Gang activity is on the rise, and parents need to know how to prevent their own children from getting involved with gangs. It could be a matter of life or death.

In 2002 there were only 25 incidents of gang graffiti in Kennewick, but by 2006 they had increased nearly tenfold to 218 incidents, according to Kennewick Police Department (KPD) crime analyst Kim Hathaway.

While graffiti is not the most serious of gangs’ many crimes, it is the most obvious and typically correlates with overall gang activity. As incidents of gang graffiti go up, other gang crimes go up, as well, she explains.

Gang crime can be much more serious, notes Kennewick High School Resource Officer and KPD gang specialist Tony Valdez.

According to Valdez, in the early 1990s there were about 800 gang-related murders a year just in Los Angeles County – more than two a day.

Most authorities agree that gang activity is on an increase again, after dropping off in the late 1990s.

Sunnyside City Council recently got statewide publicity when it made any gang affiliation a crime in and of itself. That city had seen a lot of gang-related violence in recent months and wanted to send a message that no gang activity would be tolerated.

Other communities throughout the Yakima Valley are reviewing their own ordinances to see if they should follow suit.

Indeed, many smaller communities are now experiencing gang problems they have never known before, Valdez says.

The Tri-Cities gangs were started, in part, by big-city gangsters looking for a new start. Similarly, gangsters from smaller cities are now making their way to towns like Connell, Royal City and Mabton, Valdez says.

Not all police departments have good statistics to track gang activity.

An officer from the Seattle Police Department says by city ordinance they are not even allowed to track gang membership or gang-related statistics, but Yakima and Spokane police departments have more than one gang specialists. Yakima has passed an ordinance making parents financially responsible for damages caused by their gangster children, and their gang specialists point out that undocumented families are likely to be deported if one person in the family gets caught in gang activities.

Officer Brian Miller, gang specialist for the Wenatchee Police Department, says gang activities there also tend to cycle, and there, too, gang crime is increasing after a significant decline.

"We are starting to see an increase again. We had a horrible rash of graffiti, and we made several arrests," he says, noting that the graffiti was a challenge to other gangs, which then led to more graffiti and ultimately to gang violence.

Miller says 84 percent of all firearm assaults in Wenatchee are gang-related.

Most gangsters in the Mid-Columbia and Yakima Valley are affiliated with either the Sureños or the Norteños — rival Hispanic gangs that have been feuding since they were established decades ago in California.

Miller says all six of the gangs his department are tracking are associated with the Sureños. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of violence between the groups.

Police Officers Jessie Rangel and Gary Garza urged a gathering of over 1,000 parents in Yakima recently to do whatever necessary to keep their children out of gangs. And they assured parents that gangs do thrive in Yakima.

"If you see a problem in your home, you need to do something about it," says Rangel. "These are children we will lose if we don’t do something."

He warns that 90% of all gang members are arrested by age 18, and 60% are dead or in prison by age 20.

"The gangs say kids need to belong to a gang for protection. But that’s a lie," Rangel says. "Here in Yakima there have been many deaths because youths wanted to belong to gangs."

Garza says, "Gang members don’t think of the future. They laugh now; they pay later."

The gangs also cause many thousands of dollars in damage around the community, the officers say. And if the vandals are caught and can’t pay for it themselves, parents will have to pay.

If youths are convicted of an alcohol, drug or firearms offense, they will lose their driver’s license. If they are undocumented, they and their families may be deported. And gang members not in prison or deported will lose scholarship opportunities and will likely never go to college. That by itself will cost them $200,000 or more in lower wages during their lives, Garza says.

Former gang member Alejandro (Alex) Santillanes, whose Barrios Unidos, organization operates anti-gang programs in Yakima and Toppenish, warns that "no one is immune, and it’s getting worse."

Santillanes says the growth of gang affiliation in the elementary schools is "alarming," although he appreciates the commitment by Yakima Superintendent of Schools Ben Soria to fight gangs at all age levels, from elementary schools to high schools.

"Some school districts are just trying to ignore the problem," Santillanes says. "And the problems are getting bigger and bigger and bigger."

The "2005 National Gang Threat Assessment" by the National Alliance of Gang Investigators Associations in conjunction with the FBI surveyed 458 police departments across the country. It concludes that gangs are the primary distributors of drugs through the U.S. and that Hispanic gang membership is the fastest growing.

"The 2006 School Survey of Gang-Related Issues," produced by the National Gang Crime Research Center, asked school officials nationwide about gang problems in their schools and neighborhoods. The survey found that during the previous year:

• There had been gang fights between rival gang members in and around 42% of the schools.

• There had been a gang-related shooting at or near 26% of the schools.

• There had been gang recruiting in and around the 35% of the schools.

• There had been drug sales and drug use at 85% of the schools.

• 41% of the educators expected gang problems to get worse this year, while only 8% thought there would be a decrease in gang problems.

Parents do need to be concerned about their children getting involved with gangs. And not all gangsters are Hispanic, although a growing portion are.

Former gang member Santillanes of Barrios Unidos says there is now a cowboy gang in the region that encourages white gangsters to dress in Western duds and beat up Hispanics and other kids of color.

But, by far, most gangsters in the Mid-Columbia and Yakima Valley are Hispanic gangs affiliated with either the Sureños or the Norteños.

Reales 14 and La Raza are gangs affiliated with the Norteños. Affiliated with the Sureños are such gangs as the Westside 18th Street, Mexican Stand Proud (MSP), Florencia 13, Sureños por Vida (SPV), Mexican Pride Sureños (MPS), and Los Cholitos Chingones (LCC) gangs.

Youngsters who hang out with gangsters, dress like gangsters or somehow disrespect gangsters can be in danger even if they are not affiliated with a gang, warns Valdez, so no parents can take it for granted that their kids are safe.

"We are trying to build these kids strong from the inside out," Santillanes says of his Barrios Unidos organization, but he offers the same advice to all parents.

Especially if parents see any signs that their child may be involved with gangs or drugs, or if they begin getting in trouble at school, they need to begin searching their child’s bedroom on a regular basis, says Valdez.

What a child is doing in school is a major indication of what he may be doing outside school, Dave Reardon, a crime specialist/analyst for Pasco Police Department (PPD), says.

"The gang mentality is totally against education. It is against everything school is trying to do. A teacher really can’t have a learning environment with gang activities going on in the classroom. It is disruptive to the learning process," he says.

"If you’re not occasionally searching your child’s bedroom, you are being negligent in your duties as a parent," Valdez says.

Parents should be looking for drugs, along with gang symbols and gang philosophy, according to the experts.

Other signs a child is getting into a gang is the use of gang slang in every day conversation; increasing secrecy to protect what’s in his room and to keep you from meeting his friends; refusal to tell you where he is going or with whom; large amounts of unexplained cash; and grooming changes such as a shaved head, use of a hair net, or growth of a goatee.

To protect children from gang influences, parents should get their kids involved in school and extracurricular activities, such as sports, Boys and Girls Club, church programs, and Boy Scouts, says Reardon.

Other things parents can do to keep their kids out of gangs, says Valdez, include:

• Develop good communications with your child.

• Spend time with your child.

• Occupy your child’s free time.

• Set limits for your child, and enforce limits consistently.

• Discourage hanging out with gang members or those "playing" like gang members.

• Don’t let him wear gang-style clothing.

• Don’t allow your child write gang symbols anywhere.

• Keep informed about gang activity in the community, and participate in the community.

Parents need to make their children understand that "gangs won’t help them achieve their future goals," Reardon adds.