News-Record.com

The best antidote to gangs isn't basketball programs, it's functional families. The void that gangs fill isn't created by the lack of basketball leagues, mentoring programs, or churches, although those things may fill the void. The void itself, however, begins at home.

Brian 444, I say you hit the target
If Greensboro like ever place else, and it is, you talk a subject to death. Do something! The life you save may be mine!

So, Brian, how do you address the issues of strong families in a practical sense?
What would you do to make that happen?

I see the headlines in the Danville paper this morning is gangs taking over. Of course the police denied it. I doubt that a basketball program going to stop, gangs with roots from LA.

Brian444 is 100% right - the roots of the gang problem are broken, dysfunctional families. All the basketball leagues and mentoring programs in the world won't work until parents step up and take responsibility.

And Allen, I'd disagree that locking criminals up isn't a good solution to crime. It's no coincidence that crime rates decreased considerably during the 1990s while incarceration rates grew. Criminals couldn't commit crimes because they were locked away.

Obviously, it's better if young people never choose to commit violent crimes. But if they do, the system has an obligation to protect the innocent, law-abiding citizens and lock these thugs away.

There's no doubt that enforcement is important, but if you read any of the reputable studies on the gang problem, they will say that enforcement alone makes the situation worse.
Enforcement plus intervention and prevention are the best route.
But you don't have to believe me; ask the gang experts in the Greensboro Police Department.

"enforcement alone makes the situation worse"

How on earth is that possible? There's no way on earth that locking away violent criminals could be a bad thing. The problem, as I see it, is that we don't lock them up for long enough.

Prevention may help, but enforcement is the key here. And again, no community program can take the place of caring, involved parents.

I doubt that there's a politically viable solution to the breakdown of families, but reducing entitlements in welfare, housing, and food stamps when children are born out of wedlock is an option. This would be viewed, correctly at some level, as "punishing the children," but some punishment is probably needed if a change is to occur. Alternatively, increasing the benefits to two-parent households (through tax credits, e.g.) could work. But ultimately, I don't see much future for either, because both favor the "traditional home" over the "non-traditional home" in ways that won't fly in the contemporary political climate. Finding ways to incentivize certain family structures and disincentivizing others isn't really that hard, but the political will to do so is lacking.

As is the cultural will. When single motherhood is no longer stigmatized--when, in some communities, it's the norm rather than the exception--there's not a whole lot the government can do.

That's unfortunate, since the nuclear family is the single best institution for negotiating the pressures of modernity.

Gang experts say gang members become hardened and better trained in prison, which has a gang culture of its own.
Eventually, they do get out, and often pose an even greater danger to society.

It should also be noted that many of today's local gang members are second (maybe 3rd?) generation whose parents raised them to become gang members. It's the only life they know. Greensboro, like so many other cities is now suffering from over 30 years of denial in which the gangs managed to become very rooted into certain elements of society.

Law enforcement without social programs is blind; social programs without law enforcement are lame. Greensboro needs to double the size of the GPD and vastly expand social programs.

One needs to remember that going to prison is a badge of honor for gangsta's and that children raised to become gangsta's know no other way. Over 30 years of lazy, greedy and ineffective government is the reason Greensboro has a gang problem and only when government gets its act together will anything improve.

And please allow me to remind everyone reading this that at the very moment I'm typing this comment the local Bloods clic is meeting less than 100 feet from where I'm currently sitting.

I work in the vicinity of the new Wal-Mart & Lowe's (old Carolina Circle Mall location) and we are hearing a rumor that a gang has issued a threat: one of its members will kill someone in broad daylight at this Wal-Mart or Lowe's by the end of the year ... I know how rumors work and this may be nothing ... on the other hand, I shop at both these stores very frequently and now I am wondering whether to go or stay away. I'll copy the G'Boro Police Dept on this just in case.

Hello everybody,
I'm new! Any news?

Yo u kno we be repprin dat RTF 38 > 4 point all day str8 outta da bean town folk down u kno wat it is....
fuck all yall tryina stop gangs u aint kno shit bout wat it is so stop playin yaself

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