Gangs

South Seattle Cop:

THE SELF HATE THEORY

Do the gangbangers or the young kids considering that lifestyle that I meet have latent self-esteem issues (perhaps “self-hate”), and a low self-value that contributes to a fatalistic mentality which allows rationalization of any act of brutality, and a desire to join a group that will reinforce to them that they have value (to the gang) and that they have achieved worthy accomplishments? Yes, many of them.

Is it THE key factor to address? No. But it’s a handy catchphrase/buzzword to throw out there in an election season.

Will focusing on that factor above all others produce any meaningful results? Absolutely not.

PREVENTION/INTERVENTION

It is true that by the time I enter the picture that their decision is made and there is just about no turning them around. While 99.9% may be an excessive figure, the idea being communicated is correct. Studies have shown that gang intervention programs are almost completely ineffective on kids who have already become members (Gangbangers, Loren W. Christensen).

Their views of such programs range from amusement to contempt, and generally only take part in them when there is reduced sentencing offered in exchange, or when it is a condition of parole/probation. Those very few gang members who truly leave that life behind (we are talking one-in-thousands) only seem to do so when they are looking at a long prison sentence on their next conviction or parole violation, they’ve been so badly permanently maimed they are no longer of use to the gang, or other reason that in the end is about self-interest and not redemption. Those who retire but don’t fall into these categories “retired” to McNeil Island, usually as a “3-striker”.

So I do agree there needs to be a more preventative focus in schools and neighborhoods.

Programs now tend to want to “identify at-risk youths” and apply special attentions there. Well, NEWSFLASH: by the time schools and social workers have identified a youth as “at-risk” for gang involvement the truth of the matter is that they are probably already too late.

Children start associating with and experimenting with the gang lifestyle long before counselors, teachers, social workers, etc…even family, spot the indicators. By the time the indicators are visible, it’s been going on for some time.

And unfortunately, one of the biggest enablers is not the slow reaction of education and social work professionals, but denial by the parents who refuse to see what’s right in front of them. But “intervention” with so-called “at-risk youths” will continue, as they have for years, to fail to produce any meaningful results. If we want children (flagged as at-risk or not) to be steered away from gangs then a prevention model, as opposed to an intervention model, it what is needed.

VIOLENCE AS A DISEASE?

Honestly, that’s a political statement, not a scientific one. Like it or not, Surgeon General is a politically appointed position, and the appointment does not by default mean that individual is the most qualified medical professional in all the land. While they may be competent in a particular field, it speaks more to their political connections that they were appointed and confirmed. There are mental health and medical professionals who disagree with this diagnosis.

Whether you agree with that or not, consider this: violence is not contagious. You can’t catch it like a cold. Don’t believe me? Try to tell Gandhi, the Dali Lama, or MLK that they can catch “violence” and it will make them do bad things to people. The danger in this idea is that it removes responsibility for the violence committed from the one who committed it.

For every ‘banger I meet on the street who justifies his/her acts of brutality against people and society in general with some sob story about a tough life growing up “in the hood”, there’s dozens of others who may be poor, may have one or no parents at home, and a myriad of other hardships, who still go to school, get good grades, and do not use their difficulties as an excuse to commit crime against their neighbors and neighborhoods (I can point to people in my own family as examples). It’s not that you can catch violence and become infected with it like the cold or the flu. It’s an individual choice. A choice individuals need to be held accountable for. For any hardship story you can find in the streets, I’ll find you a police officer on SPD who has a similar story, but still stayed out of trouble, stayed in school, and made something of themselves. Also, not to be uncompassionate, but frankly these are all 1st world complaints. If you’ve ever lived in a third world country you realize how trivial the excuses are that Americans have for why they can’t do something, or how the odds and “the system” are stacked against them.

So if violence is not an airborne contagion, does that mean more police officers is not the answer? No. Again, if you look at studies of what factor(s) has the biggest impact on community crime levels, it is the size and resources of the law enforcement agency(ies) involved that is the only constant factor.

But am I saying we need to deploy massive amounts of new officers in Seattle? Despite the fact that it would rocket me up the seniority chain, and open up untold new opportunities for promotions and favorable assignments, no. I am not suggesting that.

LOCK ‘EM UP

This is always a political hot-potato. It is divisive and polarizing. The side that believes in redemption/rehabilitation says you can’t lock them all up. For practical purposes this is true. If money were not an issue and we could build as many prisons as we want to, eventually crime would drop off to almost nothing, and the rate of prison growth would match the rate of population growth. The reason for this is that 15% of your criminals are responsible for 85% of your crime (this is a national average, in urban areas the 15% figure is sometimes higher). Since only a certain portion of your given population is criminally inclined, you can imprison your way out of crime, because the criminal element in your remaining population will not magically grow. You eventually run out of criminals except for the trickle of new ones added as the population overall grows.

However this will never happen because this means locking up 15% of your population, just to get rid of your serious repeat offenders. In the US today this would mean incarcerating 45-million people…roughly.

But you can’t ignore that one of the biggest down-trends in crime in recent history started when 3-strikes laws became common across the US about 20-25 years ago, and serious repeat offenders started getting sent away. And here locally up until recently we were one of the car-theft capitals of the US, until the auto-theft repeat offender program was started in King County and chronic auto thieves started getting tougher sentencing (because of the nature of auto theft and it’s relation to secondary crimes, this had an effect on almost all categories of crime).

Detractors often like to use drug crimes as an example of why this is an overly heavy-handed approach. They catch-phrase here is “non-violent drug crimes”. Well, technically that argument has merit, except it fails to mention the following examples of “non-violent” crimes related to the drug trade: burglary, auto-theft, theft (non-auto), fraud/forgery and identity theft, etc…

If someone broke into your house wouldn’t you want them thrown in jail? How about if they stole your car? How about if they stole your identity and ruined you credit, leaving you in debt for hundred’s of thousands of dollars? What if they stole your debit cards and credit cards and cleaned you out?

Those are all just examples of the many forms of “non-violent” drug crimes. And we are talking about gangsters here, not druggies.

MAKING GANGSTERS

Violent criminal youth gangs are not new to the US. TV did not create them. Rap music did not create them. Satanic death-metal rock music did not create them. Gang violence has been a problem in America’s urban centers since at least the Civil War era, and likewise in rural areas (ever hear of the Gangs Of New York, or William H. Bonney, aka: Billy The Kid?) Urban gangs started sprouting up in urban centers almost immediately after we began building urban centers, and gangs as we would recognize them now began being noticed, documented, and studied, in the 1920’s.

Criminal youth street gangs are not even unique to the USA.

So what feeds gangs with new recruits? The same thing that can strangle them of that same life-blood: parents.

The difference between the kids I see using their particular life challenges as an excuse to rob, assault, rape, and murder, and the kids who refuse to are the adults in their lives (parent = any adult assuming that responsibility regardless of actual relationship to the child). Some parents, like the mother of Terrance and Antione Paige, Dwight Miles, etc…just throw up their hands and say it’s beyond their control, that it’s not their fault, that it’s the school’s fault, that it’s society’s fault, that it’s your fault, that it’s my fault.

These “parents” are also the source of a youngster’s self-hate, if that is a factor in their life.

Then there’s the other parents, sometimes two, sometimes one, who refuse to shirk their responsibility and who demand to know where their children are throughout the day, demand they stay in school, demand they come home in the evening, and demand they keep up their grades in school. Parents like this inject themselves in their child’s life, and fight to make sure that they, and not outside factors, are the dominant influence in their child’s life. They also set an example the child can look up to, and make their opinion of their child important to their child. It is much easier to rob, rape, and murder when you don’t have to worry what someone you look up to will think of you.

Parents like this don’t just teach their children right from wrong. Teaching that is easy. What’s key is does the child care about right and wrong! We all know the difference between right and wrong, including 99% of criminals, but not all of us care.

WHO ARE THESE “GANGSTERS”?

They may be gang members, or they may be what I like to call the “Unaffiliated Thugs of America” (i.e. non-gang street criminals). For the purpose of this discussion, whether they joined a gang to just set out alone or with some friends to cause havoc and spread mayhem is unimportant; they are the same.

Many like to blame poverty for gangs. This is a misunderstanding by some, and an excuse by others. The simple fact is there are parents in poorer neighborhoods allowing these young urban terrorists to be inflicted on our communities, but there are also parents in Laurelhurst, Magnolia, Wedgewood, and other middle to upper income neighborhoods doing exactly the same thing. The backgrounds of some of the ‘bangers I have arrested would shock you. There are violent street gangs in the U-District, Lake City, Ballard, and other places north of the ship canal.

Myths about gangsters:

1. They are of a certain race/ethnicity
2. They are all male
3. They start at a certain age (you know, that age when kids start to rebel)
4. Some of them are just “wannabees”
5. White gang-members are skinheads and neo-nazis
6. Gang members all come from poor/bad neighborhoods and poor families

The truth:

1. We have gangs in America and right here in the PNW that represent all colors and ethnicities (ever seen a non-white Juggalo? I haven’t…) Hooray for diversity!
2. There are female gang members, and even all-female gangs. They are every bit as violent and dangerous as their male counterparts.
3. The youngest armed gang member with a rap sheet of violent felonies including gun crimes that I personally have arrested: 12 years old. Youngest one I have heard of being arrested here: 9 years old. Youngest confirmed violent gang member I know of having been apprehended by another agency after a shooting: 7 years old (that one wasn’t “arrested” because of his age).
4. There is no such thing as a wannabee. It’s a popular myth, and it is attractive because it allows us to try and think something we see is not a serious as it really is. It is a natural psychological defense when a person is presented with the world that is not as they want to believe it is. The fact is that anyone dressing as a gang-member, acting like a gang-member, associating with gang members, and/or claiming to be one: is one. There are those who are established members of the clique, and some who have yet to prove themselves and establish a “rep”. Those are who people commonly mistakenly refer to as “wannabees”. The fact is that with something to prove to gain acceptance and status, they are more violent prone, more dangerous, and less predictable than established gang members.
5. See #1. Not only are there white gangs, but there are hybrid and mixed gangs. We even have white Crips.
6. See the paragraph above. It’s simply not the case.

We hold onto these myths sometimes because, like #4, it’s a psychological defense mechanism, allowing us to tell ourselves this is a problem that will not affect us, that is not an issue in our social subset, or in our neighborhood. It’s “their” problem, it’s a problem over there, not here…

These myths also serve as good argument to support political positions and agendas.

Life would be a lot simpler if all the myths were true. This would be a much less complex problem, and sound-bite solutions on the evening news would actually work. But they haven’t worked, and the reason is the issue is far more complicated than most elected officials are capable of comprehending.

Despite varied factors of socio-economic background, race and ethnicity, and geographical locations, one factor is always consistent among them: the parenting (or lack thereof).

Another factor I have seen in every one of them I have met is that they all know right from wrong…they just don’t care (unless they are the ones who have been wronged).

SO WHAT DO WE DO?

Society continues to try the same thing over-and-over again, and achieves the same results (or lack thereof) every time. Normally we would call this either insanity or stupidity. But when money and politics are the reasons for our failures, somehow that common-sense realization is never reached. If you boost the police force and implement tough sentencing practices will you see the crime rate decline? Yes. If you successfully teach kids not to allow themselves to be lured into crime and to stay in school will you see the crime rate decline? Yes.

The problem is neither of these solutions alone has the effect we are looking for, and neither is ever tried in conjunction with the other. Why? It is the same reason year after year, budget after budget, election after election: money. With money limited, instead of people coming together to find a meaningful solution, they polarize, fight for budget line-items, and tell everyone who will listen that the other side’s solution won’t work.

Each side gets its day in the spotlight, and the issue swings back and forth like a pendulum. But still, no meaningful results are achieved.

Comprehensive solutions, solutions which attack a problem from all angles, are the only real solutions that ever work. The problem is like a Jell-O cake: if you push down on one side, the other side rises in response, and visa-versa.

A city the size of Seattle should, by established norms, have a police force about twice the size that SPD is currently. That is not going to happen any more than locking up 45-million people across the US will. But what we have now is not enough. I am not asking for a raise or some other personal benefit here. They only benefit I get from more officers on the street is it allows me to be more successful for you, and have a safer working environment. I could easily be proactively scooping up a lot more criminals and making a lot more cases if I knew there would be enough officers available to respond to me when everything “goes sideways”, which eventually it does at some point.

“Gang intervention” programs aimed at gang members are like teaching calculus to a giraffe. It wastes your time and irritates the giraffe. They are a waste of money. Teaching “conflict resolution” to a gang member has similar results. Prevention is much more successful. However you need to aim prevention at all children, at younger ages than is commonly believed is needed, and not just at those you think are “high-risk” because the ones you fail to focus on will be the ones you missed. Children in our society do not need to just be taught right from wrong, they need to be taught to care about the difference!

And we do need to deal firmly in the criminal justice system with offenders who have shown themselves to be committed to a criminal lifestyle. You know why 12 and 14 year olds are the trigger-pullers for gangs? Because the chances they are going to see any kind of time locked-up beyond the initial booking into the Youth Service Center after arrest is virtually nil. Maybe not zero, but relatively close. And the gangs know it.

Although this reluctance by older legal adults to be shooters when younger members are available does show that tougher sentencing has had an effect to a certain degree.

And of course, for some reason, there’s always another card that gets played: the race card. While we are pointing out problems and solutions, pointing the finger at eachother and claiming one race has no business talking about a problem because it is “our” problem, or not for “one of them” to talk about is simply going to get us nowhere. Should I say that the next Mayor (who will be white), or former Governor Locke, or Ron Simms, has no business talking about an issue of youth violence that may affect my son, because their race is different from his? Does that make sense, or is that just a new angle on racism? If you think a white person should not bring up the factor of self hate, because he is white…didn’t you just make his point for him?

The next Mayor will not be the same race as my son, but in the extremely unlikely event he has something insightful to say about how to help solve this problem, I am not going to point at his skin and then plug my ears. That is a significant part of how we got here to being with!

So we need a comprehensive multi-faceted effort for a multi-faceted problem. We need strong prevention and support resources to kids to keep them away from, or resilient to, recruiting efforts by gangs. For those that can’t be convinced to do right, we need adequate policing resources, and adequate criminal justice resources and procedures so that we are not just running a revolving door for those 15%’ers, and so that the other 85% say, “Whoa! I’m not gonna’ do that again!” And we need to be realistic and face the unpopular but clear evidence right in front of us: intervention after someone is an active gang member is a waste of resources.

THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION

Isn’t it about time to require a license to reproduce?

See you on the streets!

Related:

• Sable Agrees With Joe: “Hell Yes” There’s a Culture of Self-Hatred Among Young People (9/29/09)
• Open Thread: Are Joe Mallahan’s Self-Hatred Comments Offensive? (9/16/09)

Tagged as: Gangs, South Seattle Cop

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