John Schmidt, former associate U.S. Attorney General, told about seven supporters and local media at 9:30 a.m. Thursday in the Carbondale Civic Center, 200 S. Illinois Ave., that local efforts against gangs are not enough to win the war.

The best local efforts to fight gangs will fail if our state government does not do its job in the area of criminal justice, he said.

Schmidt, who implemented the Motor-Voter Law to boost voter registration, cited the ability of gang leaders to continue operation from within prisons and the lack of restrictions on recently released leaders, as the major problems.

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What we need to is to isolate gang leaders within our prisons, deny them access to the general prison population and deny them access to the outside world; including visitors and telephonic contact, except for the constitutional minimum of access to an attorney, he said.

Schmidt said the additional officers would help restrict the activities of gang leaders through curfews, geographic restrictions and restrictions with whom the leaders associate.

He estimated the 200 new officers would cost $10 million per year.

I believe in a $35 billion dollar-a-year budget, we can afford $10 million dollars a year for something that will have an impact on violence, Schmidt said.

He said 200 officers would be sufficient to have an influence throughout the state because the new officers will focus on gang activities.

It would be nice to have 1,000, but 200 is enough, he said.

Brenda Weist, a graduate student in political science who attended the speech, said she thinks gangs are an important issue to discuss.

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Gangs are moving, people are nervous, they are afraid and that’s wrong. People shouldn’t be afraid, they shouldn’t have to live like that, she said. I think somebody needs to come into Illinois and do something about gang activity, crime and violence.