CHICAGO ANTI-LOITERING LAW AIMS TO DISRUPT GANGS

CHICAGO -- The corner of 18th and Throop Streets is the heart of Chicago
gang territory. At least three gangs battle over turf in this Southwest
Side neighborhood, and gunfire erupts at all hours. Children walking to
Manuel Perez Jr. Elementary School have been pelted with bottles or assaulted.

"For many of our kids, simply getting to school can be a matter of life and
death," Sylvia Stamatoglou, principal of the Perez school, said.

So few would argue that the corner was a poor choice for the first arrests
issued under a new Chicago anti-gang ordinance this month. The ordinance
lets police officers arrest suspected gang members or drug dealers if they
disregard an order to leave a corner or block that the police have
identified as a gang "hot spot." On Aug. 18, the police say, three men who
had been flashing gang signs disobeyed an order to stay away from 18th and
Throop for at least three hours.

While the city's new ordinance -- written after the Supreme Court struck
down a highly publicized anti-loitering ordinance that had been a model for
other cities -- has attracted early praise, it has also drawn criticism.

It is less broad than the old one, but civil rights advocates still
question whether innocent people will get swept off the streets. Some
aldermen are irked that the city has not told them where the "hot spots" in
their wards are. Some people question whether the measure will make a real
difference.

"It's a good thing, but at the same time it doesn't solve the root of the
problem," said Sister Rayo Cuaya-Castillo of Holy Trinity Croatian Church,
a half-block from 18th and Throop. Cuaya-Castillo said that after the
arrests, gang members returned to the corner, and there was shooting that
night and the next. Ultimately, she said, gangs might "move to another
neighborhood," but "they will continue to do the same thing."

Under the old anti-loitering ordinance, ruled unconstitutional by the
Supreme Court last year, the police arrested more than 42,000 people. That
measure made it a crime for anyone standing with a suspected gang member to
"remain in any one place with no apparent purpose" after a police order to
disperse.

"It matters not," wrote Justice John Paul Stevens in the 6-3 opinion that
struck down the ordinance, "whether the reason that a gang member and his
father, for example, might loiter near Wrigley Field is to rob an
unsuspecting fan or just to get a glimpse of Sammy Sosa leaving the ballpark."

Lawrence Rosenthal, the city's deputy corporation counsel, said that the
new ordinance -- besides requiring arrests in designated "hot spots" --
requires a police officer to have "a reasonable belief that gang or drug
activity is taking place." It also requires "more extensive documentation,"
he said, on arrests and dispersal orders that do not lead to arrests.

Rosenthal said the city knew that the ordinance would not instantly solve
the gang problem. Those arrested can be jailed only until their
fingerprints are processed, usually a day, unless they are found with drugs
or guns. While the locations of "hot spots" -- there are currently 86 --
are not being disclosed, as arrests are made, gang members figure them out.

"But the gangs have a limited ability to adapt to this," Rosenthal said.
"Their own gang boundaries are limited because they can't go on rival gang
turf. And they have to be where their buyers expect them to be. You're
disrupting the drug markets, making it harder for people to find their
accustomed source of drugs, making the gangs less profitable. And if they
keep going out there, they're going to wind up doing life in prison one day
at a time."

Pat Camden, a police department spokesman, said that so far officers had
issued 39 dispersal orders involving 174 people, and that 12 people had
been arrested in four incidents. The list of hot spots is to change every
three months. The hope, Camden and Rosenthal said, is that once people see
police taking action, they will be more comfortable helping the police.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the lawsuit against the
first ordinance, said it opposed the new one and would monitor its use.

"The ordinance leaves itself far too open for wrongful enforcement," said
Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the ACLU. "If young men are made to feel suspect
when they're doing nothing wrong, then ultimately it's going to be hard to
bring those people into a real meaningful program of community policing."

Still, people like Stamataglou, the principal, welcomed the new efforts.
After all, she said, hers was a neighborhood where people were too afraid
to form parent patrols to escort children to school. At least the new
ordinance would make the police more visible.