Editing After The Storm:Organizations (section)

===AGILE===

Anti-Gang Initiative of Law Enforcement

A soft method approach to gang violence. After a number of studies showed that young people sentenced to lengthy jail terms ended up either returning to their gang upon release or, even worse, getting drafted to larger organized crime units after making contacts in jail, AGILE was created in an effort to break the cycle. It includes police and detention officers, prison authorities and also people of more civilian capacity, such as school and family counselors, psychologists and other medical professionals, and community workers.

AGILE targets primarily first time offenders, providing alternative sentencing, education options and outreach programs in an effort to direct people away from gangs and point them towards other kinds of groups where they can feel to belong, such as sports clubs and community groups. It is not uncommon for people who successfully broke their gang ties to end up joining AGILE themselves, and many former gang members visit schools and youth venues providing a less glorified and more disillusioning view of gang life in an effort to stop people joining gangs in the first place. They may even directly approach gang initiates in an effort to get them to reconsider joining, often working together with school counsilors to this end.

Both gangs and organized crime see AGILE as interfering with their recruiting pool, and people involved with AGILE sometimes have to deal with threats and harassment. They are not often targeted with direct violence, though, since the police officers involved treat attacks on AGILE civilian personnel with almost the same seriousness as attacks on the police, and gangs do not wish that kind of heat on themselves.