APRI Highlights - Fall 2004

Curtailing Gang Violence

Michael Kuykendall Director, Gun Violence Prosecution Program

APRI’s Gun Violence Prosecution Program (GVP) will conduct four Hitting the Mark (for experienced gun crime prosecutors) and two Fundamentals of Firearms Prosecution (basic trial advocacy for newer gun crime prosecutors) trainings over the next year. All expenses for these regional trainings, including travel, hotel and meals are free of charge. Hitting the Mark will be conducted in Alexandria, VA, November 9-11, 2004, and Fundamentals of Firearms Prosecution will be conducted in Memphis, TN, December 1-3, 2004.

In early June, in response to the well-established linkage between firearms and gangs nationwide, GVP co-hosted a new course at the National Advocacy Center. This course, Prosecuting Gang Violence, brought together 45 senior and policy-level deputy district attorneys and 12 faculty members to discuss practical strategies to curtail gang activity within their communities.

This symposium also provided instruction on:

• essential gang prosecution techniques;
• working with local community groups to create effective gang interdiction strategies;
• recognizing and diffusing juvenile gangs;
• utilizing community prosecution techniques to combat gangs; and
• addressing emerging problems in drugs and gangs before they become entrenched within a jurisdiction.

A new monograph, entitled Prosecuting Gang Cases: What Local Prosecutors Need to Know, takes a look at innovative means to prosecute gang cases, including expert witness testimony and existing civil remedies. This publication is available on-line from our Web site at www.ndaa-apri.org (click on GVP in the right column). APRI has learned that one jurisdiction has already used the civil remedies suggested in the monograph to permanently close a gang-frequented social club.

Two GVP staff members attended the 3rd National Project Safe Neighborhoods Conference in Kansas City, MO, June 15-17, which brought together over 1,100 prosecutors and allied professionals to address illegal firearms problems. Six training tracks were presented targeting different facets of violent gun crime. Participants also heard about innovative illegal firearms reduction programs in Montana, Indiana and Arizona. Massachusetts’s Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office received the Outstanding Local Prosecutor’s Office award for its creative approach to reducing gun violence in this Boston suburb.

Members of GVP assisted NDAA in developing its 2004 fall conference entitled Getting Inside: Understanding and Tackling the New Generation of Gangs, which provided state and local prosecutors with an in-depth examination of the linkage between gangs and firearms. Conference attendees learned about firearms “straw purchases” in which a “clean” gang member who does not have a criminal record purchases a firearm for another gang member, a practice that is on the rise in many jurisdictions.

For additional information on the work of APRI’s Gun Violence Prosecution Program, contact GVP at gvp@ndaa-apri.org or call 703-549-4253.