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Officials fight gang growth
Phillipsburg educates teachers about issue. District hopes to create intervention program.
PHILLIPSBURG | Officials are working to educate district teachers and administrators about the culture of gang activity.
“This certainly is an issue developing in our area,” Bob Pierfy, the district’s Student Assistance Coordinator, said at the school board meeting Monday night. “We don’t need to run and hide, but we certainly need to create a comprehensive prevention and intervention program.”
Gang activity has been a hot topic in the area in the past few weeks. Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli recently hired a former Easton detective to investigate and help prosecute members of the Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings and other homegrown gangs.
Last week Phillipsburg town council members announced they would urge New Jersey officials to create state legislation that would allow municipalities to prosecute gang members for associating with one another.
Pierfy said he distributed a booklet about gangs to all district counselors last week.
Titled “Radical Involvement: Cults, Gangs, Hate Crimes and other Symptoms,” the booklet includes diagrams of gang symbols, lists of gang-related clothing and styles for boys and girls, initiation rituals and information about gang culture.
“It tells how to help a student that is involved and before they get involved,” Pierfy said.
Pierfy said a sense of family and control, as well as excitement, lures kids to join gangs.
“Can you get a person out of a gang? Certainly. It’s very difficult,” Pierfy said. “It can happen. It’s the hard road. It’s much better to intervene early.”
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Superintendent Gordon Pethick said gang problems are both immediate and long-term issues for the district.
“We have to start to teach students not to want to be involved in gangs,” Pethick said.
Pethick said the district has been doing things in-house to combat gangs, but he didn’t want to elaborate on those plans in public.
“We are on top of it. We are doing anything we can,” Pethick said.
Pierfy said Director of Security James P. Stettner has gone around to district schools to educate teachers about what to look for in terms of gang activities.
School board member Paul Rummerfield asked if there is more gang activity in town now.
“Kids are becoming a tad more bold in their approach to things,” Pierfy said. “They think they’re right that creates a whole other risk factor.”
In other district news, Pethick and board attorney Donald W. Morrow plan to meet March 8 with the director of the Peter and Paul House.
The board voted 7-4 at its last meeting against accepting one of the home’s students into the district. The Camden student has been enrolled in a learning disabilities program at Phillipsburg High School since Jan. 30 through the Catholic Charities group home.
Morrow said he is currently reviewing the board’s vote. He said his opinion as to whether the board can deny the student’s enrollment would be delivered “in a very short period of time.”
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