OJJDP FY 2008 Latino Youth Mentoring Program

Youth gangs continue to have a significant adverse impact on youth, families, and communities. In some communities, Latino youth face a number of personal, economic, social, and cultural challenges that make them vulnerable to aggressive recruiting efforts by Latino gangs. Once recruited into such gangs, youth enter an environment that demands complete loyalty to the gang. Often, they can only leave the gang at risk of death. Research has shown that gang involvement is a significant problem in the Latino communities of today. The National Youth Gang Survey, for the past several years, has revealed that Hispanics/Latinos were the predominant racial/ethnic group among gang members nationwide, accounting for almost half of all gang members. This is an even more alarming statistic when put into context with the anticipated growth of the Hispanic population within the next several years. The overrepresentation of Latinos is not attributed to a special predisposition to gangs, but rather to their living in neighborhoods most likely to have gang activity. Similar risk factors that lead to gang involvement also lead to other problem behaviors such as truancy, delinquency, violence and dropping out of school. At the start of the new millennium, approximately 25% of the United States population was under 18 years of age. In 2002, 18% of juveniles in the United States were of Hispanic ethnicity, and constituted more than 25% in 5 states. Although overall dropout rates have fallen over the past 30 years, the rates for Hispanic youth are substantially greater than for any other ethnic group. In October 2000, the status dropout rate was substantially greater for Hispanics (27.8%) than black non-Hispanics (13.1%), white non-Hispanics (6.9%), or Asians (3.8%). Many youth are transitioning to adulthood with educational deficits that will follow them throughout their life. Using data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, law breaking behavior is linked to family structure and school and work involvement. This data suggests that if family strength can be improved, school performance bettered, and work involvement offered or explored with at-risk youth, law-breaking behavior should decline. Research confirms that youth must be connected to at least two of three significant social entities, family, school, and community to succeed. For those youth who have substantial ties to these social engines, contact with the law enforcement community is reduced, educational outcomes improve, and pro-social conduct increases. This solicitation focuses on developing and supporting a peer mentoring program that proactively reaches youth before they are recruited by gangs to develop and strengthen protective factors against gang involvement and other problem behaviors. Successful applicants will include local school districts with a demonstrable Latino gang problem committed to or already working with nonprofits, faith-based organizations, and other community