Word: ganges
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...police data bases that provided the numbers. Noting that only 8.5% of all Latinos and less than one-half of 1% of young white men in that age group show up in the data bases, critics complained that police authorities single out young black men and stereotype them as gang members simply by the way they dress and where they live. The police deny that they indiscriminately enter names in the data bases and insist that the numbers are an accurate reflection of the severity of the problem. "We don't have to create gang members," says McBride. "People...
Though the gang members have halted their internecine bloodletting for now, police point out that they have hardly become model citizens. According to the Reiner report, gang members commit six times as many crimes as people from similar backgrounds who do not belong to gangs. "Each one is a mini crime wave, and together they are a major crime wave," says Reiner. Opinions vary on what role gangs played in the riots, but there is no doubt that they were involved. Several gang members have been charged in the near fatal beating of truck driver Reginald Denny. Last week...
...Gang members admit that they used the riots for their own ends but refuse to take responsibility for them. "Gangs get blamed for everything that happens," says Randy ("Bird") Strickland, 21, a leader of a South Central L.A. gang not participating in the truces. "Gangs are bad, true enough. But if everybody stopped gang-banging right now, there'd still be crime." Strickland says gang members, like many other South Central residents, were outraged over the acquittal of the four L.A.P.D. officers tried for the videotaped beating of Rodney King. "They just kicked us right in the face with...
There is little hope that police action alone can contain or eliminate the gang problem. After leaving the problem largely to local authorities for the past two decades, Washington is rejoining the fight. But with 5 of every 6 federal antigang dollars going to police and prosecution, some say the effort is seriously misdirected. This year, for example, the Justice Department will spend most of its nearly $500 million gang budget on law enforcement, while the Department of Health and Human Services has disbursed only $40 million on prevention and early-intervention programs since 1989. And the FBI's announcement...
Despite the presence of specialized gang units in every L.A. County law- enforcement agency, gang membership has more than tripled since 1985 and gang-related homicides have increased from 271 to 771 last year. Gang members account for an estimated 40% of the 22,000 inmates of the L.A. County jail. According to Reiner, Hispanic gangs have been 60 years in the making and black gangs 30. "The one thing we have to come to grips with," he said, "is there isn't a five-point answer that is going to get rid of the gang problem in five years...