In recent years, Sacramento Police Capt. Darrell Fong has observed a troubling trend: The gangs of Sacramento are getting younger.

As a gang detective in the 1980s, Fong said, he mostly encountered gang members in their later teen years and early 20s. These days, his detectives are finding more gang members who started, or are starting, their thug lives in middle and elementary schools.

Dawayne Douglas said he joined a gang when he was 14 and left at 18.

"I see a lot more now, and it's getting worse," said Douglas, now 19.

Of more than 4,000 validated gang members tracked by the city Police Department, about 25 percent are under 18, which means they're defined legally as juveniles. Two decades ago, that number was about 10 percent, Fong said.

At 16 or 17, many are already hard-core gang members, Gang Suppression Unit Sgt. D.T. Martin said.

"We are saying, 'OK, at what point did they get influenced by gangs, and at what point did they join the gangs?' " Martin said.

Law enforcement and school officials said they began noticing the trend about four years ago when they started assigning officers to middle schools. Sacramento's high schools already had resource officers.

Their presence in middle schools and frequent contact with children contributed to "outing" many gang members.

Elementary teachers and administrators are becoming more aware of students' involvement in gang activities and are turning to a gang violence suppression team established by a grant in the 1990s, authorities said.

Tracey Lopez of Sacramento City Unified School District, who supervises the team, said more educators are asking the team to intervene before an elementary or middle school student is validated as a gang member.

Last summer, the team talked to an 11-year-old boy claiming to be a Sureño gang member and to his mother, Lopez said. He was displaying gang signs, wearing gang clothing and colors and displaying a lot of knowledge about the gang, Lopez said. The team referred him and his mother to a counseling agency.

Some of the kids too young to decide

On average, about half of the 50 to 60 gang-validation reports that Sacramento police clerk Natalie Smith processes each month concern gang members who are 13 to 17 years old, she said.

Smith sends letters to parents outlining the criteria that validate the children as gang members and suggesting corrective measures and counseling resources.

Authorities say they are reluctant to validate young children as gang members because they may be too young to know what they are doing.

"I don't know if the young ones – the fourth-, fifth-, sixth-graders – have the skill sets to make informed choices," Lopez said.

She said she does not believe there is a simple explanation of why gangs are attracting younger members. But law enforcement officials list the lure of easy money, intimidation by gangs in their neighborhoods, glorification of the gang lifestyle and fashion in the media, and the breakdown of the family structure.

"We see a lot of broken homes among gang members," said Marc Marquez, a Sacramento County senior deputy probation officer who supervises 30 gang members ages 15 to 19 who are on probation.

"They call the gang their family," said Marquez, who also serves on the gang violence suppression team.

Sacramento Police Detective and team member Michelle Perez, said the youths seek respect, fun and camaraderie in gangs.

"They feel the streets can protect them more than their family," said Douglas, the former gang member, who said he was first arrested at age 11 for fighting in school.

Some teen members get out early

Douglas, who is on probation for grand theft, said he realizes his mistakes and wants to be a good example to his younger brothers and the fifth- to eighth-graders he coaches on the South Sacramento Vikings football team.

Shuntae Campbell, 18, also left the gang lifestyle and is trying to dissuade others.

At 10, Campbell said, he already considered himself a Blood gang member. No one asked or forced him to join.

"I kind of grew into it," said Campbell, now an organizer for Sacramento Area Congregations Together, which supported the failed effort in Sacramento County and city to increase sales tax to combat gang violence.

Gang bangers and drug dealers populated the corners of Campbell's Meadowview neighborhood in south Sacramento. Peers started aligning themselves with the gang. His mother, a single parent of four, was away working, at times at two jobs.

Being in a gang made him feel well-respected and popular, he said. When he was 16, he realized that fellow gang members weren't going to protect him, like they had promised. He got out.

Some gangs run three generations

Kevin Adamson, a Sacramento defense lawyer who has represented juvenile gang members, said he does not think the problem is prevalent among 11- to 13-year-olds.

"The potential is certainly there, and fascination can start around that age, but we don't often see actual gang members in the courts at that age," he said.

But Juaquin Fabela, a gang counselor at the nonprofit Another Choice, Another Chance, sees a need for "a positive environment with role models and father figures" for kids as young as 6.

Some gangs run three generations deep, detectives say, which means youths are growing up in a gang-steeped culture.

Children are exposed to gangs even before elementary school, Sacramento gang detective John Sample said. "It's condoned by the parents and the family they've been born into," he said.

Mike Say, who was arrested July 24 for allegedly violating his probation, said he has family members involved in gangs. Say, now 19, said he was pressured to join a gang since he was 14. At 17, he finally gave in after his parents were arrested.

"I had no place to go," Say said.

Call The Bee's Chelsea Phua, (916) 321-1132. Bee researcher Sheila A. Kern contributed to this report.