QUESTIONING THE SHERRIFF’S PROPOSAL
FOR A $325 MILLION GANG TASK FORCE

By

DORTELL WILLIAMS

(Approx. 490 words non-fiction)

Recently Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca proposed a half-cent tax hike to fund a $325 million anti-gang task force. If approved by the Los Angeles City Council, the proposal is expected to be among a myriad of other initiatives on the November ballot.
As with any initiative, these proposals must be met with scrutiny and confronted by an alert and questioning public. All too often, once the deal is done- it’s done. So oversight is imperative. The days being duped by misleading legislatives are over.
According to the Los Angeles Police Department, we are nearing a gang population of 100,000 in just L.A. William Bratton, Chief of the LAPD has already conceded that: “We can’t arrest our way out of [the gang problem]this.” And reluctance to do so should be our attitude considering our proclaimed “culture of life,” as President Bush terms it.
The California Department of (so-called) Corrections and Rehabilitation is already brimming with 174,000 adult and juvenile inmates and wards, and is responsible for 115,000 parolees at large.
A quick note of the recent barrage of criticisms the department has weathered by broadcast media regarding their mismanagement of released child predators should be enough to make the public think twice about relying solely on incarceration.
The department’s performance in rehabilitating wayward youth has been just as dismal. The department’s own website reveals a near 80 percent recidivism rate, as compared to a 70 percent success record for youth camps.
L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has expressed concerns about a strictly punitive approach toward delinquency in the past. He has cited the effectiveness of after school programs and other intervention techniques used as he was growing up. Today, we just throw kids away.
However, what we should asking us how we got here in the first place. And why do so many of our youth express such hopelessness for the future, or such a blatant disregard for life.
Could it be the example we’ve shown them? We take their parents away to be prison wards for life. We disrespect the disenfranchised in terms of school funding. We eagerly omit them from society for the slightest offense, while society itself shows a blatant disregard for life.
Gangs have been around for at least forty years. Since that time they have predictably grown unchallenged. Not only have we failed to protect these children from gangs that inevitably swallow them up, but we have also shown a shameful dereliction in shielding them from the many ills associated with gang life: Drugs and guns to start with. Both are as readily available as the cell phones they possess.
Yet, we’re ready to wage an urban war on them.

Little emphasis is placed on prevention, intervention or rehabilitation. In these areas the government, the law enforcement community and the corporations that exploit them are largely silent.
Given society’s grand failures, the biggest question should be: Do we need protection from them, or do we need protection from us?


Resource List:

Antonio Villaraigosa, interviewed by Sonali Kolhatkar of (KPFK), uprsingradio.org, May 16, 2005 (also youth camp statistics)

Jennifer Warren, “State Prisons’ Chief Resigns After Two Months on the Job,” Los Angeles Times, April 20, 2006: A1

www.cdr.ca.gov (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)

www.lacounty.info (Statistics on Child Predators)

Mia Lee, KCAL-9 News, May 15, 2006 (Criticizing CDCR on mishandling of released child predators)

KTLA Chief Bratton quote,“We can’t arrest our way out of this,” June 3, 2004