OJJDP News @ a Glance - July/August 2006

L.A.'s Homeboy Industries Intervenes With Gang-Involved Youth

	Homeboy Industries
	CAC Conference
	Youth Court Month
	Drug Courts
	Upcoming Events
	New Publications
	Coordinating Council
	Advisory Committee
	Staff News
	Home

Photo of Laura Bush meeting members of the Homeboy Industries program.

Laura Bush meets members of the Homeboy Industries program in Los Angeles during her tour of the facility April 27, 2005. Homeboy Industries is a job-training program that educates, trains, and finds jobs for at-risk and gang-involved youth. White House photo by Krisanne Johnson.

Through its Gang Reduction Program (GRP), OJJDP supports a number of local gang prevention and intervention programs. One such program is Homeboy Industries, which is partnering with the GRP demonstration site in Los Angeles, CA. An example of successful federal and local coordination, Homeboy Industries receives funds from the City of Los Angeles, Office of the Mayor, the GRP grantee, to continue and strengthen its youth gang intervention services. The Boyle Heights neighborhood in which Homeboy operates is one of four GRP locations around the country. GRP funds community efforts to develop an integrated strategy to reduce youth gang crime through five areas of focus: primary prevention, secondary prevention, intervention, suppression, and reentry. First Lady Laura Bush visited Homeboy Industries in April 2005 as part of her Helping America's Youth Initiative (see photo).

A photo of Homeboy The guiding principle of Homeboy Industries' Jobs For a Future project is both purposeful and pragmatic: "Nothing stops a bullet like a job." Located in the gang-afflicted East L.A. community of Boyle Heights, Homeboy Industries offers gang-involved and at-risk youth the opportunity to become productive members of society through a variety of employment-centered services.

Father Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest, founded Homeboy Industries. Father Boyle believes that "If young people are employed, they're much more likely to lead happy lives because they can be productive and constructive." Homeboy's many programs manifest his words. Youth not only receive access to numerous free services—tattoo removal, counseling, job referrals, and life-skills training—but are able to work (with pay) in the program's several businesses, which include silk-screening, maintenance, and food service (a Mexican-food café and a soon-to-be opened bakery).

For many of the former gang members in the program, this is their first real job. Receiving a paycheck and developing meaningful skills count as tangible benefits of the program, but it is the intangibles—altered perspectives and fresh hopes—that truly change the lives of the participants.

Homeboy Industries is well placed to continue its services within the Boyle Heights community and help many more former gang members to lead law-abiding, productive, and successful lives. In remarks given at the 2005 White House Conference on Helping America's Youth, Father Boyle relayed the story of his meeting with one young man who was helped by the program. The youth, named Carlos, was recently released from prison. Covered in tattoos and having a criminal record, he couldn't find a job. Father Boyle set him to work in Homeboy's silk-screening factory. Father Boyle asked Carlos how it felt to work just days after he began. "It feels proper…I'm holdin' my head up high," he said.

For more information about Homeboy Industries, visit http://www.homeboy-industries.org. For more information about the Helping America's Youth Initiative, read the feature article "HAY Initiative Promotes Positive Youth Development" in the May/June 2006 issue of OJJDP News @ a Glance.