Across the U.S., crime rates have steadily fallen in the past decade. But many policy makers say that crimes committed by gangs remain particularly threatening and destructive to communities. Gangs are organized groups who often use force or intimidation to commit crimes. According to most experts, gang membership is particularly widespread among urban youths under the age of 18.Some gangs band together to dominate a particular area, their “turf.” Some are organized around drug trade and work to corner the illicit market. Others form simply to protect members from violence from other gangs–but often end up exacerbating the problem.Although the popular media has focused in recent years on seemingly random school shootings, a more common threat to school-aged youth are killings brought about by gang warfare.
Between October 1997 and April 1999, school shootings claimed 29 lives in the U.S. During that same time period, there were 4,251 gang-related homicides, according to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), a division of the Justice Department.And although gangs tend to originate in inner cities–and are most prominent there–recent surveys show that gangs have become a more pressing problem in suburban and rural communities as well. Observers say that for all types of communities, gangs can have a corrosive effect that extends far beyond the actual crimes they commit. Gangs can commandeer neighborhoods, leaving residents in constant fear and harming commerce throughout the area. As a result, communities across the U.S. have adopted strict anti-gang ordinances in recent years. Many of them seek to strike at the organization and domination of gangs, rather than at individual crimes committed by gang members. For example, some cities have barred suspected gang members from congregating on public streets or from making gang-related hand gestures. Hundreds of cities have established curfews for juveniles, and many schools have drafted dress codes that prevent students from wearing clothing that has been associated with gangs.
Officials say these measures have helped remedy the gang problem in ways that simply arresting criminals never could. Rather than imprisoning gang members after they have committed horrific crimes, officials say, such measures deter gangs from forming in the first place and from dominating and terrorizing communities. Cities across the country have been liberated from the victimization they once experienced as a result of gang warfare.However, civil libertarians have labeled anti-gang ordinances authoritarian, unfairly restrictive and capricious. They say that anti-gang ordinances punish innocent, constitutionally protected behavior, such as gathering on street corners. All Americans, they say, should have the liberty to gather in public and associate with people of their own choosing. Rather than punish such essential freedoms, critics contend, officials should target people who are actually committing serious crimes.Critics also contend that recent anti-gang ordinances have been enforced arbitrarily. Young, male members of minority groups, they say, are far more likely to be arrested for loitering or breaking curfews than are white youths. T
hey contend that police officers make assumptions about a youngster’s behavior based on his or her ethnic background. Such discrimination, they contend, will only further alienate those who are at risk of joining gangs, ultimately contributing to the problem.Instead, many say, communities should focus on providing social services that could help members leave gangs behind and deter young people from joining in the first place. They say that better education, guidance and employment opportunities could help misguided youth get back on track toward safe, law-abiding lifestyles.From early in U.S. history, gangs have tended to be composed of people in the lower classes–particularly those who had recently migrated to the U.S. The ethnic composition of gangs changed over time as new waves of immigrants came to the U.S. Until the mid-20th century, most gang members were of European descent, generally Irish, Jewish and Italian. But by the 1970s, about four-fifths of gang members were either African-American or Hispanic.The gang problem worsened in the years following World War II (1939-1945), as drug trade became a more widespread concern and firearms became both more powerful and more common.
At the same time, an influx of former farmers and southern blacks into cities and the flight of more affluent, generally white families to the suburbs created a concentration of poor families in urban centers.Crime rates soared during the 1960s and 1970s, in part because of the large number of juveniles involved in crime. In the 1980s, even as instances of some types of crime fell, juvenile crime continued to rise. Fueled by the burgeoning market for crack cocaine, gangs became ever more prevalent. Their use of high-power firearms also increased dramatically. Where once there had been fist-fights, now there were drive-by shootings. Gang-inspired culture, including clothing styles and “gangsta rap,” spread throughout the U.S. (Lyrics of gangsta rap songs typically deal with urban gang activity.
By the end of the 1980s, the gang problem had spread from inner cities to suburban and rural communities. In 1997, gangs were reported in 72% of large cities, 56% of suburban counties and 24% of rural counties, according to the OJJDP. Gangs are most prevalent in the West, with 74% of western jurisdictions reporting gang activity.But by most accounts, gang activity declined somewhat in the 1990s. Experts attribute the decline to a combination of factors, including an improved economy, a decline in crack cocaine use, stricter law enforcement and more violence-prevention programs.
The number of reported gang members in the U.S. dropped to 780,000 in 1998 from 846,000 in 1996, according to the OJJDP. And according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the proportion of high-school students who reported carrying a weapon during the past 30 days declined to 18% in 1997, from 26% in 1991.Other statistics indicate that gang activity is still very much alive, however. The Education and Justice departments found that 28% of high school students reported gang activity in their schools in 1995, up from 15% in 1989. The OJJDP estimates that 7% of inner-city juveniles are gang members today.Chicago Pioneers New Approach Frustrated by the spread of gang violence, policy makers around the U.S. began to craft innovative solutions to the problem in the 1990s. Perhaps the most drastic–and controversial–approach was adopted by Chicago in 1992.The Chicago City Council contended that gang members “establish control over identifiable areas…by loitering in those areas and intimidating others from entering those areas,” while at the same time they “avoid arrest by committing no offense punishable under existing laws when they know the police are present.” This situation made gangs virtually immune to police efforts, the council said.To address the problem, the city council adopted an ordinance, called the Chicago Congregation Ordinance, that allowed police officers to order two or more people “remaining in any one place with no apparent purpose” to disperse. If those people disobeyed, they could be fined up to $500, imprisoned for up to six months and required to perform community service.
However, the Chicago chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenged the law, claiming that people were prosecuted arbitrarily under the law and that the ordinance unconstitutionally restricted Chicago residents’ First Amendment freedom to assemble. In addition, they said, the ordinance violated the 14th Amendment’s protection against restriction of liberty without due process of law. Under the ordinance, they explained, people could be arrested merely because police officers suspected them of being gang members, even in the absence of proof to back up those suspicions.In 1995, an Illinois appellate court struck down the ordinance. The Illinois Supreme Court upheld that decision in 1997. Then, in June 1999, the case went before the U.S. Supreme Court. The administration of President Clinton (D), the U.S. Conference of Mayors and 31 states filed briefs in favor of the Chicago ordinance, saying it was an essential measure to protect innocent citizens. Between 1992 and 1995, some 43,000 people had been arrested under the Chicago ordinance. Chicago officials said gang-related homicides had fallen 25% in 1995, the last year that the statute remained in effect, and then rose 11% in 1996. (Others, however, note that the homicide rate went back down the following year.)The court ruled 6-3 in the case, Chicago v. Morales, that the Chicago ordinance was unconstitutionally vague and gave police officers too much discretion to distinguish illegal from legal behavior. Under the Chicago ordinance, wrote Justice John Paul Stevens in the majority opinion, “it matters not whether the reason that a gang member and his father, for example, might loiter near Wrigley Field is to rob an unsuspecting fan or just to get a glimpse of [baseball player] Sammy Sosa leaving the ball park.” In either case, the court held, the pair could be arrested according to a police officer’s “inherently subjective” discretion.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia derided the majority opinion, contending that the court had upheld a “fundamental freedom to loiter.” Scalia said, “I would trade my right to loiter in the vicinity of a gang member in return for the liberation of my neighborhood in an instant.” Justice Clarence Thomas agreed, contending that the court had put legal principles ahead of community safety. “Today, the court focuses extensively on the ‘rights’ of gang members and their companions. It can safely do so–the people who will have to live with the consequences of today’s opinion do not live in our neighborhoods,” he wrote.
Chicago officials took some comfort from a concurring opinion written by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. O’Connor wrote that Chicago could likely rescue the ordinance if it used more specific language to target illegal activity. An ordinance might pass constitutional muster, she wrote, if it prohibited people from gathering in public areas “to establish control over identifiable areas, to intimidate others from entering those areas, or to conceal illegal activities.” Chicago could also choose to target only gang members, and not those gathered with them, O’Connor indicated. New Measures EnactedFollowing O’Connor’s advice, Chicago drafted a new ordinance in February 2000 that avoids some of the Supreme Court’s objections. The new ordinance specifically targets “gang and narcotics loitering” in neighborhoods with high crime rates. Similar ordinances have been adopted by Annapolis, Md. and Grand Prairie, Texas.In April 1999, Cicero, Ill., near Chicago, passed an unusual anti-gang ordinance. Cicero officials evicted from the town about 600 “known gang members”–some of whom had been convicted of violent crimes and others of whom had simply acknowledged to police that they were gang members. The Cicero ordinance prohibits evicted gang members, including minors, from ever returning to the town, even to visit family. A second Cicero ordinance allows authorities to impound the cars of suspected gang members. The ACLU has challenged the constitutionality of those laws. Illinois Town Drafts Controversial Gang Laws]
Several California cities, including San Jose and Los Angeles, have adopted an approach somewhat similar to Chicago’s. Rather than pass sweeping anti-gang ordinances, officials there have sought civil injunctions against suspected gang members under the state’s public-nuisance laws. Several cities have won injunctions from state courts that prohibit suspected gang members from engaging in certain activities and from gathering in groups.One injunction granted to San Jose in 1993 barred 38 suspected gang members from entering a four-block area and from associating with each other in public, by “standing, sitting, walking, driving, gathering or appearing anywhere in public view” together. In addition, the suspected gang members could not climb trees or fences, make loud noises, possess wire cutters, wear particular clothes associated with the gang, make gang-associated hand signs or carry marking pens or pagers. The San Jose injunction was upheld by the California Supreme Court in 1997.In February 2000, the New York City police department asked a judge to issue a similar injunction against a city gang. Some experts say such injunctions will become more common as cities seek to crack down on gangs without adopting measures like the Chicago ordinance found unconstitutional.Other cities have simply adopted curfews for juveniles in order to curb gang activity. Between 1995 and 2000, some 110 cities established curfews. In all, 337 cities have youth curfews, according to the National League of Cities. Three-quarters of city officials surveyed by that group say they believe curfews help prevent gang activity, including graffiti, assaults and burglaries.
Many schools around the U.S. have also adopted strict anti-gang policies. Many have implemented dress codes prohibiting gang-related clothing. Most have also passed so-called zero-tolerance discipline policies that mete out severe punishments for violent activity. Civil libertarians contend that strict anti-gang policies have gone too far. Instead of targeting criminal behavior, they say, new anti-gang measures attack innocent behavior that may be wrongly interpreted as indicating gang association. They say that measures against loitering or gathering in public unfairly restrict people’s rights to move about freely or assemble with others.Critics say that Chicago’s new ordinance and the injunctions used by other cities unfairly abridge people’s First Amendment right to freedom of assembly. Many gang ordinances, including Chicago’s, target people whom police suspect to be gang members, not people who have been proven in a court of law to be associated with a gang. Such a law violates Americans’ 14th Amendment right to due process of law, critics contend.
Indeed, some critics say that anti-gang ordinances are the first step down a slippery slope toward wider curbs on civil liberties. They say that if suspected gang members can be ordered to disperse, so could peaceful demonstrators, for example. They say that preservation of all civil liberties–even those of despised criminals–is paramount. Critics also contend that anti-gang measures disproportionately affect innocent members of minority groups. Police may tend to see lawful behavior, such as gathering on street corners, as threatening when they make assumptions about people’s behavior based on their ethnicity. In addition, critics say that curfew laws are more strictly enforced in minority neighborhoods than in other areas. [For more information on race and crime, see 1999 (2000), contends that such discriminatory enforcement “undermines safety by incurring distrust among those community members whose trust the police need most.” Cole contends that cynicism and alienation about the law contribute to lawless behavior. “Civil rights and civil liberties, far from impeding law enforcement, are critical to preserving its legitimacy,” he writes in the (January 4, 1999).And some critics say that punishing people for petty crimes–or worse, for talking with friends on the street–can further alienate youth who may be at risk. Luis Gutierrez, an immigration consultant, says that he was arrested in Chicago and held for four hours because he was talking with friends on the street. “It was really upsetting,” he says. “A lot of people they arrested were innocent kids, who don’t need to see a jail.”Moreover, critics note that not all gangs or gang members are involved in criminal activity. Some gangs simply provide social connections for members, and have close ties to the community. It may be healthy for youths, particularly those with little adult supervision, to join such gangs. “Gangs, meaning kids hanging out on the street, is not necessarily always bad,” says Irving Spergel of the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration. Overly broad definitions of gangs, he warns, could include “a group of women going bowling” and other equally innocuous groups of friends. Advocates of strict anti-gang policies say they are a necessary and appropriate response to an epidemic of gang-related crime. Residents of gang-controlled areas say they have been terrorized by organized criminal activity that police have difficulty stopping. In 1997, there were 3,340 gang-related homicides in the U.S.–18% of all homicides committed that year.Community members say that gang members take over the streets, prevent their children from playing in parks and intimidate anyone who opposes them. At one Chicago elementary school in the Cabrini-Green housing project, students faced routine threats from stray bullets–forcing teachers to disrupt classes to usher children away from gun violence four times within two weeks in 1997.Supporters of aggressive gang policies say that any inconvenience those policies may pose to non-gang members is a small price to pay for the reduction in gang crime. “Is a kid being questioned by the police more important than lives being lost?” asks the Rev. Jeffery Haynes, a Chicago minister. “Even if there is some harassment, it’s a minute concern compared to how gangbangers and drug dealers have held the community hostage,” he says. Injunction policies such as those used in California have proved particularly effective in eradicating gang violence, proponents say. “The gang is currently struggling for membership,” says Los Angeles police officer James Willis of a gang against which the city received an injunction. “Their hold on the community is a fraction of what it was.” The injunction system, says Joan Gallo, a San Jose city attorney, “works instantly.” Mere days after injunctions are issued, she says, “children are playing on streets where they never were before. Critics say that civil rights groups are out of touch with the dangers that gangs pose to society. Devastating gang violence calls for drastic measures, they contend. Daniel Popeo, chairman of the conservative Washington Legal Foundation, contends that in challenging the Chicago ordinance, the ACLU was “more concerned with arcane constitutional theory than the harsh reality of street crime.”Proponents of tough anti-gang measures say that gang terrorism has intimidated communities for far too long. “The ACLU says gang members have rights,” says Betty Loren-Maltese, Cicero town president. “How about our civil rights? That we cannot live in a peaceful community.”Some critics say that “get tough” policy measures aimed at gangs mete out punishments disproportionate to the actual threat that gangs pose. They note that crime fell precipitously in the 1990s, and that gang membership appears to be on the wane. They say that public fears about gangs are overblown because of excessive media attention to gang-related crime. It is not worth sacrificing civil liberties, they contend, for a threat that is in reality quite minimal.
Some analysts contend that the predominance of gangs stems from deep problems in today’s society. Many critics say that weakened family structures–particularly in poor inner cities, where many children are brought up by single parents–contribute to the gang problem. They say that children join criminal groups in order to feel a sense of belonging or family that they should receive at home. “With families falling away from children, with the network and fabric of their life disintegrating, it is time for other institutions to assume responsibility until the family can be restored around children,” says Attorney General Janet Reno.
Still others say that much of the blame lies with the media and popular culture for glamorizing a criminal lifestyle. Those critics deplore the popularity of gangsta rap and the spread of gang-like fashions. Those factors, critics say, are in large part responsible for the spread of gangs from inner cities into neighboring suburbs and rural areas. They say that the media must take responsibility and stop making gang activity fashionable.Some analysts contend that the problem with gangs in the U.S. stems from racial and economic inequalities that lead minorities in inner cities and other poor areas to resort to crime. “As long as young people feel there is no way to make money legally, there will always be gangs,” says Michael Dyson, a professor of African-American studies at Columbia University and author of Race Rules(1996).Many liberals contend that in order to eradicate gang violence, society must work to address those basic inequalities. Rather than crack down on gang members with harsh punishments, policy makers should boost social services that would help prevent people from joining gangs in the first place. They say that the solution to the gang problem will come from educating and providing jobs to at-risk community members, not from imprisoning large segments of the population.
They note that gangs tend to flourish where drop-out rates and unemployment are high and people feel they have no other alternatives. Counseling and after-school programs should be provided to young people in at-risk neighborhoods, to encourage youths to participate more actively in their communities, advocates contend. If gang members were given the opportunity to receive an education and better job opportunities, they say, they would not feel a need to turn to crime.Advocates point to examples where community activism and social services have made a difference. For example, in January 1997, Washington, D.C. community members helped negotiate a peace between two warring gangs in the southeastern part of the city.Gang members later said that the activists had provided them with both guidance and jobs–something they had difficulty finding with criminal records and a lack of both education and experience. “What usually goes on with these kids is all stick and no carrot,” says James Alsobrooks, a member of the alliance that brokered the peace. “They’ll go to jail if they break the law and they know that. [But] they don’t see another way besides the streets; it’s all they know.”Some experts see room for common ground in the war against gangs. They say that stringent anti-gang criminal policies can be combined with social programs to provide a comprehensive approach to gang prevention. Children who are picked up for minor infractions, they say, should be referred immediately to social services for further help.
Experts say anti-gang programs should focus on early intervention, since children often join gangs at the age of 12 or 13. Young adolescents seek acceptance by their peers, and must be given guidance during those vulnerable years, observers say. After-school programs, counseling and tutoring should be made more readily available, most experts agree. Schools and government officials have adopted a number of programs aimed at preventing gangs. For example, the federal government spends some $13 million on Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT), which funds training sessions in as many as 1,400 police departments. In the classes, police officers learn how to resist pressure from gangs and resolve conflicts peacefully.Although gang membership appears to have declined in the late 1990s, experts say there is no guarantee that that trend will continue. In fact, in coming decades, as children of the post-World War II Baby Boom generation mature, juvenile crime is likely to rise, they say. And now that gaple pose an even more widespread–if theoretical–threat. As policy makers vie to extinguish gang violence once and for all, it is likely that new approaches to the problem will be proposed in years to comengs have spread into suburbs and rural communities, surging numbers of young people
Bibliography:
Belluck, Pam. “Illinois Town Hopes to Exile Its Gang Members to Anywhere Else, U.S.A.” New York Times (April 27, 1999): A16.
Cohen, Warren. The Windy City’s Tough Tack on Street Gangs.” U.S. News & World Report (December 14, 1998): 30.
Cole, David. “‘Standing While Black.'” Nation (January 4, 1999): 24.
Dickerson, Debra. “Cease-Fire in Simple City.” U.S. News & World Report (March 16, 1998): 22.
Economist (June 8, 1996). “And So to Bed”: 29.
