Gang Violence - MiniBlog

Despite what appears to be a lull in activity on the blog, writing continues. We are in the process of migrating everything over into mini-blogs to better cover a wider range of topics and interests. Check out the full Gang Violence Mini-Blog - we'll be improving upon it as we move along, expect to see more like this very shortly!

Gang Violence:


Size: According to the FBI, gang population was estimated to be up by 200,000 in January of 2009 from 2005. That brings estimates up to about 900,000 gang members with about 147,000 more in prison or jail. Bear in mind that the prison population in the United States in 2008 reached over 2.3 million with another 1.5 million under some form of state or federal jurisdiction or supervisory program. Per the National Drug Intelligence Center, "Gangs are present in every state and U.S. territory and some particularly violent urban gangs have expanded from inner cities to suburban and some rural areas. Gangs increasingly represent a threat to many smaller communities, and they control most retail-level drug distribution nationally. Gangs are also increasing their involvement in wholesale-level drug distribution."

Scope: In another report, "As of 1995, gang problems had been reported for all 50 States and the District of Columbia, for about 700 counties, and for about 1,500 cities and towns... States accounting for 100 percent of the population of the United States, cities and towns accounting for 50 percent of the total municipal population, and counties accounting for almost 80 percent of the all-county population reported the existence of youth gang problems." Gang activity can take place anywhere and everywhere - and that's based upon a 1995 report. Today, with the ongoing financial crisis in the United States and around the world, government budget cuts are forcing early releases of thousands of criminals. Federal courts in 2009 have mandated for California to reduce its prison population by 36,000 to 57,000 inmates over the next two to three years.

Solutions? Obviously, there is no single miracle solution for fighting gang violence; there are numerous root causes to tackle. Root causes can only be addressed at the family and community levels. There are eight basic layers of response:

1. Parents
2. Teachers
3. Neighborhoods
4. School Systems
5. Police
6. Courts
7. Prison
8. Government

The higher up this chain you have to go, the less effective the problem solving is - as it turns more and more from prevention to response and punishment. Quite obviously, *overall* none of these are working very well - not to say they are not trying. Everyone has their own pressures from work to paying the bills - life is getting harder for everyone. Families need to work together, develop buddy systems, communicate more and perhaps stop minding their own business a little less. It is one thing if one parent chastises a kid for spraypainting a wall, but when everyone is on the watch and children know they are being watched, and that their parents will be told - they will think twice.

When the next round of budget cuts starts hitting the ranks of the police and law enforcement, the matter will get worse. This is inevitable - 41 of 50 states are having budget problems in 2009 and anticipate it to continue well into 2010. Fifteen of these states have budget deficits in excess of 18% of their annual tax revenues. Consequently, local communities will by necessity need to step up to confront the presence of gangs or face even greater risks to safety and security. Communities which develop aggressive neighborhood watch programs that work together with local police are effective. There was an incident in which a store clerk was shot and those within the store simply continued to shop. Only one person called 911. If someone believes they can get away with anything, the odds are higher they will try to get away with anything. That's really what it comes down to.

One or two people trying to do this all on their own makes them vulnerable. Get the whole community involved - and it is the gang members, their methods of operation, and their entire organizational basis that becomes vulnerable. We can actually kind of take a look at foreign policy - if a country is unwilling or unable to police themselves, it increases the odds another country will step into police things. That's not very effective either, but when you start getting multiple communities communicating and working together to solve problems, things will change. This is what needs to be done. Community organization.