Ability to Stop Gangs Starts at Home

Regarding Sandy Banks’ Dec. 11 column “They Rule by Fear Right Here at Home”: It just leaves me exasperated how this same sentiment is repeated over and over. I just retired from a 36-year law enforcement career, which included more than 25 years involving street gangs, and I don’t think we get it.

We act with dismay and anger when a great kid such as Marquese Prude is gunned down. We demand that the police, district attorney, city council and other government officials hold a meeting to discuss the problems and try to find solutions.

We label the gang members as monsters and street terrorists and say how we need to get them. All the officials promise to step up patrol and prosecution, which they do, but after an increase of law enforcement presence and the incarceration of many of the “street terrorists,” the problem never seems to go away.

The gang problem in our community is a cycle that decreases and increases based on pressure from prosecution, suppression and community-based programs.

Why doesn’t it go away? It is because of the gangs’ feeder system. You can arrest a suspect and chase down a killer, but you can’t arrest or chase down that young kid who idolizes gang members he sees on the streets every day. Gangbanging is a dream for far too many young people. Law enforcement concepts cannot change what those kids feel for a gangster lifestyle. I know older gang members who are just as exasperated that their younger brothers and sons have been drawn to the street-gang lifestyle.

The responsibility for real change is the fathers and mothers in these communities taking charge of their household, teaching morals and values that would not tolerate gang subculture mannerisms. Gang members do not just sprout up over night. They grow up right in our neighborhoods. Until the fathers stand up, until the churches deal with these fractured families and until we actually admit that the problem is all ours, we will continue to have town hall meetings, expecting change that is not going to come.

KEN BELL

Duarte