Police, churches fight gangs

Authorities in North Jersey have taken their campaign against gangs to houses of worship -- and already are finding allies, especially in the urban towns.

The Bergen County Prosecutor's Office plans to meet with the influential Black Ministers' Council of New Jersey, which represents some 600 churches, early next year to hammer out how police and parishioners can work together to quell youth gangs.

Among the potential topics, they say, will be what procedures religious leaders can follow when they find gang members within their parishes and how anti-gang talks can become part of their services.

"Everyone has to have a heightened awareness of the battle we're fighting," said Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli. "If our efforts make them more aware and cause them to sit down with bad kids, that's great. But they should also know they can involve us, as well."

Molinelli pitched the idea this summer during an informal meeting with religious leaders from communities such as Englewood and Teaneck.

"We're talking about an honest effort to see what we as religious leaders can do to stem a problem in our communities," said Robert H. Robinson, deacon of Mount Olive Baptist Church in Hackensack, who attended the meeting.

Since then, Molinelli's office has been working with the clerics to plan the conference -- and this fall invited them for the first time as special guests at its annual gang seminar.

At heart is a statewide push to reach New Jersey youth before they're introduced to the trappings of gang life.

Following the execution-style killings of three college students in Newark this summer, city and state officials announced a flurry of initiatives aimed at stanching youth violence -- some of which they attributed to the rise of gangs.

After promising to increase funding for Newark's after-school programs, Governor Corzine rolled out a three-tier anti-crime initiative that, in part, will help New Jersey municipalities develop youth programs and provide jobs to at-risk teens.

The Bergen County push to partner with houses of worship comes amid the failure to launch a countywide after-school program. There are successful after-school programs at the municipal level, but creating youth programs at county facilities in Leonia and Hackensack have run aground because of "funding and logistical reasons," Molinelli said.

A countywide initiative could smooth so-called turf wars among kids and, more importantly, among various rival gangs, authorities say.

"The Black Ministers' Council was always an important asset for us," he said. "That's how we can reach kids age 10 through 16. These kids go to church, too."

Robinson, the Mount Olive deacon, said the informal meeting this summer served as a good step toward helping communities plan how to "reclaim some of our lost youth."

Molinelli then invited several religious leaders to an October gang conference in Hasbrouck Heights, where the mostly Baptist contingent sat front and center among the 300 or so attendees.

"You've got to have faith when talking about these issues," Sen. Bob Menendez said in his keynote address at the Hilton hotel. "What brings us here together is one of the most destructive forces in our state today."

The outreach apparently is being received well, even though there exists an undercurrent of urban skepticism about police.

"I didn't get any sense of grandstanding. I think that's worth mentioning," Robinson said. "I didn't get the feeling, 'Hey, I'm trying to make a political point.' I think they're really following through with this."

Despite discouraging data about gang growth in New Jersey, community leaders can quell youth involvement by teaching positive values, said Barry Miller, an Englewood police officer who also is the minister of Community Baptist Church.

"We don't necessarily talk just about Bloods or Crips or Latin Kings," said Miller, who spends much of his time teaching gang education classes to city youth. "We talk about life skills. We talk about decision making and communication and anger management -- principles to live by."

Miller said he'd be happy to hold next year's meeting with the state Black Ministers' Council at his First Avenue church, where he conducts men's fellowship meetings every weekend that often touch on gangs.

One of the biggest problems authorities face, he said, is the public's denial of gang presence. In some instances, he said, he's shown photographs of city youth in gang garb, yet their parents still vehemently denied their children's involvement.

"We have families that are directly affected by gangs in our churches. Some parents have lost members of their families to gangs," Miller said. "We need to wake up about this. We can't keep our heads in the sand anymore."