Office of the City Attorney

THE GANG SECTION

The City Attorney’s Office is committed to aggressively targeting and putting street gangs out of business with a comprehensive approach that combines effective law enforcement partnerships with innovative suppression, intervention and prevention efforts.

While gang violence is down in the City of Los Angeles, the City’s gang prosecutors are committed to doing everything in their power to keep it down.

Gang injunctions – civil court orders that prohibit a gang and its members from conducting certain specified activities within a defined geographic area known as a "safety zone." – are key to the City Attorney’s Office’s efforts to reduce gang membership and gang violence in the City of Los Angeles.

These injunctions have been proven, time and again, to significantly cut gang membership and gang crime. Further, the City Attorney’s Office has instituted key constitutional safeguards to ensure they are administered fairly, in addition to developing a user-friendly process to provide a way out from under an injunction for those who can prove they have mended their ways.

The City’s gang prosecutors also understand that the City cannot simply arrest its way out of the gang problem. It must be stopped at its source. This is where prevention and intervention come in.

The City Attorney’s Office is focused on innovative intervention and prevention strategies like mentorship and apprenticeship programs, keeping young people in school, and working to get them into college, a career or technical education program so they will have the tools they need to be productive, law-abiding members of society.

City Attorney Trutanich believes we must invest in our kids today so they can take their place as leaders tomorrow.