Faithful1
The social media is a headache but it's helping L.E ( law enforcement) to keep track of the gangs due to juvenile tendencies.
1. The state legislative passed their own street gang style Rico and used it on the New Life branch of the Black Souls , Imperial Insane Vice Lords and I think the Hobos (GD & BD clique). Albeit this version have a expiration date and I don't understand why they're not utilizing the federal base Rico instead. Regardless, most of the gangs have plentiful membership and it will take time to weaken them.
2. , 4., & 9.Agreed
3. This have been done for MANY years ( decades) and will continue onwards. Lupe Fiasco's Mural Foundation , Common, D Rose, retired gang members , community groups continue to aide in the anti-gang/180• degrees approach.
5. I disagree but understand your aiming the gangs, cartels, racketeers/syndicates main source of income and decreasing drug addicts committing crimes to fuel their habit. Problem is that within the underworld it just switches to the next commodity and violent crimes will drop somewhat to 40-50s rate, Gangs membership would shrink down somewhat but will be engage more deeply in the 2nd most lucrative activity ( plus others).
6. I could agree to some degree with possible lee ways for those under the influence. This may lead back to overcrowding of the prison system .
8. What would you consider a "manageable" base of crimes?
Wow. Don't check back for a couple of days and things go crazy.
Anyway, BF, it looks like we basically agree on everything except decriminalization of drugs. I'll add to that, that while I think drugs should be decriminalized (in the same way alcohol is, but you still can't legally drink and drive, etc), I still think it should be discouraged. I think there's good tools for doing that as well as stupid tools. Sometimes schools and government have used the wrong tools. If you're going to discourage drug use the first thing is that you (I mean "you" in the sense of people in general) need to be honest about it. Sometimes schools or the gov. uses exaggerated scare stories. Use facts backed by science.
On a "manageable" base of crimes, as a semi-libertarian I believe we need to defend person and property. If people harm themselves, while not good, does not need to be illegal. I also think there's merit to the "broken windows" theory of stopping crime. But at the same time that crime is being discouraged, those who don't get involved in crime and those who turn their lives around need to be encouraged. So the most violent predators need to be permanently removed from society so the decent people can thrive.
The idea of crime going down sufficiently is somewhat subjective, but not totally. In Chicago there might be 35 people killed in one day. That's worse than Iraq (obviously why Spike Lee calls it Chiraq). The people doing these shootings need to be seen as terrorists, because that's what they are. They are terrorizing their communities. I don't think 1 killing a day is good enough. One killing a week maybe good enough to consider an enterprise zone, but part of the reason that most enterprise zones don't work is because the crime rate is too high. Businesses that provide jobs can't be suffering from crime. Communities need to see them as commodities and protect them. There can't be a Baltimore-type riot where communities destroy themselves.
