Even Without Drugs, There’d Be Gangs : L.A.’s sheriff offers a provocative youth-gang hypothesis that demands attention

A top law-enforcement official has painted a startling and unorthodox picture of the roots of contemporary gang violence that we hope will stimulate a re-examination of assumptions and policy prescriptions by all who are concerned about this frightening trend.

In the conventional law-enforcement view, youth-gang violence is said to stem rather directly from the violent vortex of the profitable drug trade. Because of the considerable and undeniable overlap between drug trafficking and gang activity, youth gangs--as opposed to more mature and traditional organized-crime organizations whose interests are varied--are thought to relate to drug activity as plants to oxygen. The very existence and vitality of youth gangs is said to depend on this evil but intimate relationship.

That conception is now under sharp challenge by Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block. At a symposium on gangs sponsored by the county Office of Education, Block characterized the drug-trafficking hypothesis for the existence of gangs as simplistic and misleading. He suggested, in effect, that gangs would thrive in all their present ingloriousness even if drugs didn’t exist. Competition for turf and respect would occur even if there were no drug territories and routes to battle over.

“The general impression put forth by the media today that gangs are fighting each other primarily over drug-dealing turf is really an oversimplification of the problem,” Block said. “Street gangs are really mortal enemies and will not hesitate to kill each other on sight whether drugs are an issue or not.”

If Block is right, then the implications are significant. For general government policy, attention and resources would need to be turned to aspects of the social and economic environment--everything from early- childhood development programs, better education and job training to subtler and more elusive concepts such as self-worth and self-esteem. For law-enforcement policy, a discussion about the general assumptions and approaches of narcotics enforcement would be in order. For what Block is saying is that even if America solved its drug problem overnight--and of course it is nowhere remotely close to that--the gang problem would remain.

Sheriff Block is to be commended, not chastised, for venturing forth with a radically different and refreshingly sophisticated analysis of an alarming problem that is too often addressed with the easy formula and the glib assumption.