RALEIGH — Disappointed at the lack of anti-gang-violence legislation coming out of the 2007 General Assembly, a group of North Carolina mayors has formed a workgroup to put pressure on lawmakers to enact the legislation when they return to Raleigh next spring.

“We’ve got some work to do to help some legislators understand how important this is,” said Beau Mills, director of the N.C. Metropolitan Coalition, which is made up of nearly two dozen of the state’s largest cities.

Burlington Mayor Steve Ross, Durham Mayor Bill Bell and Salisbury Mayor Susan Kluttz will lead the effort for the legislation.

The House, in the waning days of the 2007 session, approved the bill by a 109-4 vote. However, the bill was not taken up by the Senate. It now rests in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Ross said the coalition’s No. 1 priority in the 2008 short session, which begins in May, will be to get the anti-gang violence legislation enacted into law. He said that senators could expect pressure from folks back home to approve the legislation.

“We’ll swarm the Legislature and let them know how important this is,” Ross said. “We’re going to try to put together some of the caravans and have people go to Raleigh in large numbers.”

Ross said the details have yet to be worked out. However, he envisions members of chambers of commerce from around the state lobbying for the bill.

The mayors will work with police chiefs, the sheriff’s association, the N.C. League of Municipalities and the N.C. Association of County Commissioners to rally support, Ross said.

The legislation would toughen penalties for gang criminal activity and allow police to target gang leaders.

In addition, it would create penalties for someone who recruits gang members, along with making it a crime to intimidate someone who wants to leave a gang or the gang member’s family.

It increases penalties for drive-by shootings and would allow police to declare property used by gangs a public nuisance.

The legislation comes with a price tag. Legislative fiscal analysts estimate that the tougher penalties would create a need to house 385 more inmates in North Carolina’s prisons. That would cost $26.2 million to build.

In addition, it would cost between $5 million and $11.9 million a year to house those prisoners over the next five years.

Sarah Preston, legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina said that if that kind of money is going to be put into fighting gang violence, it ought to be invested in preventative measures instead of prisons.

“It’s not that we don’t think gangs are a problem; they are,” Preston said. “It’s just that we don’t think that this is the way to deal with them.”

She said the ACLU has other problems with the legislation.

“It allows law enforcement to determine that someone is a gang member based on an identifiable sign or symbol or a common name, like the Bloods or the Crips,” Preston said. “We’re concerned that it’s going to make people guilty by association.”

Preston said that the ACLU is also concerned that it could spur racial profiling.

“They tend to target minority youths,” she said. “If that’s what they’re looking for, that’s what they’ll get.”

Mills said that people who aren’t doing anything illegal should have nothing to worry about.

“You have to be committing a crime for the gang legislation to apply to you,” he said.

Ross said he doesn’t think racial profiling will occur because of the legislation.

“Gang activity is gang activity,” Ross said. “It crosses barriers. I don’t think there is any racial set that is more involved in gangs than another. We have white kids in gangs, African-American kids in gangs, mixed gangs.”

Barry Smith writes for Freedom Communications Inc.’s Raleigh bureau. He can be reached at bsmith@link.freedom.com