EARLY INTERVENTION AGAINST GANGS
Date: March 27, 1998 Page: A16 Section: Editorial Page
Boston police officers who specialize in youth gang violence are
seeing a growing obsession with the clothing styles, hand signals,
and feuding customs of national gangs, including the infamous Bloods
and Crips. The attraction, particularly in Boston's middle schools,
where the problem is most acute, stems largely from adolescent fantasies.
But the violent outcomes will be real and gruesome if the trend goes
unchecked.
Rather than just preach about respect and responsibility, clergy and
lay workers from the Boston Ten Point Coalition have joined with members
of the Boston Police Department's youth violence strike force to identify
"wannabe" gang members and school them in the consequences
of gang involvement. Teams of police officers and clergy are already
visiting the homes and classrooms of students, some as young as 11,
who fancy themselves urban outlaws. Catholic clergy, school principals,
probation officials, and Department
of Youth Services workers (Streetworkers Program) reinforce the effort.
The home visit component in particular is ingenious. Pastoral workers
provide the youths with a sense of a true brotherhood that emphasizes
peaceful resolution of conflicts and self-awareness. The presence
of police officers, who try to remain in the background, still speaks
plainly to the potential for prosecution and imprisonment. Even parents
prone to distraction or denial will have difficulty ignoring the significance
of these visits.
Police estimate that as many as 300 local youths are mimicking the
national gangs. At least two serious assaults in Brighton have been
linked to a gang feud of Bloods-Crips imitators. Asian youngsters,
according to police, gravitate to the Bloods. Black youths incline
toward the Crips. They are all leaning into an abyss. About half of
the 35 gang members first identified by police about two years ago
are already in jail.
"We have to walk out there boldly," says the Rev. Jeffrey
L. Brown, a board member of the Ten Point Coalition. More foundation
and corporate support for such innovative urban ministries will ensure
that they walk with strength in numbers.
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