Getting tough with gangs

Re “Sweeping up 18th Street,” editorial, Dec. 14

Taking ill-gotten money away from gangs should make sense to everyone. But The Times loses its way when it says that “the ‘tough on crime’ approach to gangs all too often winds up targeting youth on the cusp of gang life” and that “instead of diverting them ... [it] punishes them so severely that their opportunity for a life outside the gang is put out of reach.”

Give me a break. Making it tough on gangs and people on the cusp will deter kids from a life of crime.

Questioning taking a gold watch away from a grandmother that was given to her by her gangster grandson is ridiculous. Take the watch. Take the car. Take the condo. What difference does the actual material thing mean? If it was purchased with gang money, it should be confiscated. And what should we do with the money? Don’t give it to the City Council. Hold it in a fund that is strictly set aside for the victims and the families of victims of these hoodlums.

Paul Klein

Encino