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L.A. Gangs: Throat of a Nightmare

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<i> Joan Moore is a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. She has been studying gangs in East Los Angeles for more than 15 years</i>

Again a wave of fright about black and Latino youth gangs is rippling through Los Angeles. Their brutality and inhumanity astonish us. We are surprised that the police cannot contain them. We learn that the most serious punishment seems to have no effect--not even long terms in prison.

This fear is real enough, but I suggest that it is largely displaced antipathy toward and suspicion of the city’s black and Latino communities. These are strong words, but there is much unpleasant evidence.

First, Los Angeles had earlier frights over gang violence. In the 1940s Los Angeles was upset by the Zoot Suiters and the “Rat Packs.” Newspapers routinely covered gang fights and listed casualties. This fear was later displaced by an even greater fright--the fear of black and Chicano rebellion in the 1960s. This time there was a massive response to pull the people of the ghettos and barrios into a positive vision. To a large extent this response was successful. Many young and older gang members joined enthusiastically to rebuild their communities.

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Second, the real facts of our minority communities are much worse than the facts of random gang violence. A new information and service economy leaves little room for poorly educated people beyond a lifetime low-wage job. An Urban Institute projection indicates that various business factors, along with an 11% increase in the city’s population since 1980, will add up to a growing unemployment problem among the poorly educated.

Most of the programs that tried to integrate young gang members into a more conventional life were closed, one after the other. Only the law-enforcement response is left. Youngsters look ahead to a dreary round of welfare payments, living off relatives, street hustling (big-time and small-time), dehumanizing jail terms and short-lived dead-end jobs. In our recent Community Systems Research study of men active in Chicano gangs in the 1950s and those active in the 1970s, 46% were unemployed and 13% have never been able to find a job. Of those working, half had very marginal jobs. Many were still living in their parents’ homes. We are looking into the throat of a nightmare called “the underclass.”

Something of this reality must be reaching many people in Los Angeles. Gangs are just a surface manifestation. It is no surprise that massive law enforcement alone cannot control them.

This is an underclass that is growing rapidly. Its existence becomes a little more obvious every day: the dismal public schools trying to cope with an onslaught of minority children, the homeless people in the streets, the flight of mobile blacks and Latinos to outlying neighborhoods.

Third, few people actually are affected by gang violence. Most of us never visit the communities where these gangs hang out. In most of the so-called “gang neighborhoods,” particularly in East Los Angeles, people walk day and night in perfect safety. With some well-publicized exceptions, gang wars usually hurt people in gangs.

But every detail is reported and magnified by the media. This is not to deny gang violence. Since the 1930s, when Chicano gangs first began to grow into their modern form, violence has increased. But our 15 years of on-the-street research in East Los Angeles also proves that gangs vary tremendously in membership, size and levels of violence. We also know that for manyof the young and old members, programs designed to re-integrate them into conventional society were important events in their lives. Some job-training programs had a major effect. These programs no longer exist. The balance has swung: The focus on law enforcement alone to “handle” the gang problem just increases gang members’ importance to each other, their sense of identity and their isolation.

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One curious footnote to Los Angeles’ disastrous relationship with its gangs: This city is now a national model for failure. Youth gangs are showing up in smaller cities, particularly in the Southwest and the Midwest. These cities must avoid Los Angeles’ mistakes since the 1940s. Exclusive reliance on the criminal-justice system and media hype guarantee the health and entrenchment of gangs.

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