Some Oakland gang members could face up to six months in jail or fines as high as $1,000 if they publicly interact, wear gang colors or drink alcohol, among other prohibitions, after a new court order goes into effect in the city in the coming weeks.

Oakland City Attorney John Russo plans to file a civil injunction, limited to an as yet undisclosed "safety zone," against members of a specific gang later this month, according to his office. Similar injunctions have been used in southern California since the 1980s and were adopted in San Francisco beginning in 2007.

Details about which gang the order will target, or what area will become off limits for those gang members, will not be available until Russo files the injunction in Alameda County Superior Court later this month, said Alex Katz, spokesman for the city attorney's office. Safety zones can range from four blocks long to 10 miles wide. San Francisco's broadest designated swath ranges over 60 blocks.

Supporters of such measures say they make neighborhoods safer by cracking down on gangs and crime. Opponents say injunctions criminalize daily activities, lead to racial profiling and give police too much power.

"A gang injunction is not going to solve the gang problem in Oakland. But it's a tool that has worked in other cities," Katz said. "We're trying to protect our community from a very small percentage of people who are terrorizing it."

Katz said his office met last week with the American Civil Liberties Union to discuss ways to craft the order, which will be "narrowly tailored and very much based on evidence and on due process."

The office has been developing the injunction for months, determining who to target and researching what has worked in other cities, including San Francisco and Long Beach, former home of Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts.

Though every injunction is different, there are some common restrictions: no association with other gang members; no using gang signs or wearing gang colors or clothes; no possession of drugs or alcohol; no possession of weapons; no graffiti; and no intimidation or harassment. Violations must take place in public view within the designated safety zone. Defying any of these prohibitions would place the violator in contempt of court, a criminal misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine.

Oakland has struggled with violence, and has the state's highest homicide rate for cities with populations larger than 100,000. In 2008, there were 115 murders. There were more than 3,000 robberies, more than 4,000 assaults and 338 rapes reported that year, the most recent for which data are available. But how many of those crimes were gang related is unknown.

It's hard to tell exactly how big a problem gangs are in Oakland because reliable statistics about gang membership don't exist. The department has no clear way to track whether most crimes are gang related. Even the definition of the term is hazy; in California, any three or more people who conspire to commit a crime are considered a gang.

The department is developing a way to track gang membership as part of its General Plan, said officer Jeff Thomason, police spokesman. At this point, rough estimates are the only recourse.

About 425,000 people lived in Oakland as of January 2009, according to the state Department of Finance. Of those, more than 5,000 may be gang members, estimated Oakland Police officer Eric Milina, who has spent the last four years as a gang officer. But what exactly is a gang?

"You have the traditional Hispanic ones, like the Border Brothers. The Sureños and the Norteños. They're kind of territorial. Then you have the drug dealing gangs, who are also territorial. They have a certain area where they make their money and they defend that with violence. There are motorcycle clubs, like the Hells Angels and the East Bay Dragons. And then you have robbery-type gangs, people who get together and just rob people randomly," Milina said.

Generally speaking, he said, the drug-dealing gangs and the Hispanic gangs, which started as prison gangs in the 1960s, try to keep a lower profile and limit violence to other gang members because "they don't want police focusing all their attention on them."

Robbery gangs, on the other hand, tend to operate more haphazardly.

"For the robbers, the victim could be anybody," he said. "They don't even think twice. They're the ones who are the biggest threat to regular civilians in general."

When making arrests, or while on patrol, officers look at people's locations, associates and clothing or tattoos to get a sense of whether they're in a gang. During arrests, Milina said, suspects often admit membership when asked. And certainly, when getting locked up, many reveal their ties so they're not placed with rival gang members.

Milina said the injunction could help in areas where gang members mill about the streets, hanging out on certain corners.

San Francisco police spokesman Sgt. Wilfred Williams said the city's injunctions have helped cut down on crime. The city has injunctions against 80 members of five different gangs in the Mission, the Western Addition and the Bayview district. He said the city is working to get a fourth neighborhood involved.

Williams said the city has about 6,800 known gang members and associates, with about 800 "known hardcore gang members."

One sign of success, he said, is that, of the 80 people named in San Francisco's injunctions, just 16 have been involved in crimes in the safety zones since the orders took effect. The rest have complied with the rulings, which has made the streets safer, according to police.

But not everyone supports injunctions. The Justice Policy Institute published a report in 2007 questioning many of the fundamental assumptions about gang membership and gang-related crime. The report pointed out that enforcement of gang injunctions requires a "heavy and sustained" police presence that, as one police officer put it, "severely restricts [the] movements of citizens—like martial law."

Gang affiliation is sometimes based on "loose criteria." The authors quoted a San Jose police officer who said someone could be labeled a gang member "if he or she were seen on just one occasion wearing… a blue jean jacket, cut-off sweat pants, any clothing associated with the Los Angeles Raiders, or white, blue, gray, black, khaki, or any other 'neutral' colored item."

The authors did cite one analysis of 14 injunctions that found a 5 to 10 percent reduction in assaults, and mentioned other research showing an injunction in San Bernardino had reduced gang member visibility, intimidation and fear of confrontations and crime. Overall, however, the report's tone is grim.

"Activists charge that instead of targeting individuals for their criminal activity, gang injunctions sweep entire communities into a net of police surveillance. Moreover, they argue, injunctions, for the most part, are imposed not on the largest gangs or the most notorious gang neighborhoods but rather in areas that are near to white neighborhoods or those most attractive for gentrification. At a (Los Angeles-area) council hearing on these injunctions held in May 2006, community residents from areas under injunction complained of severe curtailment of basic freedom and routine police harassment."

Jory Steele, managing attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, has worked to challenge gang injunctions for several years, including one in West Sacramento that ultimately was thrown out for being unconstitutional.

"What they do is make everyday activities a crime," she said. "People under them face probation-like restrictions without ever (in many cases) having been able to go to court to defend themselves."

Though each jurisdiction is different, Steele said, in some cases, officers can simply hand suspects a sheet of paper during a traffic stop, without any prior evidence, that places them under the injunction. That person may then be subject to a curfew; barred from spending time publicly with family members under the injunction; or perhaps unable to go to his child's soccer game if another parent under the injunction might also attend.

In some cases, a trip to the grocery store in the safety zone could lead to arrest if someone else from the injunction showed up. A late-night trip to the pharmacy to pick up medication for a sick child wouldn't be allowed given curfew restrictions. Or say you want to pick up your wife from work at midnight to bring her home? Uh-uh.

Sometimes people named in gang injunctions are given notice and allowed to go to court to present evidence in their defense. But that's not required by law, Steele said, so some areas skip that step for defendants. In Sacramento, Steele said, more than 200 people were named in an injunction, but only one was given notice to have the option to attend court. And, because the proceedings are civil, attorneys are not provided for free, as they would be in criminal cases.

Some injunctions do not provide a way for people to challenge an order once they're added to it, Steele said.

The American Civil Liberties Union worked with San Francisco's city attorney to make sure there was an opt-out provision to allow people to appeal their inclusion under the injunction. The city also agreed to require the court to give notice to those added and to come to court to prove they were gang members. Steele said she thought the organization also got the curfew changed to be less restrictive.

"These injunctions are so sweeping and broad, they allow for and almost invite racial profiling," Steele said. "It gives police freedom to target whoever they want in a certain community. You want to be creating an environment in which people have options, and decide the gang is not what they want to do."

Police Sgt. Rick Armendariz acknowledged that there are a lot of negative perceptions about injunctions. But he added that the orders include safeguards to protect against such concerns.

"It goes back to the reason this court order is in effect," he said. "It's supporting the people that live in that community. It gives them breathing room from the gangs that have been affecting it."

Armendariz is the police spokesman in Modesto, about an hour and a half east of Oakland in California's Central Valley. Modesto sits in the middle of Stanislaus County (Population: 526,000), which has more than 5,000 documented gang members. Armendariz used to run the area's gang task force. He said an injunction filed last summer, which now lists 64 gang members, has made a big difference in the 2.5-mile area that was affected.

For one, gang intervention events that used to draw five people now draw closer to five dozen. Parents who might have been too scared to show up before, due to intimidation by gang members, now are showing up, he said. More crimes are being reported in the safety zone, showing increased confidence in police, and less fear of retaliation, he added.

Armendariz said city and county officials know there's more to solving the gang problem than enforcement. That's why they're also starting an intervention program to help at-risk youth stay in school, find jobs and develop basic communication and conflict resolution skills.  They've reached out to schools and faith-based groups to figure out the best way to help kids see they have alternatives.

"We understand it's not just a law enforcement thing," he said. "It's several components that are equally important. Are there people who need to get arrested? Yes. But we can also work to cure it by starting from the beginning."

Danyelle Marshall, of Oakland's Project Re-Connect, said making sure kids have access to safe, healthy activities is the best way to keep them out of gangs, which she described as a "big and growing" problem in the city.

"There's a lack of other involvement for the youth. There's no employment, no real activities. Parks and Rec is doing a bit better to keep the kids safe with its midnight basketball program," she said. "But what happens on the weekends when Parks and Rec is closed? They're right back to the block hanging out with the same people who are going to get them in trouble."

Project Re-Connect works with parents whose children are involved with gangs. Marshall said a lack of money to give kids viable options and outlets is the primary reason gangs seem to be getting stronger.

"They're growing only because, in the gangs, if I can make money, buy my own clothes and eat what I want that my family cannot provide me, why not?" she said. "And that's part of how the gang life has been helping to close that gap. What families cannot provide, that's what the gangs are providing."

The agency runs educational programs that are mostly aimed at middle school parents who want to know why kids flock to gangs, when they're most at risk and why they stay once it becomes so violent.

"They're hungry for information on keeping kids safe," said Marshall, who was somewhat skeptical about how well a gang injunction would affect the fundamental reasons kids join gangs.

"I would love to see the city of Oakland invest more in recreational or employment opportunities for youth as opposed to incarceration," she said. "Youth wouldn't be getting involved as much in the gang life if they could make a decent and honest wage to meet their needs."