Issues with gang

Although gangs are not a new phenomenon but defiantly continue provide a unique challenge for law enforcement and the legal system. According to the Department of Justice in 1998, there were over 28 thousand gangs with nearly 800,000 gang members in the United States (2). This is a massive problem. There is a unique challenge with combating gang violence, trying to find unique ways of targeting gangs without trampling on people's rights. Two of the biggest legal issues I see with gang enforcement deal with the legality or gang specific ordinances and profile based policing.

                A very good example the issues with specific ordinances targeting gangs comes with the case of The City of Chicago v. Morales. The city of Chicago attempted to combat gang violence by passing a ordinance against gang members loitering (2). As a result they were able to cite people for failing to disperse. This ordinance eventually was challenged and was brought the Supreme Court which voided it based on the vagueness in the ordinance.

                The city attempted to pass a law which overall would be a good idea theoretically to combat gang violence but due to the way it was written it was not fully legal. Finding a effective way to combat gang loitering is a important thing that should be balanced. I work as a intern for the Kent Police Department. On a weekly basis, after school high school students who are gang members end up loitering in the shopping mall parking lot across from the school. This loitering almost always leads to very large group fights and even shootings but it continues to happen every week. Despite it continuing to occur, the police seem pretty much powerless to prevent it. There is no law or city ordinance against loitering in the city, if there was this problem may be able to be prevented. At the same time, is it really legal to cite people for simply being gang members who are present at a certain place. Another problem is loitering ordinances is that they seem to target gang members simply as their status as gang members.

                Another legal issue that comes up with enforcement against gangs is the protection of equal rights. There is a sad fact that frequent gang recruitment targets youth in poorer racially diverse parts of the country (5). This is not to say that minorities are the only ones who participate in gang activity, there are plenty of white gangs. Especially with laws similar to the loitering ordinances, it is very easy for law enforcement to simply profile gang members based on race (14). In the case of Morales, police targeted simply on the fact that a Hispanic person was loitering in a mostly white neighborhood. People have a right not to be targeted based on their race.

                Gangs are something that do need to be enforced in order to prevent but this enforcement should not come at the cost of the basic rights of people. The City of Chicago attempted to combat this with a loitering ordinance. Unfortunately the writing and application of this was too vague. I think that ideas such as the loitering ordinance are a good step in the right direction in trying to find the middle ground between effectively combating gang violence but also protecting rights.

                Discriminatory enforcement further adds to this issue of a balance that needs to be created. It is a good thing that police are proactively trying to stop gang violence. At the same time, the people who are target for the police cannot be target just for the fact that they are a gang member and a minority. The police cannot racially profile someone based on their background or status as a gang member. This practice is something I believe to be pretty widespread. Like the loitering ordinance and other gang related laws a balance needs to be found. Rather than simply targeting someone based on their race or standing the specific criminal behavior of the person should be the focus of them being targeted no their standing. This is important to protect the equal protection of all people from being targeted.