LOCAL TEAM GIVES INPUT ON YOUTH VIOLENCE; PAIR SERVING ON COUNCIL ADVISING STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL ON CRIME PREVENTION EFFORTS.

Byline: Teresa Jimenez Daily News Staff Writer

A two-man team from Santa Clarita is part of a committee making recommendations that Attorney General Dan Lungren will pass on to cities and crime prevention agencies in California.

Ed Redd, a longtime volunteer who helped create the city's Youth Master Plan Committee, and Mike Egan, a College of the Canyons student who has served on youth crime prevention commissions, were selected in October 1997. They worked with nine other teams as part of the Council on Youth Violence to find solutions to juvenile crime.

Since then, the 20 members have compared programs from their various communities and visited cities that have effective ways of dealing with crime, Redd and Egan said. In the end, the group came up with a list of recommendations in a report called J.U.M.P., which stands for Join Us Make Peace.

``We spent the whole year working on violence prevention,'' said Redd, who pointed out that half the members were youths and half were adults. ``The whole idea is to get the youth perspective. We came up with programs we can do here in Santa Clarita and that others can do.''

Egan agreed that by visiting different parts of the state, the youth violence council members got new perspectives on how to deal with crime.

``We got to see what was working and not working,'' he said. ``That was the whole point, to meet with other youths from different areas and find solutions.''

The report, released Wednesday at a news conference in Sacramento, will be distributed to cities and law enforcement groups along with a CD-ROM with interactive programs called J.U.M.P. City. It features violence prevention quizzes, videos, games and ideas developed by the special team.

The group's report recommends that communities strengthen their mentoring programs so that teens have adults they can respect and communicate with. The report also recommends that counties develop teen court programs in which young people help in sentencing so that they can better understand the consequences of breaking the law.

The report paid particular attention to gang involvement. It recommended harsher penalties for gang members or their affiliates who commit crimes. It also commented on the need for gang prevention for girls as well as boys.

The recommendations were based on a set of beliefs that the council established. The group believed in the need for guidance in teen dating so that relationships do not turn violent, a need to recognize teens who stay away from drugs and alcohol, and a need to respect diversity.

``Readers of J.U.M.P. will recognize that this youth council has exceeded my official charge, informal guidelines and, frankly, my expectations,'' Lungren said in a statement. ``This is not just good; this is great work.''

Redd and Egan were selected from a group of 120 teams from around the state who were recommended for the council. City officials recommended the two because of their community activism.