Pubdate: Mon, 05 Jan 2015
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2015 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/letters.html
Website: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326
Author: Kelly Egan
Page: A1

ON GANG VIOLENCE, WE CAN'T ARREST OUR WAY OUT OF MESS

Diane Deans grabbed it by the business end the other day. About time
somebody did.

To paraphrase the councillor's questions, wrapped in obvious
frustration: Who the hell are these gangbangers and what's their
problem? How do we stop this rash of shootings, 49 by 2014 year's end?
And what's the longer-term fix, and how do we get there?

Lots of people, in lots of cities, have done lots of thinking about
urban gangs. There's no magic way out, otherwise Bloods and Crips
would have VCR-ed into history long ago.

A recurring line of attack in many North American cities - but
distressingly short-lived in effectiveness - is what one wise retired
cop calls "putting a lid on the garbage can."

In other words, find a quick way to get gang chaos out of sight, out
of mind, and restore some peace and order until the next flare-up.

This might involve a "sweep" of some kind, a bunch of high profile
arrests or the influx of so many police patrols in the right
neighbourhoods that the bad guys are forced to lie low. It's all just
buying time.

"You can't arrest your way out of this problem," is an oft-repeated
expression in police circles attributed to California gang expert Al
Valdez.

Why not? Well, (a) in the gang/drug trade, there's always another
soldier to step up, ( b) gang members, sooner rather than later, get
out of jail and (c) for the worst of them, prison is not shameful, but
like a badge.

Mass "arresting" also won't work because the existence of youth gangs
is not primarily a police problem. The police are mainly there to
enforce the law, not instil morals in our teenagers. It takes a
village to raise a real thug.

Inside the Crips tells the story of former gang member Colton Simpson,
or Li'l Cee Loc, and his harrowing years in South Central Los Angeles.

Ottawa is hardly L.A., but a couple of threads in the book speak to
Ottawa's anxiety, our Tanger mall now an Eaton Centre lite: How long
before they kill an innocent bystander, or stage a bloodbath in front
of our children? Tanger, indeed, may be our tipping point.

"Gangsters do what they want; civilians do what they can," page 39.
How true. Civil society is an elaborate set of rules based not only on
good behaviour but on the idea that victims will accept justice from
an unbiased third party ( judge, jury) and that deterrence - prison,
fines, parole, ankle bracelets - has a corrective effect.

Simpson, who writes about a gang introduction at age 10,
responds:

"Gang members are reluctant to testify against the enemy because we
want to judge our own fates, control our own justice. We don't snitch
because snitches end up in body bags. This is our resistance to
America's justice system: Gang members settle their own battles."

This we've imported. "Uncooperative with police" is becoming a common
caveat attached to 2014's outburst of gun violence among the city's
500 gang members.

Coun. Deans's Butch Cassidy moment - "who are those guys?" - is
interesting because it signals the end of polite debate. We live in a
country twitchy about matters of race or ethnicity and crime, but,
surely, there is a way to have a grown-up discussion about this.

If race and culture are part of why some gangs persist, how can we get
at the "root" problems without talking about race and culture?

According to Public Safety Canada, though the data is a decade old, a
racial breakdown of youth gang members has "African-Canadian" at 25
per cent, First Nations at 21 per cent and Caucasian at 18.

The irony, perhaps, of the current hand-wringing is that Ottawa
actually has a gang strategy, co-ordinated by Crime Prevention Ottawa.
The threeyear plan seems to have all the right ingredients,
essentially to identify at-risk kids as early as possible, partner
with lots of agencies, and deploy the right resources to keep
vulnerable kids out of the gang orbit.

But all the committees in the world are not a substitute parent, a
point Li'l Cee Simpson concludes with.

"Most of us never found any love except what we gave each other. We
used that as an excuse to do what we did. The Crips became my family
and I gave them my loyalty, my life. I thought it was the right thing
to do. I did prison time for this family, honoured them, and kept the
code.

"But now I'm almost forty and everywhere I look I see destroyed
lives."

And so, mayor and police chief, where to from here?
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt