Thread: Solving Gang Issues

If people are harmed by gang members, they should sue the gangs. The gangs are organized and the police know who the members are. sue the gangs as a whole and the individual members in civil courts. If you can't match their violence, bankrupt their sorry butts.

OK. If you sue a gang, where do you think they will get the money, assuming they even recognize the court's decision?
What we need is to put a bounty on them. At $5000.00 a head we would all be getting off cheaply. Things will be bloody at first, but as these lowlife's realize that to join a gang is a quick trip to a pine box, without the benifits of power, money, drugs, and sex, the lusture of being a gangster will lose its appeal.
This is a problem that the govt can't/won't fix. It is up to the people to take matters in their own hands and say, "Enough is enough"!

Originally Posted by entropy

Yes, I know of Mara Salvatrucha and the like. It has even found it's way to Europe, I heard. The thing is that the gang members no longer see themselves as anything except gang members. It all comes down to primitive tribal societies, where power is respected, weakness loathed, and opponents killed. Many youngsters join the gangs because of different reasons - the need to belong somewhere, reinforced by the need for security in a hard area, and because they do not know any other life. A youngster whose parents are drug users and whose brothers is "cool" with his gang colours and gun, will not even think about school. Our social values are as far for him as distant stars.
Prison only makes things worse. Correctional facilities aren't. People become real criminals in there. They gain more respect if they have been in jail. And so on.

Solution? Well, we have to start with those children. A disfunctional family is not a family, and needs not to be treated as such. Remove the kids from alcoholic abusive parents. Shelter them in state facilities.
Youngsters already in gangs are probably impossible to revert, but at early stages it's possible. Psychological treatment (good one, NOT the kids-stay-off-drugs kind that never works) might help. I talk about serious brainwashing here, not trying to reason with the violent youngster.

Oh yes, and preventive video's at school. Not happyhappy faces saying stay off drugs and gangs, but show them the dirty drug addicts with no teeth. Show them the bodies with severed heads. Tell them that it could be one of them.

As for the gangs themselves, if they carry uniforms and insignia, they are armies, and as such should be fought. Apply the Geneva Convention. Fight them like you fight in Iraq.

Preventative videos won't do anything. Those have always been around. Like you said, good parenting nad a youth culture that doesn't glorify gangsterism would be a great place to start. Couple with aggressive alternate opportunities for neglected/poor/whatever-other -social-malady the the number of teenagers making the right choices and not joining gangs would go up.

Originally Posted by McFire

If people are harmed by gang members, they should sue the gangs. The gangs are organized and the police know who the members are. sue the gangs as a whole and the individual members in civil courts. If you can't match their violence, bankrupt their sorry butts.

that makes sence..NOT

I suggest suing gangs because I don't think it has ever been explored before. A lot of the gangs here in Florida are chapters of gangs from California and elsewhere, so obviously they are organized. The feds and the police agencies know who the members are and can trace the money trails, so why not sue? Gang members have money (except for the newbies). That is evidenced by the cars and houses they have, with no apparent income. Perhaps the IRS should also be involved.
The ACLU would never allow Bonehead's bounties (I like his idea), so why not take the assets of the gangs? With no money/assets, there would be no prestige in belonging to a gang.
Since we cannot just shoot gang members, we need to go after them in a different manner.
That's just my suggestion.

Originally Posted by McFire

I suggest suing gangs because I don't think it has ever been explored before. A lot of the gangs here in Florida are chapters of gangs from California and elsewhere, so obviously they are organized. The feds and the police agencies know who the members are and can trace the money trails, so why not sue? Gang members have money (except for the newbies). That is evidenced by the cars and houses they have, with no apparent income. Perhaps the IRS should also be involved.
The ACLU would never allow Bonehead's bounties (I like his idea), so why not take the assets of the gangs? With no money/assets, there would be no prestige in belonging to a gang.
Since we cannot just shoot gang members, we need to go after them in a different manner.
That's just my suggestion.

Interesting because SF and Oakland are trying this. I think there's been some level of sucess I'll see if I can find the article.

CBSNews.com: Print This Story
Crime Weary Cities Suing Gangs

FORT WORTH, Texas, July 30, 2007
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(CBS/AP) Fed up with deadly drive-by shootings, incessant drug dealing and graffiti, cities across the U.S. are trying a different tactic to combat gangs: They are suing them.

Fort Worth, which is near Dallas, and San Francisco, California, are among the latest to file lawsuits against gang members, asking courts for injunctions barring them from hanging out together on street corners, in cars or anywhere else in certain areas.

The injunctions are aimed at disrupting gang activity before it can escalate. They also give police legal reasons to stop and question gang members, who often are found with drugs or weapons, authorities said. In some cases, they do not allow gang members to even talk to people passing in cars or to carry spray paint.

"It is another tool," said Kevin Rousseau, a Tarrant County assistant prosecutor in Fort Worth, which recently filed its first civil injunction against a gang. "This is more of a proactive approach."

But critics say such lawsuits go too far, limiting otherwise lawful activities and unfairly targeting minority youth.

"If you're barring people from talking in the streets, it's difficult to tell if they're gang members or if they're people discussing issues," said Peter Bibring, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. "And it's all the more troubling because it doesn't seem to be effective."

Civil injunctions were first filed against gang members in the 1980s in the Los Angeles area, a breeding ground for gangs including some of the country's most notorious, such as the Crips.

The Los Angeles city attorney's suit in 1987 against the Playboy Gangster Crips covered the entire city but was scaled back after a judge deemed it too broad.

Chicago tried to target gangs by enacting an anti-loitering ordinance in 1992 but the U.S. Supreme Court struck it down in 1999, saying it gave police the authority to arrest without cause.

Since then, cities have used injunctions to target specific gangs or gang members, and so far that strategy has withstood court challenges.

Meanwhile, CBS News has learned police in Columbia, South Carolina are worried that the city's growing gang problem is being fueled by U.S. military service members, acting as training and recruiting agents on the streets.

Four U.S. Marines – who proudly snapped pictures of each other – were recruiting local kids, some as young as 13, into the Crips. The leader was a lance corporal. (Read more)

Los Angeles now has 33 permanent injunctions involving 50 gangs, and studies have shown they do reduce crime, said Jonathan Diamond, a spokesman for the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office.

The injunctions prohibit gang members from associating with each other, carrying weapons, possessing drugs, committing crimes and displaying gang symbols in a safety zone — neighborhoods where suspected gang members live and are most active. Some injunctions set curfews for members and ban them from possessing alcohol in public areas — even if they are of legal drinking age.
Those who disobey the order face a misdemeanor charge and up to a year in jail. Prosecutors say the possibility of a jail stay — however short — is a strong deterrent, even for gang members who have already served hard time for other crimes.

"Seven months in jail is a big penalty for sitting on the front porch or riding in the car with your gang buddies," said Kinley Hegglund, senior assistant city attorney for Wichita Falls.

Last summer, Wichita Falls sued 15 members of the Varrio Carnales gang after escalating violence with a rival gang, including about 50 drive-by shootings in less than a year in that North Texas city of 100,000.

Since then, crime has dropped about 13 percent in the safety zone and real estate values are climbing, Hegglund said.

Other cities hope for similar results.

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued four gangs in June after an "explosion" in gang violence, seven months after filing the city's first gang-related civil injunction.

Fort Worth sued 10 members of the Northcide Four Trey Gangsta Crips in May after two gang members were killed in escalating violence, said Assistant City Attorney Chris Mosley.

"Our hope is that these defendants will be scared into compliance just by having these injunctions against them," Mosley said.

However, some former gang members say such legal maneuvers would not have stopped them.

Usamah Anderson, 30, of Fort Worth, said he began stealing cars and got involved with gangs as a homeless 11-year-old. He was arrested numerous times for theft and spent time in juvenile facilities.

Anderson says if a civil injunction had been in place then, he and his friends would have simply moved outside the safety zone.

"That's the life you live, so you're going to find a way to maneuver around it," said Anderson, a truck driver who abandoned the gang life about seven years ago and has started a church to help young gang members.

The ACLU and other critics of gang injunctions favor community programs. The Rev. Jack Crane, pastor of Truevine Missionary Baptist Church in Fort Worth, is helping Anderson's group provide gang members with counseling, shoes and other resources needed to help them escape that life.

"We don't want to lose another generation," Crane said.

Some residents in the Fort Worth safety zone say they feel better with the injunction in place.

Phoebe Picazo, who recently moved to the city to care for her elderly parents, said she hears gunfire almost every night.

"This has always been a quiet community with a lot of seniors, but now we're having to keep our doors locked," Picazo said. "With the injunction, I feel better for my folks."

The gang problem and it's solutions are big and widely varied. The gang members are often used by legitimate organizations to enhance their profits. In Oregon we have a law designed to protect the peace of the neighborhood. It allows neighbors to sue landlords and their lending institutions for destroying the peace of a neighborhood. These slum lords can ensure good profits in weak or poor neighborhoods by maintaining properties that are used for drug sales, prostitution, or gang activity. Any of these activities can get a slum lord sued here. I wish this law was used more often as it is very effective, especially against the banks that prop up slum lords. To deal with gang problems I believe it is important to take tough action against all the elements in society that help to support the problems. As for the military, I feel uniformed gang members should be dealt with very harshly, and publicly. They of all people know better and deserve scant mercy at best.