Word: ganges
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...South Side of Chicago, gangs like the Folks Nations, the Gangster Disciples and others have begun to erode. The power vacuum is being filled by gang subsets, wannabes and factions with weak leadership. "Now you have a lot of renegades, and 70% of the young men are on the defense," explains Tio Hardiman, gang mediation director for CeaseFire, an antiviolence organization that has been replicated in several cities. "So you have shooters all over the place...
Kennedy calls the phenomenon a "formless street scene" with three tiers. The first is petty criminals who may or may not have gang affiliations. Then there are actual gangs such as Crips, Bloods and MS-13, whose members wear colors, use hand signs and tags and stake out turf. At the highest level is organized crime like the Mafia, which largely eschews violence (until deemed necessary) because it's bad for business...
Margaret T. Burns, spokeswoman for the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office, says viewing incidents like the one at the cookout as just gang violence is an easy way to package and discard the trouble. "It's so easy to calm everyone down and say these are two feuding gangs," she says. "Calling it a gang is a response that calms public fears but may not be necessarily accurate...
...majority of gang-related street crime isn't directed by a gang boss, what is the best way to prevent the often deadly violence that accompanies it? If there is no criminal mastermind to apprehend, how does one reduce the incidence of what some experts believe is a culture of violence and vendetta...
Chicago and Cincinnati appear to have programs that are working. "It's a science-based approach that works with the community," says Dr. Gary Slutkin, executive director of Ceasefire Chicago. "We don't even use the word 'gang.' We see this as an issue of behavior...