Rev. Larry Gooley of St. Catherine’s Catholic Church in Priest River.

Gooley has been a friend of Boyle’s for 20 years, he said, and recently spent time in Los Angeles working with Boyle’s clients. Gooley was so moved by the opportunities for empowerment he saw, he asked Boyle to come share his perspective.

“I’ve just heard there are kids falling through the cracks up here,” Gooley said. “We need to go beyond just giving kids a place to hang out. They need a life.”

There were some 2,300 high school-age kids in Bonner County in 2000, U.S. census figures showed. The population has skyrocketed since then, raising worries about new influences, said Cathy Morrison, secretary at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Sandpoint, which is sponsoring the Sunday event.

“Obviously, it’s something that needs to be addressed,” she said.