Cyber Cafe Keeping Kids Out of Trouble in Easton Cyber Cafe Keeping Kids Out of Trouble in Cyber Cafe Keeping kids from the net of gangs. One Easton program is using the internet to do just that. http://wfmz.com/view/?id=247163




  Reporter: 12-year-old Dejour Day checks his "Myspace" page. Something he can't do at home because he doesn't have a computer and something he can't do at school because "Myspace" is not allowed. So instead he comes to Easton's Evangelical Church.
 Dejour: You don't have to pay, just sign up and come here.
Reporter: From 4 to 7 every Monday and Thursday afternoon, the church's basement becomes The Cyber Cafe. Where surfing the net is encouraged. hantel Keeps kids off the streets and have fun.
Reporter: The cyber cafe is part of Easton's Weed and Seed program. Coordinator Paul Barber has seen cafe grow from a few kids several years ago to now having up to 25 web browsers a session. Paul Gives kids a safe place to go to get off the streets.
Reporter The cafe is also a place where kids can. Paul Sometimes do homework, not often but we're here in case they do.
Reporter: The cafe is a teaching tool. Here Shantel is giving tech tips to Day. Which Barber says is a significant social step for many of the kids.
Bo: Hopes are to expand the cyber cafe to include local businessmen and women, who will teach tech skills, developing a business plan and one day landing a job. Reporter: 21'st century technology to battle the century old problem of gangs. At least the internet has "Myspace." Bo Koltnow 69 News.



In a Gangster's Paradise How they're banging in the 'burbs http://www.nea.org/neatoday/0804/feature1.html

You may not think you have gang members in your school. You may think that your students aren't those kinds of kids. Maybe you think they're too rich, too suburban, too smart, or too White.

Think again.

"If you don't think you have a gang problem, you're in the wrong business," says Detective Javier Castellanos, a New Jersey gang specialist, in a recent training for school staff in northern New Jersey.

"You do," he adds firmly.

"We know it!" says a voice from the back.

For decades, gang membership in America has been stretching out from the inner cities of Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, into such places as small town Wisconsin. Past the gates in South Florida's cul-de-sac communities, into the big houses of Washington, D.C.'s, suburbs, even down the street from the Billy Graham Center in the most churched-up town in this country, you will find boys and girls in gangs. And that means you'll find them in your schools, too.