Is gang violence now on the rise?

Fourteen-year-old DéChé Morrison killed in the Rainier Valley. Allen Joplin, 17, shot to death at a school party on Lower Queen Anne. A 15-year-old boy wounded Friday outside Northgate Mall.

Police say the series of seemingly unrelated crimes and many others bear a striking similarity beyond the young ages of the victims and the fact that all three remain unsolved. Police say all three crimes appear to be gang-related.

Faced with what may be the region's biggest upswing in gang-related crime in nearly 20 years, police are looking to Olympia for some relief from the recent string of slayings, shootings and assaults.

"We can't arrest our way out of this," said Seattle police Lt. Ron Wilson, who oversees the department's gang unit. "Youth violence is our biggest problem right now. Kids who want to be in a gang are in a gang or associated with a gang."

HB 2712, a bill being pushed by state Rep. Christopher Hurst, D-Enumclaw, would pour $2.4 million into gang prevention, intervention and suppression.

Hurst's measure, currently before the Senate, would create a statewide database of gang members available for police use, increase criminal penalties for adults who recruit juveniles into gangs and let cities get "civil injunctions" that would force gang members from certain neighborhoods. The bill would also offer communities new ways to keep kids from joining gangs and help youths currently involved find safe ways to get out.

"It's a very new approach to how we deal with criminal-justice issues in the state," Hurst said. "It's essentially like treating gangs like organized crime."

The bill would also create the state's first definition for what constitutes a "criminal street gang," an issue that could make it easier for law enforcement to combat what many believe is a growing problem throughout the state.

Police, social-services providers and lawmakers say they don't have any hard figures to support the belief that gang crime is on the rise because the state lacks a true explanation of what constitutes a gang. According to state officials, there is no statistical evidence of a recent rise in juvenile crime.

Police say that without a legal definition for a gang or a gang member, it's difficult to directly link crimes to gangs.

Terry Hayes, a manager in youth services for Seattle Human Services, said he believes there is a spike in gang crime in Southeast King County. But Hayes and Kent Police Chief Steve Strachan said they only have anecdotal evidence of a rise in youth gang membership because of a lack in definition of what it means to belong to a gang.

"It's hard to figure out the level of involvement, the level of commitment," Strachan said.

The measure defines a "criminal street gang" as "any ongoing organization, association, or group of three or more persons, whether formal or informal, having a common name or common identifying sign or symbol, having as one of its primary activities the commission of criminal acts, and whose members or associates individually or collectively engage in or have engaged in a pattern of criminal street gang activity."

Janice O'Mahony, chair of Gov. Christine Gregoire's Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee, said gang-related crimes are a big issue for state lawmakers because public awareness is high.

"Communities are really concerned, but their concern is to reclaim our kids," O'Mahony said. "If we don't do something really quick, it could get worse."

O'Mahony worked for months on the intervention and prevention initiatives featured in Hurst's proposed legislation. She said the bill features pilot programs that offer communities ways to respond to gang violence -- other than sending youths to jail.

"The real hard-core kids, who are really dangerous, really violent, you would do law-enforcement strategies for them," O'Mahony said. "By far the majority of kids would be responsive to prevention and intervention. It's very few kids who are violent and for [whom] there isn't hope."

Hayes said that without the prevention and intervention aspects of the bill, which include helping teachers and parents learn about street gangs and creating pilot projects across the state to develop positive programs and activities for troubled youth, the criminal suppression aspect "won't be half as meaningful."

"You can't have just a suppression approach, it's not going to work," he said. "We have to figure out a way to get the services to families and people."

While Hayes believes "the bill is a great place to start," he said he doesn't agree with all of it.

Hayes said he's concerned with the law-enforcement push to develop a statewide database for active gang members. He said the people who run the database should be careful about not categorizing youths with some gang ties as active members. He would hate to see someone who is not a hard-core gang member be stigmatized for life.

He also said the database should be accessible by the public, not just police.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com