Program Director and Training Facilitator
Maximum Force Enterprises
Maximum Force Enterprises founder Aquil Basheer leads the effort to create a coordinated network and oversight to all of the outreach workers funded by A Better LA in south Los Angeles. This process begins with a required preliminary training course that covers everything from crisis diffusion, violence intervention, risk and threat assessment, hazard abatement, gang prevention and school safe passage. Every funded partner must go through the empowerment cirriculum which provides a foundation for thought process and a new language of hope and achievement. Maximum Force’s trained professionals oversee our funded partners and outreach workers which will create a cohesive strategy which allows for a coordinated effort in saving lives. This piece of the model creates accountability, defines roles and responsibilities, and provides a resource for new methods to save lives.
For more information on Maximum Force check out their website. (http://www.maximumforceenterprises.com/home.htm)
Targeted Approach
West Athens Project
Focus on one community at a time and create sustainable change from within
Within recent years, research has shown that gang prevention/ intervention programs that target specific communities are among the most effective. This targeted approach allows for sound outcome measures and effective programming for community, families and individuals. Because Los Angeles has over 40,000 gang members and nearly 700 gangs throughout the City and County, ABLA has chosen a pilot area in the West Athens region of South Los Angeles to begin implementation of our model. The West Athens community is an unincorporated area of Los Angeles. Located approximately 2.5 miles west of Watts, the area has a population of approximately 40,000. We fund a total of 15 outreach workers in the West Athens/Westmont area.
Our funded partners in the West Athens Project (WAP) are:
Common Unity Reaching Everyone (CURE)
Advocates 4 Peace and Urban Unity (APUU)
Taking Back Our Community (TBOC)
People for Community Improvement (PCI)
Regional Gang Intervention
While focused gang intervention in a single community is the key first step to sustainable change, it is equally important to recognize that gangs and gang violence cross geographic boundaries. The West Athens project, for example, will never be totally isolated from gangs in other parts of the city. It is very common for a gang member from 10 miles away to drive through, visit a relative, attend a sporting event — something that brings them into contact with a rival or perceived rival. In an instant, violence can erupt because of relationships that have gone badly elsewhere. Thus, to succeed, ABLA must be a part of a regional gang strategy. To use a basketball sports analogy, we need an inside and outside game.
Through our partnership with Unity One, ABLA supports the agency’s work by providing core support to fund outreach workers from different gangs across a wide geographic area that has the rare distinction of including former gang members from both the Bloods and Crips. Unity One has 19 outreach workers in Watts, West Adams, and many other neighborhoods in South Los Angeles, with relationships beyond those neighborhoods as well. Over the past two years, homicides have dropped in every neighborhood targeted by Unity One. We fund a total of 19 outreach workers through Unity One.
