Sue gangs? Host meetings? Why not?

With fanfare last week, Kane County State's Attorney John Barsanti said he was suing 81 Latin Kings gang members who live in the Kane County part of Elgin.

Gang members were served summons to appear for a civil suit. The idea is to sue and seek an injunction banning them from having contact with each other. If they are then discovered congregating or communicating, they can be arrested. And that arrest, according to the plan, could lead to other charges or to information that would help fight gangs.

A novel approach? Certainly. A rare one? Yes. Unheard of? No.

As Daily Herald staff writers Susan Sarkauskas and Harry Hitzeman reported, DuPage County State's Attorney Joseph Birkett has sued gangs four times. So has the Boone County state's attorney. Birkett went after gangs in Addison, Glendale Heights and West Chicago. The approach is allowed under a 1993 state law giving authorities the ability to use civil suits against gangs.

Does this violate citizens' constitutional right to associate with whomever they want? After some challenges, a 2004 ruling by a DuPage County judge did find 19 gang members could no longer meet together. Similar tactics have succeeded in California and Texas.

While we do not condone chipping away at anyone's rights, we applaud this innovative effort to go after thugs who wreak terror in our towns.

The very fact that law enforcement could identify more than 80 gang members only on the Kane County side of Elgin alone ought to give us all a sense of the scope of the problem and of the reach of those committing violence and selling drugs around us.

Both Barsanti and Birkett, soon to be judges themselves, acknowledge civil suits are no panacea. "This just gives us another method of attack," Barsanti said. Earlier this year, Birkett said, "I know we're not going to be able to stop all the gang activity in this county ... we're not going to wait until someone else gets shot, robbed or another kid dies of an overdose from drugs peddled by a gang."

That. too, might have been Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis' thinking when he convened a controversial meeting with gang chiefs a few weeks ago. Weis has been widely criticized by some in his ranks and other politicians for talking with what some dubbed "urban terrorists." Weis said he threatened to charge gang members with racketeering and put them on notice the battle against them was intensifying. In Chicago, four police officers are among those killed this year. The Associated Press reported that meetings like the one Weis conducted have helped a bit in dozens of cities, like Boston, where gang members also were given information about jobs.

These attempts at stemming the scourge gangs create deserves a chance at success.