After City of Chicago v. Morales: If Youth "Hang Out" on the Street, Are They Breaking the Law? Discussion November 30-December 6, 1999 Discussion follows. Click on discussants to find out more information about them. Discussants: National Online Youth Summit Pilot High School Classrooms Alejandro Alonso, Gang Researcher at the University of Southern California Catherine Coles, research associate in the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and at the School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University Rita Fry, Public Defender of Cook County, Illinois Q. What is a gang? How is it distinct from any other group of people? How do the police identify gang members and gang-related activity?    -Miami Carol City Senior High, Miami, FL Moberly Senior High School, Moberly, MO Newport High School, Newport, Oregon Zephyrhills High School, Zephyrhills, FL Hampden Academy, Hampden, Maine Louise McGehee School, New Orleans, LA Northport High School, Northport, N.Y. Laurel High School, Laurel, Montana Plattsmouth High School, Plattsmouth, NE Douglas High School, Box Elder, South Dakota Fairfax High School, Fairfax, Virginia Shiloh High School, Lithonia, Georgia Ossining High School, Ossining, N.Y. Byron Center Public High School, Byron Center, MI A. Alejandro Alonso: The question of "what is a gang" is a heavily debated issue among academic scholars and law enforcement officials. The problem is that gangs operate differently in different locales, and within different ethnic backgrounds, therefore constructing a definition is often problematic and not representative of all types of gangs. Although there are several challenges in defining a gang, that has not prevented scholars in attempting to construct their own definitions. Below are a few that I have used in some of my research. They date back as far as 1927: [A gang is] an interstitial group originally formed spontaneous, and then integrated through conflict. It is characterized by the following types of behavior: meeting face to face, milling, movement through space as a unit, conflict, and planning. The result of this collective behavior is the development of tradition, unreflective internal structure, esprit de corps, solidarity, morale, group awareness, and attachment to a local territory. (Thrasher 1927: 57) …act in concert to achieve a specific purpose or purposes which generally include the conduct of illegal activity or control over a particular territory or type of enterprise. (Miller 1975: 9) … an organization of young people usually between their early teens and early twenties, which has a group name, claims a territory or neighborhood as its own, meets with its members on a regular basis, and has recognizable leadership. (Gardner 1983: 5) …a group of associating individuals which has an identifiable leadership and organizational structure, either claims a territory in the community, or exercises control over an illegal enterprise; and engages collectively or as individuals in acts of violence or serious criminal behavior. (California Office of Criminal Justice Planning 1987: 3-4) …a group whose members meet together with some regularity, over time, on the basis of group-defined criteria of membership and group-determined organizational structure, usually with some sense of territoriality. (Short 1990:239) In my research on Bloods and Crips in Los Angeles I found that gangs are a collective group of individuals with a common ethnic and/or geographic identity that collectively and/or individually regularly engage in a variety of activities, legal or illegal; that claim to be the dominant group in their locale, exercising territoriality either fixed or fluid; and that engage in at least one rivalry and/or competition with another organization. In Los Angeles, the Police Department and Sheriff's Department use tattoos and graffiti to identify gang members, but often many are labeled gang members through association which, can inflate the statistics of the actual number of gang members county wide. In 1998, Los Angeles County claimed to have 150,000 gang members active, but many have suggested that these numbers are inflated or inaccurate because they have no consistent method for accounting gang membership. This task is a difficult one to say the least. In Los Angeles a crime is identified as gang related whether the victim is a gang member or not. For example if a gang member kills another person over a dispute that had nothing to do with his/her gang affiliation it is still identified as a gang related homicide. That is one reason why Los Angeles reports the highest number of gang related homicides every year. In Chicago this same incident would not have been identified as a homicide. A. Catherine Coles: In my experience, I have found gangs to be groups of individuals, usually in their teens or early twenties, whose association is based upon a common ethnic or cultural identity, and/or identification with a particular neighborhood or geographical area. While gang members may carry out specific activities together (both legal and illegal), in many cases they join together initially because they believe that membership offers some protection against predatory behavior by others in the urban area in which they live and/or move about. Police identify gangs through distinguishing characteristics such as colors, signs or symbols, gestures, association with a neighborhood or locale, and other features. But police in many cities also learn the individual identities of gang members, and some are fairly knowledgeable about whether individual incidents represent personal conflicts between individuals who may be gang members but where the incidents are not likely to involve entire gang involvement, or incidents that could escalate to involve entire gangs in opposition to each other. Q. In your opinion, does the Chicago ordinance violate the First Amendment guarantee to free speech, the right to peacefully assemble, the right to associate, and/or the right to travel freely? Was this type of defense ever argued on the behalf of the defendants charged under the Chicago ordinance?     -Northport High School, Northport, NY Zephyrhills High School, Zephyrhills, FL Shaw High School, East Cleveland, OH Lakeridge High School, Lake Oswego, OR Moberly High School, Moberly, MO A. Rita Fry: Yes, besides being too vague, the City of Chicago’s gang loitering ordinance violated the right of citizens to free speech, to assembly, to association and to travel. The Constitution protects your right to talk to others, to associate with your friends and family and to move around in public. Otherwise, we would live in a “police state.” The Cook County Public Defender’s Office argued all of those grounds in the lower courts and obtained favorable rulings. The Supreme Court did not address many of those issues. This is because appeals courts often apply what is called “judicial economy.” If a case can be decided on a narrower ground, the appellate court will rule only on that issue and wait to decide the other issues in another case. Q. In what ways, if any, do you feel that journalists [and/or the media in general] have influenced attitudes about gang activity and gangs?     -Galesburg High School, Galesburg, Illinois A. Alejandro Alonso: I believe that the media is partly responsible for promoting the negative stereotypes associated with youths and gangs by focusing on and sensationalizing specific events (usually homicides and drug sales) that usually portray a bleak picture of gang culture, when much of the activities surrounding gang life are completely legal. These media depictions have influenced an overtly negative attitude towards gangs. In addition, the images represented through gangsta' rap lyrics and videos further exacerbate the negative notion of gangs. I also believe that the images portrayed through both the media and music has also aided the proliferation of Los Angeles gang culture to other segments of the United States and beyond. Q. What kind of sanctions are most effective in preventing social deviance?     -Yorktown High School, Yorktown, VA A.  Catherine Coles: This question could be answered in a number of ways depending upon the meaning of the terms used. In my answer, I assume that "sanctions" refer to some type of repudiation or punishment for offenders. I also assume that by "social deviance" we mean illegal offending and not simply antisocial behavior. I am also going to concentrate on youthful offenders in my answer. The predominant approach by prosecutors and police today is early intervention: that is, when a youth commits some offense, particularly if it is a nonviolent and/or first offense (such as shoplifting, truancy, or a curfew violation) this may provide an opportunity to intervene in the individual's life and turn him or her away from a course of re-offending. In some cases, diversion programs are available: the youth is offered an alternative to processing through the courts if s/he (and the family) participates in counseling, programs that teach anger management or other skills, requirements for school attendance and achievement, or even substance abuse treatment. If the offender fails to complete the program s/he must return to court and face formal adjudication. In other locations, post-adjudication programs are available that involve similar types of sanctions, and also community service and restitution. An important part of these types of programs is creating positive mentoring relationships for the youth with adults in the local community--relationships that will support and assist the youth in the future (and even the entire family), after the court-mandated activity is completed. Increasingly, however, attempts are being made to prevent rather than respond to offenses once they have been committed--that is, to reach youths before they offend, before new victims are affected. For example, in Massachusetts, community-based justice programs operate in which committees of police, prosecutors, probation officers, school officials and service providers meet to identify youth who are at risk of offending, or pose a risk to their school or residential communities. These are not only court-involved youth, but some whose behavior has been noticed in schools or communities-they are troubled, but have not carried out illegal activities. The committees talk about these students, and attempt to develop some plan of action for intervening to turn their lives around--I have seen a police officer driving a student to and from school every morning just to give him time to talk about what is happening in his life; another elementary student was able to attend a summer music camp through the efforts of the committee; in another school, probation officers went to visit the homes of students frequently absent from school, and found a whole range of situations--students who had to help ill parents and therefore missed school, or others who were the only English-speakers in their family, and had to accompany a family member to serve as an interpreter. Understanding the reasons for truancy helped the probation officers to work with others to get some help for the youth, and the family, before the youth began failing in school. (Truancy is one of the factors most highly correlated with offending and subsequent court involvement of youth.) One other type of sanction is also used to reduce offending--treating violent, repeat offenders with very stiff sentences. Federal prosecutors are assisting local district attorneys in conducting "priority prosecutions" of these individuals, and they are being sent away to prison or jail for long sentences--often far from home, in other states. The idea is to show others (the "wannabes" or minor offenders) that the violence and destructiveness of those who persist in moving toward more frequent and violent offending will not be tolerated. And community members working with police and prosecutors play important roles in helping law enforcement to remove these individuals from their local neighborhoods. Q: Did the city of Chicago research the situation before they passed this ordinance? Had complaints been filed by the local citizenry?     -St. Agnes Academic High School, Queens, N.Y. A.  Rita Fry: No, the City of Chicago did not research the situation before passing the ordinance. The ordinance was drafted in response to complaints filed by the local citizens. Had the City thoroughly researched the law, they might have realized the proposed gang loitering ordinance was unconstitutional, according to the United States Constitution. The city has a legal research department and a community relations office, both of which responded to citizens’ complaints. The gang loitering ordinance was enacted, resulting in the arrest and conviction of numerous individuals who later exercised their right to appeal. The gang loitering ordinance was found to be unconstitutional, and those convicted were released. Q. Are police strategies for determining who belongs to gangs different from racial profiling or are they similar in any way? If not, how are they different. If they are similar, how so?     -Hampden Academy, Hampden, ME Louise McGehee School, New Orleans, LA Elkins High School, Fort Bend, TX Yorktown High School, Arlington, VA Allendale Columbia High School, Rochester, NY A. Catherine Coles: Conceptually and practically, racial profiling and police interaction with gangs are quite distinct, although they may overlap. But to begin, we need to recognize that race is a status (you are born into it); in contrast, while gangs may be associated with a particular ethnic identity, and age (which again are statuses), membership requires an action, that is choosing to join the gang. Not every youth of a particular ethnic group will choose to join an active gang in his or her community. Racial profiling assumes that police will make decisions based upon the race of individuals. But in determining who belongs to gangs, police must look beyond race or cultural identity alone, and at some of the symbols adopted by gangs (colors, clothing, certain gestures), at the territory within which gangs tend to operate, at the behavioral characteristics of particular gangs, and at known patterns of behavior and conflict between gangs. As I said in my last set of answers, especially with the development of gang task forces and community-oriented policing in which officers work intensively in a local neighborhood, police often know who is a member of what gang-they know members individually, even by name. So there is a big difference between police making traffic stops or stopping people on a street to do a search on the basis of race-both of which activities lend themselves more to potential practices and criticisms of racial profiling-and police learning who belongs to a gang and then taking action against illegal behavior by gang members. A.  Alejandro Alonso: The differences between profiling and gang identification are: 1. Profiling can be used against any age cohort in a particular population while gang identification techniques usually affect minors and young adults. 2. Racial profiling is usually associated with police officers singling out minorities during traffic incidents, but it can also occur with people of color that are shopping or at the airport boarding a plane. Gang identification usually occurs when individuals are observed in public and a claim is made (usually by a police officer) that a person is a gang member. Similarities between profiling and gang identification are: 1. Both strategies are inherently racialized, usually leading to false generalizations and misidentification. For example black and Hispanic youths that may dress, talk, and gesture in a particular way that will often identify them as a gang member based solely on appearance. Black women in airports are usually singled out by airport security as drug runners when they rarely are. 2. Both strategies can and often lead to a traumatic experience for the person involved, because a level of humiliation and embarrassment are associated with being falsely identified. Q. Are curfew ordinances in any way similar to this gang ordinance since they target a particular group of people? Why are curfew ordinances upheld?     -Moberly High School, Moberly, MO Falcon High School, Falcon, CO Yorktown High School, Arlington, VA A. Catherine Coles: Curfew ordinances actually target a much larger group of individuals than gang ordinances, since they are age-based. I am not especially in favor of curfews, since they restrict the activities of a great many youth who can handle themselves safely and appropriately. Furthermore, they are difficult for police to enforce (other members of the panel might be better able to answer the question of whether gang or curfew ordinances are more difficult to enforce) because virtually every one contains a multitude of exceptions--where it is permissible for a youth to be out after the curfew when returning from a job or school-related activity; where s/he is acting on behalf of a parent or other adult; or when there is some critical need for the travel. However, it must be remembered that the purpose of curfews is not solely to control youth or prevent illegal behavior, but also to protect youth. In certain areas, at certain times, the streets are simply so dangerous for youth below a certain age that they become, in effect, vulnerable prey. The courts have not uniformly agreed about whether curfews are legal--a number of ordinances have been struck down. In some situations, however, where legislation is clearly aimed at safeguarding young people from threats to their welfare that are clearly documented, where there appears to be no less restrictive means for doing so, and where there are adequate exceptions for permissible travel available, the courts have found them legal. Q. Do you think Jesus Morales and his friends would have been approached by the police if the group was racially mixed and they had been loitering in a racially mixed, lower income neighborhood?     -D.M. Therrell High School, Atlanta, GA A. Alejandro Alonso: Although racially mixed street groups are not often common in Los Angeles and other places that I have examined, I believe that youths congregating in racially mixed groups would not be targeted in the same manner as homogeneous ethnic groups. Groups of Blacks and Hispanics are usually looked at as a threat, especially in ghettoized neighborhood and barrios of the inner city, because of the historical racial stereotypes and stigmatization that people of color have been subject to. Racially mixed groups, especially those that included Caucasian youths, might garner less attention from law enforcement because of different stereotypes. Q. Are there any other cities that have used loitering laws to reduce gang-related crime, and if you compare the cities with and without loitering laws, is there any measurable difference in gang-related crime?     -Grand Junction High School, Grand Junction, CO St. Pius X High School, Atlanta, GA Mt. Edgecumbe High School, Sitka, AK A. Catherine Coles: I will have to defer to the other respondents to answer the question of whether other cities have specifically used loitering laws to reduce gang-related crime--I do not know. However, in San Jose, California, the city was able to obtain an injunction under its public nuisance statutes prohibiting gang members from knowingly associating ("sitting, standing, walking, driving, gathering, or appearing anywhere in public view") with other gang members within a narrowly defined territory. The injunction withstood a legal challenge (see People ex rel. Gallo v. Acuna): the California Supreme Court recognized that the injunction's purpose was to prevent collective conduct by "gang members loitering in a specific…neighborhood". The court spoke at length in this opinion about the rights of those in the community itself to peace, safety and security--this was a small neighborhood that had been literally terrorized by gangs taking over people's yards and the streets. When residents made calls to the police to report illegal activity, the action by gang members would always stop by the time police arrived on the scene. It took a prohibition on association itself to break the hold of the gangs on this neighborhood. Generally speaking, those loitering laws that have been upheld by courts around the country have tended to be written in the form of "loitering for the purpose of [some illegal activity]…" and aimed at prostitution, lewd acts, or drug dealing, rather than loitering alone. Many (though not all) courts have held that "loitering for the purpose of…" laws overcome constitutional challenges based upon vagueness and overbreadth. A. Alejandro Alonso: In addition to Chicago, Milwaukee and Los Angeles have used anti-loitering legislation to control and suppress gangs but I am unaware of any studies that have compared gang activity between cities with anti-loitering laws and those without such laws. There are some ongoing research projects that are examining the effectiveness of these laws within particular locales. Presently, I am conducting a study that is looking at gang injunctions in Los Angeles County, California, so it is too early to see if there is any measurable difference between these types of places. Q. How can communities effectively address gang problems? When gangs are already firmly rooted, what are the first steps a community can take, and how can communities without gangs keep them from moving in?     -Shaw High School, East Cleveland, OH Louise McGehee School, New Orleans, LA Grand Junction High School, Grand Junction, CO Laurel High School, Laurel, MT D.M. Therrell High School, Atlanta, GA A.  Catherine Coles: The most important step a community can take to address gang problems is to prevent them from developing, and there are myriad ways of doing this--through early intervention programs in schools that identify youth who are truant, or showing signs of violent or disruptive behavior and getting them assistance early on; through street workers, youth programs and police working closely with youth outside of schools, gaining their trust, and thereby being in a position to help defuse situations before they get out of control. In Boston, when the police saw new Asian gangs forming among middle school students this past year, they followed a similar strategy to what they had done with earlier gangs--they visited the homes and parents of the youth, talked with parents, and brought clergy and leaders of local faith-based institutions into the discussions. It takes everyone working together--police, prosecutors, courts and probation offices, schools, service providers, business (coming out to offer jobs to youth), health services, local government--when they join forces, there is a lot that can be done. If gangs are already operating, a community needs to develop both a strong law enforcement effort to reduce violent gang activity, and opportunities for gang members to pursue productive activities through education and employment. In Boston again, Operation Ceasefire developed in the mid-1990s, in which police joined with state and federal prosecutors, probation and corrections offices, representatives of the faith community, and service providers in the local community. After extensive research and background work, police and prosecutors had learned who the gang members were, and they developed a plan to reduce the violence that was taking many lives. They convened meetings with members of youth gangs, and told them point blank that violence was not going to be tolerated any longer: if any violence broke out that involved even one or two members of a gang, the entire gang would be taken out. Police would arrest them for any small infraction (many were already on probation or parole, and could be arrested for violating the conditions); prosecutors would pursue cases without delay and ask for the most severe penalties--and in federal cases, offenders might be sent to prison out of state, far away from home and families. When the first violence broke out, police arrested all the members of one gang. One gang member, out on federal parole, was arrested for carrying two bullets-he went back to prison for 19 years. The word went around on the streets. Gang violence stopped, and no youth were killed in Boston with guns for close to two years. But these efforts were paralleled by the efforts of many in the community to create increased job opportunities and training for youth, including gang members; to hire new street workers who could work in the language of newly forming gangs; to offer self-esteem classes to middle school girls; and to create many other alternatives to life in a gang. It is important to emphasize that there is no single "formula" for addressing gang problems. The approaches that appear to be working involve collaborations in which justice institutions (police, prosecutors, courts, etc.) join with service providers, schools, local government, and citizens in devising a plan for addressing the existing problem; and the approach focuses on prevention as well as responding to current crime. Q. Why did the city fight to keep this law when the evidence about its effectiveness was inconclusive?     -Lincoln Park High School, Chicago, IL Sam Rayburn High School, Pasadena, TX Glenvar and Northside High Schools, Roanoke, VA Centennial High School, Boise, ID A. Rita Fry: In all of its public statements, the City of Chicago stated that its main concern was for the safety of citizens. There had been a number of complaints within neighborhoods about young people and gang members hanging on the street corners. The police often would cruise by and order everyone off the corner in order to satisfy the residents of the community. The fact that the police did not see wrongdoing was as important as just moving people off of the street corners. There is no law against belonging to a gang. The law is against persons engaging in unlawful activity. Gangs and groups of young people gathered together in public places make people nervous and fearful and, therefore, voters have asked the City of Chicago to prevent such gatherings regardless of whether or not the gangs gathering are groups. The solution to the problems of gangs has to do with finding available activities for young people which allow them to enjoy being together for lawful purposes. Also, it requires both adults and young people to work together for lawful and beneficial purposes for the entire community. Q. Has the strong economy and low unemployment caused a reduction in gang activity?     -Cholla High Magnet School, Tucson, AZ A. Alejandro Alonso: Gang activity has not declined in many American cities, but gang crime has. Gang membership has actually increased in the last few years while gang-related crime has dropped. Several reasons for this dropped in crime has been discussed in recent media reports. Let me outline them here: 1. Prison population growth 2. More police on the streets 3. Anti-crime legislation 4. A booming economy Although it is difficult to say which one of the above tactics has been mostly responsible for the significant drop in crime, many experts have pointed to the economy. Although the other three reasons may have had an effect, many researchers have disputed the idea that more police on the streets can reduce crime at the rate we have seen. For example, in New York crime has dropped at a steady pace for the last few years, and city officials are crediting this drop to the increase of police officers on the streets. In California, many believe that the "three-strikes" anti-crime bill is the reason, but I believe, along with other researchers that the economy has had the biggest impact on crime. With more jobs, there are more opportunities, more people off the streets, more people at work, and less crime. 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