What Parents Can Do?
PARENT INVOLVEMENT IS THE BEST DETERRENT GANG ACTIVITY
- Show your child love with lots of hugs and reassurance.
- Talk with and listen to your child.
- Supervise your children’s activities.
- Help them get involved in athletics or other activities that interest them.
- Know about your child’s friends and their friend’s families.
- Put a high value on education and help your child do his or her best in school.
- Do everything possible to prevent him/her from dropping out.
- Talk about your values and why you think gangs are dangerous.
- Discuss violence, drug dealing, hatred of other groups for no reason, and the likelihood of being arrested and imprisoned.
- Report all graffiti vandalism. Before you remove graffiti, notify the Greensboro Police Department at 373-2222 so they can document it with photographs. This helps build cases against vandals. Most taggers sign their work in the same way and often target the same area.
- Clean-up often has to be done again and again, but patience and persistence pay off. If an area you have cleaned up becomes covered in graffiti again, remove it as quickly as possible. The goal is to deny the vandal the chance to display his work. Successful programs remove graffiti within 24 hours.
- If the graffiti is on your property, remove it immediately. If it is on county or state property, law enforcement should be able to help you contact the owners.
- Try to start a “Graffiti Hotline” in your community.
- Landscaping is an attractive, natural deterrent to graffiti activity. If an area is continually hit by graffiti, consider planting the area in a way that discourages access.
NOTHING DETERS GANG ACTIVITY LIKE GETTING INVOLVED!
Take an active interest in our youth by getting involved: