Los Angeles has declared war on street gangs and Los Angeles defense attorneys are protesting what they see as overzealous prosecutions that seek enhanced jail time for suspects swept up by police for nonviolent crime.

Cases that might have been charged as misdemeanors are being filed as felonies with enhancements that increase penalties and put bail out of reach, defense lawyers say.

In some cases, judges have agreed, rebuking prosecutors by throwing out excessive charges against alleged gang members.

Some defense attorneys are claiming to see a lot of aggressive prosecutions for relatively minor crimes such as vandalism and petty theft because the suspect is an alleged gang member.

Anecdotally, there do appear to be more cases with gang enhancements landing on the desks of public defenders, but that might be a function of hundreds of additional gang members being arrested in the crackdown.

Prosecutors say they are not handling gang cases any differently, but are simply enforcing existing laws that recognize the sinister grip that gang crime can have on a community.

Lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California say they are watching with interest.

The LA Police Chief recently announced a crackdown on gangs in response to a 15.7% increase in gang crime last year in Los Angeles. Fifty-six percent of the 478 homicides in 2006 were gang-related.

Since then, gang enforcement officers have made more than 800 arrests, including 392 members of 11 gangs identified by the chief as the worst in the city.

However, many of those arrests have been for nonviolent crimes, including probation violation, drug possession, curfew violation and vandalism.

By using laws that allow longer jail and prison sentences if nonviolent crimes are committed to benefit a gang, police and prosecutors are keeping alleged gang members off the streets longer.

It appears to many observers that police put youths’ names into a gang database just because they dress in baggy pants and were seen talking to an alleged gang member, though the police say additional corroboration is required.