LANCASTER, S.C. — A newly awarded 3-year, $1.8 million Department of Justice grant will fund the establishment of a community violence intervention program at the Lancaster Police Department. The grant will support hiring key roles, including a program coordinator, a gang investigator, and a community liaison officer.
Lancaster Police competed with major cities across the nation to win the grant money, and they believe it will make a major difference when it comes to protecting kids and this community from gangs and violence.
“We’ve been in denial about this issue for years,” said Anthony Pelham, the CEO and pastor at Community Powerhouse, which has worked for years to steer at-risk youth away from violence.
Pelham said he’s grateful his community is waking up to the reality of gangs and gang violence.
“They may not call themselves gangs, their clicks, but they are organized, and they operate like a gang whether you want to acknowledge it or not,” Pelham said.
His program helps kids be their own person.
“We’re teaching them how to critically think,” he said. “Most of our youth don’t know how to critically think.”
In January, local police, with assistance from the ATF and FBI, arrested and charged more than a dozen people accused in shootings thought to be gang-related.
Many of the suspects were teens.
Lancaster Police Chief Don Roper is preparing to apply more resources.
“This trend of youthful violent offenders is very serious,” Roper said. “That’s why we’ve put so many resources into trying to break this cycle of violence.”
The federal grant paves the way for a plan.
“It will be based on thorough research-based strategies led by law enforcement in partnership with community partners here in Lancaster,” the police chief said.
Pelham’s Community Powerhouse will be a community partner and said the money will help him serve up to 100 additional people a year and show them they have an identity beyond the labels given by society.
“It’s not about trying to dismantle a gang,” Pelham said. “It’s dismantling a mindset that leads you to a gang or has you in the gang.”
Lancaster was the only city in South Carolina to receive the funding, and the DOJ gave out about 20 of these grants nationwide.
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