Q & A : More Carrot, Less Stick With Gangs

Jesse Colon, 30, case manager, Project Heavy West, a youth counseling and advocacy service.

Claim to fame: Counsels at-risk teen-agers and their families. Project Heavy West is supported by funds from the city and county of Los Angeles and by private donors.

Background: A former gang member from Aurora, Ill., and a recovering addict and alcoholic. Worked as a counselor at a halfway house for Cuban refugees in Chino before joining Project Heavy West.

Interviewer: Free-lance writer Shawn Doherty.

Q: Trust must be extremely important in your efforts to reach the kids you work with. If I were one of your new clients, what would you say to me to introduce yourself and win my confidence?

A: Let me tell you about myself. I fought my way back from being a cocaine addict and an alcoholic. I dropped out of high school. I used to be in a gang. So I understand where you’re coming from. And I want you to be honest with me in talking to me, ‘cause none of this is going to the police or to your parents. This is highly confidential. I’ve put my reputation on the line, OK? So you have to be honest with me.

I need to know if you’ve been smoking, if you’re doing any drugs, if you’re in a gang. I need to know what’s happening with you so we can talk about it. If we don’t cooperate, it’s your ass on the line, because I have to do my job. OK?

Q: Some of these kids are pretty cynical. Do they buy that pitch?

A: It works--because it’s genuine. I keep going to their homes; they know me, they understand what I do. And a lot of these kids on my caseload have heard of me (before I even meet them.) They’re talking to each other, and they’re saying, Jesse’s OK.

Q: Traditional approaches to dealing with gangs have been a lot more punitive. In the past, efforts have focused on keeping children and teen-agers out of gangs. You don’t feel that’s realistic. In fact, you don’t even ask the kids you work with to leave gangs. Why not?

A: Because there’s nothing wrong with being in a gang. What’s wrong is what they’re doing-- the crime, the violence, the selling of drugs. But being in a gang is not wrong. If you’re 55, you belong to a bridge club. That’s a gang. Nobody’s asking those people to leave their gangs.

These kids are young and they hang around their neighborhoods, and they get together as a society club, but it’s named a gang. And so (society) automatically thinks of violence, drive-by shootings, drugs and everything else. You can’t think of a gang these days and not think negatively about it. And that negative is channeled through the media, through movies, through television, and eventually through (teen-agers themselves). And they start to think, well, if they think I’m bad I may as well be bad.

I’m not saying that’s what happens to all of them. I’m just saying that part of the problem is that society has named these kids bad just because they’re in a gang.

Q: But the truth is, some of these kids are bad--or at least, they do bad things. They commit crimes. They deal drugs. They shoot people.

A: There’s only a few that do drive-by shootings. On the Westside, there are only a few criminal gangs that are into drugs, car-stealing and burglaries. But there’s also a lot of gangs that just stick together and are a group of kids. With every gang, there are littler cliques. And maybe just one of those cliques will be violent, but because they all have the same gang name, everybody things they’re all violent. The attitude of society is, if you’ve seen one gang member, you’ve seen them all.

Q: How would you characterize the attitude of the Los Angeles Police Department toward gangs? Law enforcement efforts here have focused on obliterating gangs with special task forces like CRASH and Operation Hammer. Are they working?

A: Just the name Operation Hammer tells you that the police approach has been punitive. I know a lot of officers who are really trying to get into community policing. But there are still those who have the old way of policing.

The CRASH unit does not have a good rapport with gang members. If you look like a gang member, they’ll stereotype you even if you are not involved in violence. Say I’m walking down the street--I like to dress down, I live in an area known to have gang activity. CRASH pulls me over, and I didn’t do nothing, but they are going to put my name down into a file saying I’m a possible gang member. It comes down to harassment.

The other day, I saw a unit having a couple of guys kneel on the bench while they were getting information. Kneeling hurts. To inflict pain on somebody is (unnecessary). That’s how they do their job. They create more hostility--stopping everybody they see, especially in a hot neighborhood--which defeats our purpose. It will just heighten the (gang) activity and stress.

Q: But can you blame police officers for feeling they need to protect themselves?

A: The problem is we’re killing off each other, not police officers. Police officers should be a little more trusting. I’m not saying open themselves up for a shot. But there has to be a line of trust and dialogue.

Q: A lot of money--in some places more money than is spent on prevention--is spent on graffiti cleanup. What do you think about that allocation of resources?

A: It’s valid to fight to keep our neighborhoods clean. But we’re going about it wrong. We go into a neighborhood and erase all the names they put up. The next day it’s back out there. So why don’t we take a couple of the kids from that same neighborhood and have them help us clean that same wall? The next day it will be clean. Because we involved them. We have to get the kids involved. We’re going into their territory. We’re cleaning off their wall. But we’re not asking them to help.

Q: So, to summarize what I think you’re saying, the new approach should be to negotiate, to work with instead of against gangs? To accept that they are here to stay?

A: That’s exactly something we all knew but didn’t want to say: We’re never going to get rid of gangs. We need to give them something constructive so that people can respect what they’re getting together for. We’ve got to get them fighting for a cause without using violence or guns. And by getting results, maybe their self-esteem will go up. Instead of having car washes because somebody died, have car washes because somebody needs food. Help your community out.

Q: But I’ve talked with gang members who are proud of what they do, who boast about their violence. These kids would do a car wash for hunger?

A: Do they have anything else to boast about? They want respect, that’s all. They live in a society where the government’s cutting back and they can’t get money to go to college. If they graduate, they’ll be in the unemployment line. They don’t see a future. In their eyes, what’s the use of calculus if they’re gonna be pushing a broom for the rest of their lives?

Q: You must run into a lot of people who think you are dead wrong to argue that society rather than the individual deserves blame for gang activity.

A: I know what these bureaucratic people say--and I don’t want anything to do with it. I feel sorry for them, that they choose to be cold and punitive toward our children.

We’ve given our children these problems, and now we are punishing them for it. They didn’t create gangs; gangs have been here since before time. They didn’t create the economic structure that forces them to do drugs. What’s happening out there is a creation of our own mistakes. Society and government have played a part. So yeah, we can look at a kid who’s done a drive-by, and we can execute him. But has that really done anything? The old approach isn’t working. (But) I can go into a neighborhood and talk to families and become a role model to these kids and help them out.

Q: You’re very idealistic.

A: What’s so idealistic if it works?

Q: Does it work? You’ve counseled over 100 people in less than two years at Project Heavy West. Where are they now?

A: If I don’t hear their name coming up in probation or police department reports, I assume they are doing well. Most of them won’t become rich or famous, but they stabilize themselves and they go on with their lives. Of course you can’t do magic with everyone. But only a very few happen to not be receptive and to continue to throw their lives away.

Q: Who are your clients and what kinds of problems do they have?

A: I currently have 16 kids, aged 11 to 18. Three of them are girls, and about 60% of them are in gangs. They have problems with the gangs, drugs and alcohol, or with their families. I meet with them an hour a week. I visit their neighborhoods and homes. Plus they know they can call when they need help. I’m there for them. Most people don’t understand what’s going on with these gang members. I’ve dealt with these kinds of issues. I feel for these kids.

Q: How do they do in school? Is there any way to counter the 43% dropout rate among Latinos in Los Angeles high schools?

A: We need more ESL classes, we need more bilingual and bicultural teachers. It’s going to be hard with the budget, but we need to focus more on the needs of individual students. Right now they slip through the cracks, especially when you have maybe 40 students in a classroom.

There has to be more follow-up, making sure that everybody is aware of this child and his progress, so that by the time he gets to eighth grade he can be worked on so he can get a degree. The counseling system is not adequate. They have maybe 100 or 200 children per counselor. We have all these kids who reach high school reading at the third-grade level. Of course they’re gonna be humiliated and give up, and they’re not getting any help.

Q: Don’t parents have some responsibility?

A: There has to be more parental involvement. There’s neglect. You see parents that work and come home and lay back, and the hell with the kids. There’s some blame there.

But you have to understand that often two parents are working, maybe nighttime jobs too, and they are too tired to get involved. Twenty years ago it was different. Maybe Dad worked and Mom was home with the kids. (For me, when I was young), it got to the point where you see your Mom and Dad working their buns off for years and years, yet nothing happens. It’s still the same house, the same car, the same, “No, I don’t have no money for you today, we’re broke.” You get frustrated, and you just start looking for other avenues.

Q: Like?

A: Like dealing.

Q: Aside from the money you got from selling drugs, what did you--and the kids you work with--get from gangs?

A: Respect, loyalty, friendship.

Q: You said earlier that society and government play a part in gangs. What do you mean?

A: Racism, discrimination, government cutbacks on programs for the economically disadvantaged over the years, housing developments, immigration laws. A majority of what (these teen-agers) are going through is because they are a minority. Not only minority in a sense of color, a minority in the sense of economics. Because they’re low-income, they’re forced to live in a certain area. Because they hang around kids from that area, they are alienated from the school they’re supposed to go to. Because (some of them) are illegal immigrants, their parents can’t get good-paying jobs. And they bring along cultural beliefs that do not fit into this society.

Q: Many of the kids you work with are in Latino gangs. How do cultural beliefs contribute to Latino gangs?

A: The machismo (of the Latino culture) plays a part in how gangs act. Because children are brought up into that violence--Dad’s going to whip my butt good. And the alcohol plays a role.

Q: How?

A: It’s an escape from reality. They may do it out of rebellion, but once they get into it they start to like it. And if you got a 15-year-old whose brain hasn’t developed fully yet, and you pour alcohol into that, you’re definitely going to have some wrong judgments. I’ve heard from one member that before he does a drive-by he would smoke a joint and drink a beer just to relax and maybe get the courage to do the act.

Q: I have heard gang members say that doing a drive-by is a way of scoring points--and of winning respect and membership from a gang.

A: For a wanna-be gang member, it’s a way to prove loyalty to his gang. For somebody already involved in a gang, it would be an act of retaliation. It’s a stereotype that all gang members do drive-bys. There are very few. But they have the highest respect from their peers.

Q: How do the gang members feel about the possibility of getting hurt or dying?

A: They’re ready for it. They accept it. They don’t want it to happen, but they’ll throw themselves at the risks. What else do they have to live for? Who’s gonna guarantee them a job? Who’s gonna guarantee that the medical bills are going to be paid, that the family’s going to be well off, that they might live long enough to own a house?

Q: What’s happening with gangs on the Westside?

A: There’s a lot of gangs--mostly in Culver City, Venice, Mar Vista and Santa Monica. Most of them aren’t criminal gangs. But there’s always the law, that you stay in your neighborhood. When that’s broken, that’s when the trouble starts. Right now, there’s a high respect for each other’s territory. Everything’s cool.

Q: Why should we care about these turf battles and gang bangers?

A: These kids are our future presidents, bank managers, our future lawyers and doctors. If we don’t start thinking that way, where are we going to end up? I was one of those kids that fell through the cracks. I was living in a society where drinking and drugs were OK. I was flunking school. There was no intervention--to them I was just another Latino that flunked--good riddance. Why? I’m not stupid. I fought my way back and proved I’m worth something. I tell my kids I’m gonna give them what in my lifetime I didn’t get. Which was somebody to reach out and pull my hair and say, “Listen, you’re doing something wrong.” For a lot of these kids, that’s all it takes. Somebody to take an interest and say you have a choice.

Q: You’re only one person.

A: I’m giving it the best I can.

Q: But doesn’t it discourage you to see all these kids still falling through the cracks?

A: It just makes me more motivated. I can’t help everybody. But if I can make a difference, it’s OK. The most encouraging thing about my job is that most of my clients become my friends.