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SALT LAKE CITY -- Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker was one of about a dozen mayors invited to the White House Monday to talk about gang prevention.
The mayor says Salt Lake's current community policing policy is getting national attention in fighting gangs.
Approximately 1 million gang members belonging to more than 20,000 gangs are criminally active. -FBI
"[We] get our police out and working with the community and being part of the community. We know that makes an enormous difference, that personal contact," Becker said.
Though he feels community policing works well, he says it's time to do more. Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank agrees.
"I'm very pleased with the direction we're taking, but we still have a long way to go," Burbank said. "There is no way--and we have demonstrated that throughout history--that we can arrest our way out of problems."
"We need to engage the community," he continued, "have them participate with us and give us a little bit of direction."
Still, gang issues are everywhere. It can be something simple like graffiti on a business.
He is serving a prison sentence of 16 years to life, but what if someone had reached him before he joined a gang?
"The key to success with gangs is to get in early, to deal with prevention and to deal with intervention when we see kids who are moving in that direction," Becker said.
He says other city mayors he met at the panel discussion had some ideas that might work for Salt Lake City.
E-mail: acabrero@ksl.com
