Peacebuilding Townhall:

Emerging Statewide Trends in Gang Violence Prevention, Intervention and Enforcement

This Peacebuilding Townhall took place on March 5, 2008 at the Western Justice Center Foundation.

Resource Guide

Objective:

Provide an opportunity to disseminate information and discuss current trends in California targeting the reduction of gang violence through prevention, intervention and enforcement.

Panelists Included:

Paul Seave is currently State Director of the Gang and Youth Violence Policy Office of the Governor.  After working as a federal prosecutor for 13 years, Paul Seave served as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California between 1997 and 2001.  In addition to directing an office of 65 attorneys, he chaired the executive committee of the Central Valley High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, served as co-chair of the Greater Sacramento Area Hate Crimes Task Force, and founded Project HELP: Sacramento Mobilizing Against Substance Abuse.  Mr. Seave’s office prosecuted more than 20 Stockton gang members as part of a multi-agency collaborative that reduced that city’s gang homicide rate by 75 percent.  From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Seave was a Special Assistant Attorney General and Director of the California Attorney General’s Crime and Violence Prevention   Center.  His staff of 40 focused on such areas as domestic violence, gang violence, and elder abuse.  In 2005, Governor Schwarzenegger named Mr. Seave to the position of Chief Counsel for the State Board of Education, where he served until his current appointment in September 2007.  Mr. Seave received his bachelor’s degree in history from Princeton University, and his law degree cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Angela E. Oh is Of Counsel to Bird Marella Boxer Wolpert.  She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Western Justice Center and is the Chair of the Program Committee.  Ms. Oh had the privilege of working with Paul Seave when he was the Director of Violence Prevention in the Office of the California Attorney General Bill Lockyer. Her practice has included criminal defense and civil rights.  Ms. Oh has also worked on media and gang violence prevention, prisoner re-entry among Asian Pacific Islander ex-offenders through a grant from the Open Society Institute, and has examined the problem of Asian gangs in her writings and lectures.  Currently, she is litigating a civil rights case, mediating for the county of Los Angeles, and serving as a consent decree monitor for the EEOC.