Reporting from Sacramento - A key strategy in Los Angeles' battle against street gangs - the use of court injunctions - has come under attack by state lawmakers who are moving to strictly limit it.

The state Senate has approved a measure that would allow suspected gang members who do not commit a crime for five years to be automatically removed from civil injunctions unless prosecutors can show they remain a public threat.

The injunctions, which cover 66 gangs and more than 11,000 people in Los Angeles, allow tough penalties if those named are found loitering together, wearing gang attire, flashing gang signs, possessing alcohol, acting in an intimidating manner or possessing spray-paint cans of the type used in graffiti.

"We are not taking away a tool. We are just saying it needs to be used carefully," said state Sen. Roderick Wright (D-Inglewood). "Right now you have no limit at all. You have people who have been under injunctions for 20 years. There is no offramp."

Wright wrote the measure, which was approved over the objections of Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo and is under consideration by the state Assembly.

Wright said there are residents of city housing projects in Los Angeles who were included in injunctions because they live next to and associate with active gang members, even though they have never been convicted of a crime. An injunction, Wright said, has hampered the ability of some young men to get jobs, because it is discovered when employers conduct background checks.

The proposal has divided California lawmakers along party lines.

"I felt uncomfortable with the idea of automatically taking someone off the court order and requiring law enforcement to show why they should remain," said Sen. George Runner, a Republican from Lancaster. "I felt this was too much a burden for law enforcement."

Runner said he trusts prosecutors to make sure the gangs involved are those involved in felony crimes.

Removal from an injunction is so difficult that only one person has achieved it in Los Angeles.

That has frustrated David, a 26-year-old Los Angeles resident who spoke on condition that his full name not be used for fear of retaliation by authorities. He said he was served with an injunction in 2001 at a company where he worked, at a time when he associated with members of a neighborhood gang but was not a member himself.

Last arrested in 2002 on a gun charge, David said he has stopped associating with gang members and has not been convicted of a crime for seven years.

"I've been clean, working every day, earning a living for my son," David said. "I don't think it's fair that I am still in the injunction. It has kept me from getting a better job."

Statewide, there are more than 70 injunctions. Los Angeles has more than any other municipality in the nation. Delgadillo, who is stepping down as city attorney at the end of this month because of term limits, said the city's efforts to reduce gang violence would be undermined by the legislation. It "would inappropriately and broadly preempt local law enforcement," he said.

The number of estimated gang members in Los Angeles has dropped about 30% since 2001, when Delgadillo took office and greatly expanded the use of injunctions, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Gang crime is down 33.4% from seven years ago, the department said.

The measure is also opposed by the California District Attorneys Assn.

Some injunctions take two or more years of police and prosecutor work to show that named members are active in gangs and creating a nuisance, said Martin Vranicar Jr., the association's assistant chief executive.

"Those individuals would just have to wait them out and the nuisance would continue," Vranicar said.

Gang injunctions alone will not solve the gang problem, said Connie Rice, a civil rights attorney who was hired by the city of Los Angeles to evaluate its prevention programs. She cautioned against "blanket solutions" and said Wright's motives are good.

"The prosecutors are probably never going to go in and voluntarily lift" injunctions, she said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California considers the legislation a significant step in reforming a flawed process.

"One of the chief problems of gang injunctions is not just that it is a severe restriction on a person's daily activities but that the restriction goes on indefinitely," said Peter Bibring, an ACLU staff attorney.

"As a practical matter," he said, "these things are life sentences."