I was browsing Youtube tonight and found a recent news report about an LAPD raid on the Neighborhood Rollin' 40s Crip gang.
Something like 47 members of the 40s were arrested on charges ranging from drug possession/distribution, guns, and conspiracy. Reports on the 40s always catch my eye because I used to do fieldwork in the area and knew some of the members through my research.
Maybe it's just me, but I'm always skeptical about the long-term efficacy of these kinds of programs. Can you win a war on terror with terror? In the short term, I'm sure that raids and other aggressive policing strategies will cause a dip in crime rates (something that is widely publicized after said raids). This is perhaps why they are preferred methods; they produce immediately useable data for politicians, city attorneys, and others running on a "get tough on crime" ticket.
For example, I remember when the LAPD aggressively rolled out civil gang injunctions throughout LA. In the immediate term, we saw a drop in violent crimes and arrests in areas with injunctions. However, violent crime gradually returned to their pre-injunction rates over time. Other researchers found that injunctions did little to overall crime rates; they were effective at relocating crimes to areas that didn't have injunctions. When this happened, the LAPD switched gears and adopted other measures for curbing gang violence (one of them, if I remember correctly, was to use a Top-10 Most Wanted list much like the FBI, and to also identify key problems areas that had seen the highest per capita increase in gang violence).
In a nutshell, I feel like crime fighting is too reactionary in the US. In many ways, law enforcement strategies mirror the logic of conventional medicine. When a serious problem is identified, there are aggressive procedures and interventions for treating said problem. While some of these solutions can cause a temporary improvement in health of a person or community, they often don't provide long-term solutions.
To me, it would be interesting if law enforcement approached crime fighting the way that public health officials approach health/wellness. Instead of conducting raids, imposing civil gang injunctions, and using other methods that rely on brute force (and which ultimately erode trust and relations with community members), why not try to encourage healthy behaviors in individuals/families/communities before problems get too big? Many of the same communities that have the highest rates of gang violence are also the most underserved areas. Community centers like the Boys and Girls Club, after-school sports, and other community-driven programs are virtually non-existent in LA's "worst neighborhoods." What if policymakers started investing into these kinds of programs instead of focusing on raids, injunctions, and other aggressive tactics?
I realize that this approach wouldn't yield the politically-seductive news of guns and drugs being seized during late night gang raids, but it might also prevent these problems from happening in the first place.
Something like 47 members of the 40s were arrested on charges ranging from drug possession/distribution, guns, and conspiracy. Reports on the 40s always catch my eye because I used to do fieldwork in the area and knew some of the members through my research.
Maybe it's just me, but I'm always skeptical about the long-term efficacy of these kinds of programs. Can you win a war on terror with terror? In the short term, I'm sure that raids and other aggressive policing strategies will cause a dip in crime rates (something that is widely publicized after said raids). This is perhaps why they are preferred methods; they produce immediately useable data for politicians, city attorneys, and others running on a "get tough on crime" ticket.
For example, I remember when the LAPD aggressively rolled out civil gang injunctions throughout LA. In the immediate term, we saw a drop in violent crimes and arrests in areas with injunctions. However, violent crime gradually returned to their pre-injunction rates over time. Other researchers found that injunctions did little to overall crime rates; they were effective at relocating crimes to areas that didn't have injunctions. When this happened, the LAPD switched gears and adopted other measures for curbing gang violence (one of them, if I remember correctly, was to use a Top-10 Most Wanted list much like the FBI, and to also identify key problems areas that had seen the highest per capita increase in gang violence).
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| What's more newsworthy? This or building a Boys and Girls Club? |
To me, it would be interesting if law enforcement approached crime fighting the way that public health officials approach health/wellness. Instead of conducting raids, imposing civil gang injunctions, and using other methods that rely on brute force (and which ultimately erode trust and relations with community members), why not try to encourage healthy behaviors in individuals/families/communities before problems get too big? Many of the same communities that have the highest rates of gang violence are also the most underserved areas. Community centers like the Boys and Girls Club, after-school sports, and other community-driven programs are virtually non-existent in LA's "worst neighborhoods." What if policymakers started investing into these kinds of programs instead of focusing on raids, injunctions, and other aggressive tactics?
I realize that this approach wouldn't yield the politically-seductive news of guns and drugs being seized during late night gang raids, but it might also prevent these problems from happening in the first place.
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