David Zahniser's piece in today's Times laid out some of the latest about anti-gang program reform in Los Angeles - mainly, that the L.A. Bridges program will be dropped in favor of (hopefully more accountable) prevention and intervention programs in 12 specific gang-reduction zones. While reading it, I tripped over the following piece of information:
"Each of the 12 zones -- neighborhoods such as Panorama City, Cypress Park and Baldwin Village -- will receive $1 million per year in prevention funds, enough to target at least 200 children per zone."
It was sobering to think about how, even after whatever lessons have or haven't been learned by the inefficiency of L.A. Bridges, this is the best we can realistically hope for in terms of raw numbers. $1 million to target 200 children per gang-reduction zone (to this, Councilwoman Janice Hahn reliably quips: "'I mean, all of Markham Middle School' -- which has an enrollment of 1,500 -- 'is at risk of joining gangs'"). And what would an acceptable success rate be in terms of gang prevention? 70%? 10%?
I believe strongly in the value of human lives, and 20 or 50 "saved" children per zone is no small thing, but with tens of thousands of gang members in L.A. (estimates vary between 30,000-60,000), we're talking about band-aids. In addition, there is the problem of measuring success: How long would one keep tracking the children involved in such programs? How effective can long-term tracking be, when many of these children are illegal immigrants? Do we declare success if they stay out of gangs for 10 years, and join in the 11th? How surely could we determine whether they were active gang members or not? How to know whether a child would have stayed out of gangs anyway?
I'm in support of both prevention and intervention programs, as I think too much emphasis is placed on law enforcement when it comes to this problem. And I certainly am not smart enough to draw up a short-term plan that sounds better than this new strategy. But I don't think much will change unless this city somehow tackles larger issues of economic and educational inequality (in addition to all those thornier issues of gun control, immigration, prison reform, interracial tensions, etc.) If ever gang membership and gang violence significantly decrease in L.A., I can't see it being by design.
2 comments:
During my short stint in LA, I quickly became a Jill Leovy (of the Homicide Blog) journo-groupie.
I've seen her speak a few times (which is why I can't locate a link to back me up) and she always brings up a point about the caseloads of detectives.
Everyone seems to be focused on junior shooting hoops (not guns!) after school or flooding the mean streets of LA County with patrol cars. I say, use that $1 million to hire a few more detectives. It's increasing law enforcement, in a sense, but in a more efficient way.
I guess if you look at the data in neighborhoods where the murder rates are the biggest problems, you see that detectives are overwhelmed with so many murder cases. Practically, this means that murders don't get solved at the same rates that they do in neighborhoods where murder isn't a huge problem.
So neighborhoods with high murder rates also have a greater percentage of people getting away with murder. It's a double whammy. I wish I had numbers here, but it's something ridiculous, like more than half of people literally get away with murder in certain neighborhoods.
Unlike these programs, the statistics bear this one out. I'm sure you could solve a few unsolved murders for $1 mil.
Of course decreasing the caseloads of homicide detectives would be a great thing, but in the end you're still treating symptoms (homicides being the most pressing and tragic symptom of L.A.'s gang problem). I don't think raising the murder clearance rate - while certainly a desired goal in itself, and one that could prevent repeat offenders - would significantly curb gang membership or activity.
I can definitely see how locking up a few dozen more murderers a year could be the most efficient use of that hypothetical $1 million. My point, though (if I have one), is that I'm not sure ANY use of that $1 million, or whatever amount of money, does much in terms of the larger picture. Not without fundamental changes across a number of levels of this city. The "$1 million for 200 kids" stat was just a reminder of this for me.
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