Lauren Leung
The
country has fought for decades to stop gang violence. We have tried many
methods to stop it. In some places, gang-related crime rates have dropped after
the government introduced some methods to address gang violence. However, is gang
violence actually disappearing in the country? The answer is, no. Gangs still
exist and gang violence still exist. We can only reduce the gang violence. We
cannot stop gang violence because all methods to address gang violence have
their weaknesses which cannot solve the problem completely.
Even
though problem-oriented policing can reduce gang violence, it cannot make sure
the gangs are going to stop. In the book Don’t
Shoot, by David Kennedy, who uses problem-oriented policing as a base and
promotes the project “Operation Ceasefire” to fix the trouble communities, shares
his journey about stopping gang violence. According to Kennedy,
problem-oriented policing is basically solving problems by “picking a problem,
researching it, finding partners, and figuring out a way to fix it” (31).
Writing about the success of problem-oriented policing, Kennedy proves that
Operation Ceasefire works as a method to reduce gang violence. For example, he
promotes Operation Ceasefire High Point, a place that is suffering from serious
gang problem. After Kennedy’s team had worked on it, Kennedy states that,
“there hasn’t been a homicide, a shooting, or a reported rape in the West End
since May 18, 2004. It’s been six and a half years, as I write this. The
community has its streets back. People started going outside, using the parks,
fixing up their houses” (183). Kennedy believes that problem-oriented policing
is really useful to stop gang violence. It can completely break down the gang
and give the streets back to the community. However, determining whether problem-oriented
policing works or not, it is really based on the gangs themselves. Therefore,
if the gangs are not willing to compromise, problem-oriented policing will not
work. The people who work with problem-oriented policing do not recommend using
law enforcement to lock people up. They believe solving the root causes of the
problem is the only way to stop gang violence. Kennedy states that “there was
no conceivable way to do so with ordinary law enforcement, no way to crack the
one-in-fifteen-thousand program. But it could be done another way: get a drug
case ready to go, and then don’t arrest the dealer. Tell him that if he starts
selling again the case would be activated and he’d be picked up, without any
new investigation or a single bit of new evidence.” (160) Kennedy tells the
police not to arrest the drug dealers even if they have all the evidences which
prove they are breaking the law. He believes that gang members will listen and
make the right choices to stop making mistakes. Thus, the choices are on the
gang members’ hands; they can pick to continue what they are doing and take the
risk to be sent to the jail or get off from the streets. However, sometimes to
stop or not to stop may not be the gang members’ choice. In
The Dream Shattered, Patrick Du Phuoc
Long, who is a Vietnamese counselor trying to help the Indochinese youths,
discusses the reasons of Indochinese children staying in gangs. Long explains
that in the gangs, there are the people called “Big Brother” who control the
younger members. He states that “the Big Brother’s
greatest skill lies in his ability to create a fanatical loyalty in the younger
members who come under his spell. As he initiates his young charges into the
world of crime, the Big Brother orders them to deny any knowledge of him in the
event that the group is caught engaged in criminal activity” (107). According
to the “Big Brother rule”, the younger gang members are always those who are
committing crimes on the streets for the Big Brother. They are loyal to the Big
Brother; hence, they think that it is a glory to do something for the Big
Brother. They have no choice but continue committing crimes and drugs dealing. Even
if the younger gang members are arrested, there are other gang members to do
their jobs. As a result, we can never stop gang violence with this. It is clear
that problem-oriented policing do not work everywhere and there’s no way to
make sure if it will work because it’s based on the gang members.
Besides
problem-oriented policing, the court uses gang injunctions to stop gang
violence. Even though gang injunctions can stop gangs from hanging out in the
public, they do not help the gang members to get a new life. So they will find
other ways, which can be illegal, to live their life. Gang injunctions are
court orders restricting targeted gang members’ activities to avoid their
chances involving in gang-related crimes. In the article “Oakland’s Gang
Injunction Is a Chance to Save Lives”, the authors, John Russo and Anthony
Batts explains that gang injunctions are effective because “it would prevent
them from hanging out together in public and from being on the street between
10 p.m. and 5 p.m. When members of the gang are caught committing crimes they
are often together, and it is often during late night hours” (1). Russo and
Batts believe that the gang members are all forced to stay home and there will
be no more gang violence; this is only possible for a small group of gangs.
However, in this modern society, the gang members can still keep in touch with
the gangs even if they are restricted to stay out of the street. For example,
online network is a really good source to keep in touch with gang-related
crimes. In the article “The War on Gangs”, the author Alex Kingsbury states
that “wherever they
operate, gangs are increasingly turning to computers and the Internet. Often
behind password-protected sites, they post photo-graphs of their own gang signs,
colors, and tattoos. Police even report that some gangs are using their
websites to take positions on local political issues” (n.pag.). Kingsbury explains how the gang members can still
involve in gangs. Therefore, gang injunctions can only get the gang members
“out of the streets” but do not truly get them out of the gang. Moreover, the
targeted gang members’ activities are restricted but with the online network,
they can get new members to commit crimes for them. The gang injunctions do not
solve the root causes and stop the gangs from reforming. On the other hand, there is an “opt-out” system that can let the
targeted gang members who have turned their life around to get removed from the
injunction list. However, the procedures are very complicated which they may
have to be restricted for their whole life. In the article, “No Way Out: An Analysis of Exit Process of GangInjunctions”, from California Law Review,
the author Lindsay Crawford investigates the process of “opt-out”. Crawford
states that “community
members and local leaders inquired further, asking whether former gang members
had any success removing their names from injunctions. The answer was
startling: in the entire history of the Los Angeles experience with civil gang
injunctions, no gang member had ever successfully removed his or her name from
an injunction” (162). Crawford explains that only Los Angeles and San Francisco
provide an unofficial way to get removed from the list. In other words, for
most of the places that only provide the official “opt-out”, the gang members
are not going to be removed even they have turned their life around already. In
the article “Gang Injunctions: Fact Sheet from the ACLU of Northern
California”, ACLU claims that since there are no way for the gang members to
get back to the normal life without being labeled as gang members, “the
injunction could follow them the rest of their life, which can make it more
difficult to avoid gang activity.” (1) ACLU believes that the government is
giving no way out for the gang members are just going to push them back to the
street life or in another form to be in gangs. The gang members need to make
money for life; therefore, being in gangs and committing crimes may be the only
way that they can live their life. Therefore, instead of forcing the gang
members out from the street, the government should solve the root causes which
truly get them out of the gangs.
In the meantime, to solve the root
causes of gang violence, the government provides other methods. Even though
social services can help the gang members with job and education
opportunities, not all the gang members who wanted to turn their life around
can receive help. Writing about the success of social services, ACLU states
that “Los Angeles has numerous gang injunctions – more than any other city, yet
lost more than 10,000 youth to gang violence in the last 20 years. New York is
a major city with the potential for serious gang problems, yet in 2005 Los
Angeles had more than 11,000 gang-related crimes, while New York faced 520.
What has been shown to work at reducing violence and gang activity is funding
social services” (1). ACLU provides the data that New York, where works on
funding social service rather than gang injunctions, is being more successful
than Los Angeles in reducing gang violence. When the gang members get jobs,
they don’t have to stay on the street all the time; they can actually get out
of the gangs. However, not every single gang members can receive help from the
social services. For example, “call-in” is one of the programs that gather the
gang members in a room and notice them they can provide job and education
opportunities. Kennedy also participates in setting up a call-in. The Operation
Ceasefire team sends letters to the gang members to invite them to the call-in;
however, he states that “we didn’t know if anybody would show up. Probationers
and parolees ignore their terms and conditions all the time and hardly anything
ever happens to them.”(63) The team’s jobs are just sending out letters and
wait for gang members to come to the meeting; hence, there is a possibility
that no one will show up. They are at a passive position where not all the gang
members can receive the messages to stop gang violence and receive help. In
addition, Ali Winston, the author of “Proposed Oakland Gang Injunctions May
Complicate Anti-Gang Efforts”, states that “City documents indicate call-ins
have suffered from a perception that the program is a set-up to being put on an
injunction list” (1). Winston explains gang members may not show up to the
call-in because they are scared that it is a set up; in other words, the gang
members think that if they show up to the call-in, it means that they admit
they are gang members and get arrested. As a result, gang violence cannot be
stop because the gang members do not trust the government is actually being
here to help; the gang members are just going to stay in where they are and
keep involving in gang violence.
Last, prevention
program can prevent future gang members from forming; even though prevention
programs can prevent kids from joining gangs, it takes too long that the
current problems are not solved. Long
interviews one of the Indochinese high school students observes that “we have
been treated like outsiders. We haven’t been accepted by the American culture.
Gangs allow us to identify with something” (qtd. in Long 100). According to the
high school student, providing more care and help to the students to stay in
school is necessary. The government should fix the education system and put the
students into the class level which is suitable for them. School should work on
accepting the students who are the minority groups; therefore, they are not
going to drop out of school due to the failure in classes and losing connection
to the school. However, discussing the effectiveness of prevention program in
education, Kennedy states that “let’s say it’ll take fifteen years to
completely retool the public schools so they work for the most disadvantaged
kids in our most disadvantaged communities: wildly optimistic, but let’s say.
Let’s say it’ll take another fifteen years to get the first wave of kids
through the new schools so they hit their years of peak risk immunized to the
violence. That means we live with all this for another three decades. At best” (212).
Kennedy explains that to fix the education system is going to take too long
that we should work on solving the current gang violence problem. Taking
fifteen years to stop the gang violence is not worthy; instead, using the other
methods to stop the current gang violence is even better. Meanwhile, there are
afterschool program to keep the kids out of gangs. However, in
Always Running, Luis J. Rodriguez,
who was a former gangster in L.A., claims that it’s not as
easy to get out of the gang because of peer pressure; he states that “I thought
about the globe. Chente was right. A bigger world awaited me. But I also knew:
Once you’re in Las Lomas, you never get out – unless you’re dead.” (236) Chente,
who is the “teacher” among the Mexican study group, tries to get Rodriguez out
of the gang. Rodriguez knows that he should live a normal life but his friends
are all in gangs, thus he can’t leave the gang or he is betraying his friends.
In other words, even though there are prevention program for the students,
other than the problem – it takes too long to see the result, it also base on
the kids’ choices.
The
government is thinking as many methods as they could think of to stop the gang
violence; however, there isn’t a perfect method which can stop gang violence
completely. Gangs are still going to exist in the community. We have to live
with the gangs. Nevertheless, reducing the gang violence to a point where we
can live comfortable with it is possible. We have to work with the government,
trusting the government to help fighting with gang violence. Consequently, it
is not going to be a problem that threatening our safety in the community.
Works Cited
Kennedy,
David M. Don’t Shoot. One Man, A Street
Fellowship, and The End of Violence in
Inner-City
America.
New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2011. Print.
Kingsbury,
Alex. “The War on Gangs.” U.S. News & World Report 145. 13 (2008): 33-36.
EBSCOhost.
Web. 1 Dec. 2012.
Long, Patrick D. The Dream Shattered: Vietnamese Gangs in America. Boston:
Northeastern University Press, 1997. Print.
Rodriguez, Luis J. Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in
L.A. New York:
Touchstone books, 2005. Print.
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