Associated Press
RALEIGH
May 21, 2008 10:07 am
—
Satisfying the desires of the leading candidates for governor, the Senate moved Tuesday toward strengthening the state’s anti-gang laws while also boosting gang prevention programs.
The Senate Rules Committee advanced legislation that would toughen penalties for people who commit crimes as part of their affiliation with a gang. The measure makes coercing or soliciting a minor under the age of 16 to join a gang a low-grade felony punishable by up to roughly two years in prison.
The panel also approved a bill that directs county Juvenile Crime Prevention Councils to work on gang prevention programs. Such efforts are a critical corollary to enacting tougher penalties, said Fayetteville Police Department Capt. Mark Bridgeman, who serves as the president of the North Carolina Gang Investigators’ Association.
“We don’t want to end up the California of the future. They have 300,000 gang members in California,” Bridgeman said. “We can see it coming down the tracks.”
The panel moved a day before a coalition of law enforcement officials and mayors, including GOP governor’s candidate Pat McCrory, the mayor of Charlotte, planned to lobby lawmakers to approve the legislation. Before the committee’s votes, Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue’s chief of staff also told the panel anti-gang legislation is one of the top priorities this session for the Democratic Party’s nominee.
“I think that was probably a part of it, if you want my honest opinion,” said Rep. Mickey Michaux, D-Durham, when asked if the candidates’ interest led the Senate to act. He sponsored similar legislation that passed the House last year.
McCrory has criticized lawmakers for not enacting the anti-gang measures last year, making the issue a focal point of his campaign. He led a “caravan” of mayors, police officers and crime victims to Raleigh last year to push for a similar plan.
“If it’s the outside pressure that forced the politicians to move, fine,” McCrory said. “They tended to ignore us last year, but I think the political heat was too heavy to ignore it any longer and I think they wanted to get this out of committee before tomorrow, which is fine.”
But Michaux also said more lawmakers are beginning to realize North Carolina has a gang problem. The Governor’s Crime Commission in March estimated that there are 14,500 gang members in North Carolina, compared to about 8,500 in 2004.
“A lot of times we don’t do things until it hits home, and I think that the gang problem is beginning to hit home now,” Michaux said.
In March, lawmakers even got a call from the bench to act. When presiding over the first court appearance of a suspect in the slaying of Eve Carson, the student body president at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Durham County District Court Judge Craig Brown pleaded with lawmakers to immediately convene a special legislative session to address gang violence.
“I’m sending an SOS to Raleigh. I expect them to hear it,” Brown said from the bench, even though police have not said that defendant Laurence Lovette, who is also charged with killing a graduate student at Duke University, is a gang member.
The Senate’s anti-gang legislation defines a street gang as any group of three or more people who have a common name or symbol and conduct felony offenses or delinquent acts. Michaux said the differences between the Senate and House versions are small and that he expects lawmakers will be able to resolve the difference.
Michaux said he and other lawmakers also plan to put $10 million in next year’s state budget to fund gang intervention and prevention programs. The tougher penalties won’t go into effect without such extra funding, he said.
Both the anti-gang and the prevention measures head next to the full Senate. If approved, the anti-gang measure will be sent back to the House, which has approved a different version of the plan. The prevention bill goes to the House.
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