As the Suburban King County Coordinating Council on Gangs (SKCCCG) looks to implement anti-gang programs in the region, the Kent School District (KSD) will have to wait for programs to arrive in its schools.
According to Randy Heath, KSD family and student services director, the council is producing several programs to be implemented in the Renton School District first and then expand those programs out over the next year.
Local and county law enforcement collaborated for two years with other agencies to put together data on gang activity in Suburban King County.
Kent Police Commander Eric Hemmen said that most of the gangs are not associated with major national gangs and are more offshoots that are active in Tukwila, Tacoma and Seattle and use Kent as a place to rest and live.
They’re spread out all over Kent, Hemmen said, although they favor rental houses and apartments.
An SKCCCG study revealed additional information about gangs in the area.
According to the study results, there are 142 street gangs in King County, with an estimated 87 active in the suburban areas of Kent, Renton, Tukwila, Federal Way and Auburn. These gangs account for more than 4,000 individuals.
Gang activity can begin as early as eighth grade, the study said, where half of gang-involved eighth-graders have carried a weapon for self protection and more than half have been in a physical fight within the last year. Students involved in gang activity are also more likely to engage in delinquent behavior such as low achievement and school involvement and truancy, the study said.
“It’s not uncommon that we put something like this in place,” said Heath, referring to the idea of using a single program prototype in the first year. “We’re in hold mode over here.”
Because of the overt and subtle signs of gang affiliation in schools, Heath said that tracking gang activity in the district has been difficult.
“It’s hard to categorize because it’s rarely a gang only type of offense,” Heath said. “An example is a fight. It is sometimes hard to determine the true cause behind a fight. Sometimes it is clear, other times it is not.
“There may be gang overtones to it, however, unless that is clear to the administrator investigating, it would only be coded as a fight and not as a gang incident as well.”
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