A GREAT way to keep children out of gangs

There isn't a lot of gang activity in the city of Glen Cove.

But there are gang members. "We keep an eye on them and we let them know that we're keeping an eye on them," said Sgt. Jack McDougal of the city police department.

What's interesting is that local gang members tend not to act out in Glen Cove. Instead, McDougal said, they commute to other parts of Long Island - including Huntington Station, Uniondale and Hempstead - to join other gang members.

That's a web that's hard to untangle, and given the rising tide of gunplay and other gang-related activity in communities across Long Island, it's difficult to beat. But what if local children could be helped to resist the lure of gangs? Even when siblings or parents are active members?

That's the most ambitious goal of a program that came to the Glen Cove Boys and Girls Club for the first time this summer. GREAT - Gang Resistance Education and Training - deals head on with the issue of gangs.

It doesn't do it by scaring children. Instead, the program educates children.

And it puts the responsibility for not joining gangs - not doing drugs, or skipping school, bullying, or fighting - where it belongs: On the children themselves.

"I promise to be a great citizen," a chorus of 9- and 10-year-olds said after graduation from the program Monday, as McDougal, a club board member, and others looked on.

"To avoid gangs," they said. "To do my best to stay out of trouble."

GREAT recognizes that children can't stay out of trouble by themselves. So the program, which is also in several Long Island schools, works at building character and building support for kids who choose to remain on track. For kids who want college. Or careers.

Part of the training has middle-school children do mock job interviews. Most are stunned to realize that they likely will be asked whether they used drugs. And whether they were ever arrested.

The program's strength, according to interviews with several children, is that their teachers are honest. They don't sugarcoat what's out there. They encourage children to ask questions, any questions, and they give answers - usually with real-life examples.

"We want to let children know that good kids can stand together," said Delores Sharpe, a Nassau County police officer who has taught GREAT to local children for eight years. "It doesn't matter what your parents or anyone else is doing," she said. "There are adults, other children and there are programs out there who can help, who can support kids who choose to do the right thing."

Agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives - which cofounded GREAT with the Phoenix police department - teach too. Officer B - no name or photograph, please, she's an undercover ATF agent - taught the summer session at the Boys and Girls Club. She will be back in the fall.

Officer B met with groups of children once a week. And, judging from her reviews, got the job done. "I want to go to a real college but I want to stay near home, so I probably will go to a community college," said one 9-year-old girl who already has decided to become a police officer, "Just like Officer B."

But does the program work?

"I wish I could tell you 100 percent that it did," Sharpe said. "I can't tell you that, but I can tell you that I have seen it change behavior of a lot of children. I have seen young children realize, for the first time, that their future is not preordained, that they have a choice not to follow friends and family into a gang."

"It seemed to stick with a lot of our young males here," said Desirae O'Neill, the club's youth employment coordinator. "Sometimes, after lunch, there was the start of some bullying," she said. "I don't have to step in anymore, the boys, the children, do it themselves."

Monet Marshall, a cultural arts instructor, said she saw changes too. "There were kids who thought the arts weren't cool," she said. "By the end of the GREAT program, they were much more respectful. It was like they realized that you can like cultural stuff and keep your rep."