Gang editorial update
Here's more on a gang editorial in the works for Sunday's paper:
I've had a look at a summary of the "Gang Wars" report from the Justice Policy Institute in Washington.
Among its findings:
--That placing gang members in jail may not curb gang behavior and may in fact reinforce it.
-- That a number of programs across the country have proven effective in addressing youth crime and violence.
-- That President Bush's proposed funding cuts in juvenile justice programs, including the planned shutdown of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, will hurt efforts to combat the gang problem.
--That education is a "protective factor" against youth crime.
A critic of the report, Wes McBride, director of the California Gang Investigators Association, said the report was written by "thug-huggers."
"Are they saying we can't put a thief in jail, we can't put a murderer in jail?" McBride said. "That we should spank them, put a diaper on them, pat them on the bottom, hug them and let them go?'
The Justice Policy Institute, for the record, does as its core mission advocate alternatives to incarceration.
Comments (2)
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One larger issue I am unsure about, Allen, is to what extent gang-specific measures are necessary. If a local police department is effective overall in preventing crime, and does all the things it needs to do to bring area-wide crime levels down, will this not, almost by default, assist with the gang problem?
I think the premise that it is possible to have lower incarceration rates is true. But it seems it should be possible to achieve this by reducing background crime levels dramatically.
Posted on July 19, 2007 8:41 PM
Allen:
The focus on youths is understandable but partly misplaced. One of the toughest dimensions of the gang problem over the last 15-20 years has been the growth of "corporate" gangs--gangs that focus on the illegal generation of money. The corporate focus has led to young adults making a career out of gang activity, instead of growing out of the gangs. Youths remain the foot soldiers in these organizations, but increasingly the leadership is comprised of adults. In this sense, the gangs take on more of the characteristics of previous Mafia organizations.
Sudhir Venkatesh has an excellent description of these trends for Chicago gangs in his recent books, American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto and Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor.
Posted on July 20, 2007 1:09 AM