First, the good news. As we approach the end of 2003, we know what works in dealing with gangs. Gang experts, intervention practitioners, social scientists, researchers and enlightened law enforcement officials all agree. You can't attend a national conference and not hear "prevention, intervention and enforcement." (The more sophisticated conferences include "prison aftercare.")
You prevent kids from joining gangs by offering after-school programs, sports, mentoring and positive engagement with adults. You intervene with gang members by offering alternatives and employment to help redirect their lives. You deal with areas of high gang crime activity with real community policing. We know what works.
Now, the bad news. Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) have introduced the so-called Gang Prevention and Effective Deterrence Act. This bill does not fund what works well, only what plays well -- politically.
The legislation seeks $450 million to aid law enforcement and prosecutors. It is rife with new categories of crimes, added punishments for having a gun or being a gang member and myriad "think twice" measures -- hoping gang members will reconsider before committing a crime.
Anyone who knows gangs knows that lawmakers cannot conceive of a law that would lead a hard-core gang member to "think twice." We already have enough gang- and gun-related sentencing "enhancements" to send a 17-year-old who has never been in trouble with the law to prison for 35 years to life. And that's without his ever touching a gun or ever being an actual member of a gang.
We need to overhaul these enhancements, not add to them.
Law enforcement doesn't need more tools; it needs more officers. Real community policing requires different deployment, which can happen only with increased personnel. If the Los Angeles Police Department had enough officers, it could focus on one part of the community and stay there long enough to know and respect the people the officers are called on to protect and serve.
On any given shift, only 20 officers patrol the Hollenbeck Division, which is more than twice the size of San Francisco. The Feinstein/Hatch bill does nothing to correct that kind of disparity.
Surely the engine that moves this bill, in part, is the full embracing of the mythic "super predator" juvenile. This alarming image, first invoked by social scientist John DiIulio in a 1996 report from the Council of Crime in America, has been endlessly and hysterically underscored by the media. Gangs remain a problem, but that hysteria has kept us from a measured, effective response.
