A Businesskid On A Cloud

The NYPD is, in its language, advocating for what seems like paramilitary tactics to be used against Queens street gangs (Raids, Mob action, etc) Unfortunately this method has been used several times in other communities, and almost always fails to address the route problems that breed and facilitate the existance of gangs. The gang goes away for a few weeks, but re-emerges later on more intelligent than before.

The first, and hard to resist reaction to a situation like this is to ask for more police presence in the community. But like Captain Williams suggests the root of this problem goes beyond the actions of the 28th precinct, and a half-hearted effort to attack the problem easily could make it worse. This is even more true when dealing with crime committed by teenagers and children, as I wrote about before. We have to carefully balance upholding the law while not tracking kids on an early path toward education in crime, but acknowledging that their current environment is not facilitiating progress either. Those drug-money funded after-school programs are a great start but until more is done to tackle the socio-political problems this neighborhood - and others like it across the country - faces, we should expect more guns on the street, more robberies, more violence,and more murders in Harlem.

Sometimes you have to mitigate the effects of poverty. That never justifies violence, let alone murder though. But one thing can certainly be said: gang violence doesn’t come from some cold place in an already frozen heart or anything like that. It’s one of the more disgusting manifestations of persistent poverty comorbid with crack epidemic weapons. As always, we’re left with the same situation: poor adolescents with lowered hope for opportunity in education (considering only recently have minorities in the hood been able to actually get out and perform in a some-what-not-racially-hostile world), pressure to bring in more cash for the family during economic downturns (as if the hood can have any more of an economic downtown), and no opportunity to invest their energy positively after mandated school hours. So what do they do? Mixed responses, of course, but more often than not the result is irrational youth violence, spurred by the mood swings of puberty and the instant-action of firearms.

If you want to stop this sibling society of gang violence, you need to: A) give these kids an education system they can invest faith into, B) crack down on the access to firearms in the hood (which might involve stopping these cops from bringing them into the city themselves), C) create economic opportunities in the hood that will allow people to create legal livable sources of income and D) build facilities and programs that allow kids to invest their energy into professional and personal development.

Save the poor, you’ll save the hood from violence.

The only good side of this is it at least has to last until the world cup is done.