Gang issue demands two-pronged approach
Sunday's editorial.
A delegation of North Carolina mayors justifiably was miffed last year when it took its concerns about the rising tide of gang violence to Raleigh and couldn’t get one minute with Gov. Mike Easley.
That group, whose ranks included then-Greensboro Mayor Keith Holliday and current Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, the Republican candidate for governor, had seen enough graffiti-stained walls, tragic shootings and somber warnings from police to want to act then, before it was too late.
A similar contingent returned to Raleigh in late May to press efforts in the state Senate for effective anti-gang legislation. More rushed than reflective, the bill passed 47-0 and its supporters obviously meant well. But it too heavily favors enforcement over prevention.
A companion Senate bill, which also passed 47-0, would help, using local juvenile crime prevention councils to coordinate anti-gang activities. Even so, lawmakers can and should do more to pre-empt gang crime rather than merely react to it.
That’s not to suggest tougher enforcement isn’t needed. Greensboro police last week blamed gang activity as a factor in a 12 percent overall increase in violent crime in the city. And the Senate bill does get some things right.
It targets gang leaders and recruiters for stricter penalties.
It makes involvement in drive-by shootings and retaliation against someone who chooses to leave a gang a felony.
It empowers authorities to seize gang-owned property.
What the Senate bill does not do is consider such fundamental issues as where to put all the additional gang members and leaders arrested as a result of the stiffer penalties. If the bill became law, projections say, it would add roughly 180 inmates to the state’s already overcrowded prisons in its first year, as many as 370 in each subsequent year.
As significantly, the Senate bill eliminates a provision that would erase the gang records or reduce the sentences of youthful offenders who successfully walk away from gangs. Why strike an incentive not to return to gang life?
In the short run, say people who ought to know, an iron-gloved approach might feel good, but it ultimately wouldn’t do much good. That’s not the blathering of bleeding hearts, either. That’s what police say.
“Enforcement alone will not do the job,” Sgt. Mike Richey of the Greensboro Police Department said in 2007. “We can’t police ourselves out of this problem.”
“We want to save the young kids who haven’t really got into the gang yet,” Officer M.W. Caudle, a member of Greensboro’s Gang Enforcement Squad, said in May.
Fortunately, a similar bill in the House retains the allowance for former teen gang members to clear their criminal records. But in reconciling these bills, lawmakers need to listen more closely to the experts.
Attend any of the numerous gang forums in Greensboro and you’ll hear the same message time and again: If we don’t pair tough enforcement with hopeful alternatives to the gang life, we will fail.
A national study by the Washington-based Justice Policy Institute echoed that premise in 2007, concluding that a fatal flaw in many anti-gang initiatives is an imbalance between “suppression” and prevention. It cited as one example New York, which partners police with proven social programs, versus Los Angeles, which concentrates primarily on enforcement. In 2005, New York reported 520 gang-related incidents, Los Angeles, 11,402.
The experts say it, the numbers show it: Any serious attempt to craft a gang bill that works as well as it sounds needs substantive intervention and prevention components.
Comments (2)
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I agree that the Street Gang Suppression Act is a bad idea. We refer to it as the "Hip Hop Patriot Act" because it has the potential to subject youth who wear Hip Hop clothing to profiling.
Also, since the poster child for a "gang" member is not a middle class white "meth" gang but a young black male from the "hood," this bill affect the black community, disproportionately.
Do you really want your child's name put in the gang net data base just for having a tattoo?
Min. Paul Scott
Messianic Afrikan Nation
Durham NC
Posted on June 8, 2008 7:39 AM
(Florida also is addressing this issue, so it may be worth NC lawmakers' & law enforcement officials' time to contact some of the folks mentioned below to share ideas, info, etc.)
04/03/2008
Fla. AG unveils anti-gang plan
By Natalie Neysa Alund
The Bradenton Herald
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Gang intervention and prevention.
Regional joint law enforcement and community task forces.
Efforts to lower gang members' return to crime after being released from prison.
They are all part of a new strategy state officials plan use to fight gang growth across the state.
"They are tall orders," Attorney General Bill McCollum said as he offered the Bradenton Herald a preview of some of what will be in a report due out by the month's end.
Although there is no magic bullet, there is a strategy to tackle gangs, McCollum said while sitting in a conference room at the St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport Tuesday.
"This has to be community-driven with some direction from the state and we're gonna give it, but the community needs to take it and make it work," McCollum said.
Locally, Manatee County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Gary Combee greets the plan with open arms.
Combee, who heads the sheriff's gang suppression unit, said the sheriff's office and the Department of Law Enforcement have a joint anti-gang task force, but it's just for officers.
"We welcome the idea of community members getting involved," he said. "We need the community to take back their neighborhoods, because we can't do it alone."
Last year, McCollum initiated an executive group aimed at reducing gang growth.
Members include agency heads and representatives from agencies and organizations including the Department of Corrections, Department of Juvenile Justice, Department of Education and FDLE.
The group first met in August.
Soon after, authorities started hitting gangs hard in court, using racketeering laws to take them down.
Florida, over a 25-year-period, has the largest-growing number of gangs in the nation, said Emery Gainey, director of law enforcement relations with McCollum's office.
Statistics show Florida has about 1,000 gangs with an estimated 65,000 members, according to information from McCollum's office.
In Manatee County alone, there are 14 known gangs with an estimated 600 to 800 members.
Gang recruitment is on the rise, McCollum said, so prevention and intervention are crucial.
"There is no state repository of prevention programs that address at-risk youth," McCollum said. "We might have at-risk programs, but they have not been effective in preventing kids from entering gangs."
Juvenile Justice Secretary Frank Peterman Jr. said one area he plans to strengthen is his department's Faith Based Initiative, which ties churches or mosques into a network aimed at helping at-risk youth.
"We want to revive that area, to get the faith-based community to put together viable prevention programs," Peterman said. "Seeing life from a faith perspective, I know, could be a major shift for kids who are at risk in terms of going into gangs."
There is also a plan to get children involved more in after-school programs.
"They can focus on priorities including how to make it appear that it is not cool to be a gang member in your community," McCollum said.
Prisoner reentry is another focus.
Currently, there are 4,000 identified gang members in the system and 1,000 gang members on probation, said Florida Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger.
Although there are not statistics on gang member recidivism, of the 96,000 inmates in the system, there is an overall 42 percent recidivism rate.
But McCollum said Tuesday that many gang members do, in fact, return.
Walter McNeil, Florida Department of Corrections Secretary, emphasized the importance of rehabilitation.
"Many inmates gang-involved come to our institutions with gang affiliations and try to continue that," said McNeil, also a member of McCollum's executive working group. "The focus is try to identify gang members when they come in and then work with them to make sure there are interventions."
In addition to the report's anticipated completion this month, McCollum said he hopes state lawmakers will pass proposed anti-gang legislation by the end of the session, which concludes the first week in May.
The proposed legislation, recommended in late January by a statewide grand jury, would enhance laws targeting criminal street gangs and enhance the ability of prosecutors to seek racketeering charges against gang members.
It also includes enacting a "gang kingpin" statute designed to target gang leaders and remove them from gang organization to start dismantling gangs. That statute would make it a first-degree felony punishable by up to life in prison to initiate, organize, plan, finance, direct, manage or surprise gang-related activity.
Other provisions include outlawing ownership of bulletproof vests by felons and creating a registration requirement for convicted gang members.
Fighting gangs
An executive working group, instituted by Attorney General Bill McCollum, is working to reduce — and eventually stop — gang growth in Florida. The members include agency heads and representatives from these agencies and organizations:
— Department of Corrections
— Department of Juvenile Justice
— Department of Education
— Florida Department of Law Enforcement
— Department of Children and Families
—Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles
— Florida Sheriffs Association
— Florida Police Chiefs Association
— Office of Drug Control
— Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association
Posted on June 8, 2008 9:58 AM