Keeping Kids Out of Gangs

Today, a New York Times Editorial entitled A Job or a Gang? urges the federal government to direct more money to proven programs that keep young people in school and out of gangs, instead of relying on police dragnets that haul large numbers of nonviolent young people off to jail.

The editorial echoes the recommendations of an updated report on youth violence and gang activity in our city, Old Problem, New Eyes, which I released just last month. My report encourages the city to close the under-capacity and isolated Bronx Bridges Youth Detention Center, formerly known as Spofford, which would save the city at least $14 million. This money should be used to develop alternatives to detention programs, alternatives that have lower recidivism rates and are more cost effective than juvenile detention.

In exchange for the substantial budget cuts to juvenile justice proposed by Governor Paterson, the city will be given greater discretion over how it spends funds from Albany.  This is a silver lining in these grim financial times, which will give the city greater flexibility to focus on keeping our young people in school and providing them with jobs, and community-based counseling and social service programs.    

The report was the result of a series of round table discussions I hosted with youth in Brooklyn and the Bronx. Listening to young people, many of them gang members themselves, we found out that gang affiliation often begins in juvenile detention and that there is a desire for the programs recommended in my report and the Times editorial.

It is clear from our report, as well as today’s editorial, that we need to review policing strategies in neighborhoods with gang activity and identify additional opportunities to engage our young people, their families, neighbors, churches, and schools in efforts to ensure our communities are safe and productive.

Comments

[Tony Herbert/ Community Advocate]

I am not sure who Ms. Gotbaum has been meeting with, but I meet with gang members everyday on the streets of our city and my problem is that the core people that should have been included in this so called town hall were not included. Five or ten people in a room does not give the proper overview of what a majority of the problems are amongst our youth. Single parenthood, unemployment, lack of afterschool programs, no mentoring opportunities,a horrible education system and so on and so on, are the real issues.

In contrast, I do beleive that funding is the answer, however the amount suggested in this thread is just a bandaid. The economic times in our society today are so destitute, that the amount of money needed to address this problem with our youth and their attraction to gangs head on, requires the likes of a real financial stimulus bailout in the hundreds of millions.

In addition, The issues that we are facing with our youth are systemic. Albeit I do not blame the police for doing their job.

However I do blame ineffective political and community leadership that is suppose to be a cadre of forward thinkers that have been charged with the responsibility to move our communities in the right direction and truly advocate for us all. In this they have failed and continue to do so, hence the increase in crime, youth gang violence and innocent lives lost daily...