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Complete June 24 2007 Issue of the Newspaper Edition (PDF) Recent Articles The Two Faces of Bill Richardson,
The "Clean Energy" Governor's Nuclear Ties The Corporate Prison
Boom, Immigration and The Law What is a Culture of Peace? Diplomacy the Watchword, Gary
King: "We Are All Constituents" Holocaust or Hoax, The Global Warming
Debate Heats Up The Hunting Fallacy Impeachment Limerick “Powerbrokers” (Legislative
Leadership and Lobbyists) in Control of Conference Committee NM Senate Joint Memorial
to Begin Process of Prohibiting Production of New Nuclear Weapons in
New Mexico Legislature is a “Brain
Trust” to Accomplish All We Need in New Mexico |
We
Don’t Need a War on Gangs in New Mexico Such proposals are probably unconstitutional. They are certainly discriminatory. And there is no evidence that they will do anything about the problem other than make it worse. Fortunately, we have some sane voices out there arguing for a more sensible approach. Bernalillo County’s Juvenile Detention Center is run by a professional in juvenile rehabilitation who recognizes that locking up youths for long periods of time is a guarantee that they will return to crime when they get out. He also happens to be a member of the State House of Representatives. So Tom Swisstack’s views on the subject command attention…around the country as well as in New Mexico. For the past five years, with the help of grant money from private foundations, he has been ingeniously figuring out ways to divert juveniles from being imprisoned. The results are startling. The numbers of offenders in detention have gone down sharply. By fighting juvenile crime using methods that are smarter, not tougher, Swisstack and his team have been very effective in turning hundreds of young lives around. In the process they have also saved millions of taxpayer dollars. I have a recurring nightmare in which the number of young New Mexicans held in juvenile prisons goes up (the certain result of the “figure-out-new-ways-to-lock-‘em-up” approach to the problem). The cost (some $35,000 per year apiece) becomes staggering. To cover the skyrocketing bills, education, mental health, job training, after-school and youth employment programs are cut back…which (of course) leads to yet more juvenile crime. If we are trying to reduce crime, this isn’t a route that will get us there. We already have plenty of tough laws on the books against murder, drug trafficking, drive-by shootings, racketeering, auto theft—all the things we worry gangs will do. If they do one, we can currently arrest them and throw the book at them. What is being sought now is something different: it’s an attempt to make belonging to a gang a crime. And that’s a big problem. Constitutionally, simply joining a group cannot by itself be punished. The individual has to be proven to have done something that hurts others. Further, how do you decide who’s in a gang? I know the police gang unit says there are 10,000 gang members in New Mexico belonging to 150 different gangs (or some such similarly fantastic number). But really? Who are they counting? There aren’t gang membership lists, ID cards, classes of membership. It’s much more informal, fluid, with lots of wannabes, veteranos and copy-cats moving in and out at the fringes. Is a low-rider club a gang? How about a motorcycle club? A softball team? A scout troop? How are you defining “colors”, clothing, recruitment? My suggestion is to all take a deep breath and regain emotional control. We must not over-react. We do know some things about youths in gangs and we shouldn’t forget them: they need and they want precisely the same thing that every young person needs and wants: security, opportunity, belonging to a family. If we really want to eliminate gang violence, reduce gang crime and expand options to gang involvement, we will get there faster and cheaper by improving our schools, offering job skills training and providing multiple ways to recognize young men and women for positive actions. Steve Valdivia fought gangs for twenty-five years as head of Los Angeles County’s Gang Intervention and Prevention Office. Now that he’s retired, he lives part of each year in Albuquerque and is working on a book to be published this fall. In it he explains the fundamental dynamic of street gangs (across history and across cultures including what’s going on in Iraq today) and why what he has learned on the streets can be effective in reaching gang members. He is particularly scornful of frontal assaults on gang membership by representatives of the powerful authority figures in a society (such as when the cops protect business or political interests). Because Valdivia sees the creation of a youth gang as an understandable response to systemic violence, he understands that prison for such young people is not a threat but a fulfillment of their expectations. Since he doesn’t see gang members as monsters, but as being motivated by precisely the same things that motivate all young people, he recognizes the futility of punishing them. If we make the mistake of categorizing them, labeling them, criminalizing them, then we will reap the consequence: they will fulfill our expectations. And that’s a very expensive and futile way to operate. Far wiser would it be to develop a cadre of skilled, idealistic and completely professional youth workers who would reach out to gang members, seeking to provide positive opportunities for success for those now drawn to gangs. That success might be academic and economic, but also must include community success, for the gang on its most basic level represents a search for membership in something bigger than oneself: a family, a community. Senator Ortiz y Pino can be reached at jortizyp@msn.com |
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