This article points to a primary reason why violence is so rampant in developing countries & increasing at a fast rate in developed countries, too. The primary reason for youths & young people to join gangs, or simply be involved in street violence, is the spreading hopelessness for their future, which in turn, is happening because of increasing poverty & a lack of respectable work opportunities.
There's a saying that an empty mind is a devil's abode. As long as a person, especially a young one, keep himself / herself busy, they will be happy. Problem is with what are they keeping themselves busy. Is it something constructive or destructive?
Many of these youths are uneducated. It's not because they don't want any education, but because, the education system has become so expensive everywhere around the world that, even in the developed countries of North America & Europe (except a few countries), a youth & his / her family has to think twice before going to a post-secondary institution. Due to economic reasons, if he / she chooses something else over education, then cycle of violence starts. Heck, even if he / she is educated, he / she may still chooses to be involved in violence. And it's for a simple reason that he / she & his family needs food, clothing, & a roof over their heads.
Jobs, even for educated youths, are becoming scarce all over the world. Everywhere it's all about connections & networking. That doesn't help a large swath of young population who may not have the right connections because their parents & friends only know of people who are in the similar circumstances as they are.
Economic situations, the wrong result of capitalism (hoarding of wealth by a few rich individuals), the increasing social & wealth gap between rich & poor are all leading towards more misery & poverty for the billions around the world. Austerity measures in the name of economy is only creating more misery for the poor, while wealth is actually increasing for the rich. Wealthy families are simply sitting on their giant piles of cash instead of investing in the economy to create more jobs, which in turn, is only going to create more work opportunities for the youths.
Many youths, who are already involved in violence, also want to get out of that violent life, but they see no future in earning a honest buck. Because, there's more hopelessness in their future going down that route. In one of earlier posts, ex-convicts in US told how the justice & prison systems is made to trap a convict in a life of continuing violence. No one wants to take a chance on a youth who might have done something wrong in their life. If nobody offers them a second chance, they will of course re-offend & goes back into the for-profit prison system.
Furthermore, if the youths are busy with the right kind of "work", instead of killing & looting their fellow compatriots, they will not only be putting food on their families' table, clothing their kids, & putting roof over their families, they will also be feeling satisfied & fulfilled to be earning compensation from a non-violent line of work. Governments, & of course, the wealthy people, will also be reaping rewards with fewer criminals out on the streets & more tax-paying individuals. It is a win-win result for everyone in a society.
But the problem is how many rich individuals are willing to take that first step of investing in the young populations of their countries?
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It is Sunday morning in San Salvador & San Rafael hospital's accident & emergency department is full.
People are lying in the corridors on spare hospital beds waiting their turn.
Those who can sit up are in wheelchairs ... .
...
June saw 677 murders in El Salvador, more than any other month since the country's civil war ended in 1992.
Juan - not his real name - is lucky not to be another number in those grisly statistics. 37 years old, he runs a recycling business & a carwash. 4 men arrived at his work & opened fire: 40 bullets.
"Thank God just one bullet hit my arm," he tells me from his hospital bed.
Juan says in the 20 years he has had his own business he has never given in to gangs trying to extort money from him. ...
The police never came to see him to find out what happened. And did he go to them to report it?
"What's the point? I don't believe in the system," he says. He is now making plans to leave the country with his wife & 2 children.
...
Faith
On the outskirts of the capital, San Salvador, is a factory that is trying to pick up the pieces ... . It is not long after dawn & all the workers at League Central America are gathered outside. Everyone listens intently to a motivational speech followed by prayers.
Once that is over, work begins. Most of the more than 400 employees are sat behind sewing machines, sewing on labels or cutting material that is used to make sweatshirts & shorts.
All the clothes here are branded with American university logos such as Harvard & Brown & sent to the US.
Just over one in 10 are former gang members, from both the rival gangs - the Mara Salvatrucha & the 18th Street gang. You can tell their affiliation by the tattoos that some of them still have. Up until a few years ago, it used to be standard if you were a gang member.
But tattoos apart, they have started new lives here. One of them - I'll call him Jorge to protect his identity - came to work here through a church group. That is a prerequisite to work here.
After years of robbing, extorting, attacking & even killing several people, he decided to give it all up.
"It didn't make any sense, I was bored of it," he tells me. "I was fed up with suffering. I was in the street all the time.
"My daughter was born and I didn't want her to go through the same thing I had gone through."
The only thing left of his gang days is the tattoo. He pulls down his lower lip to show it to me - carved out with a knife, it is inked with the words MS - to mark him out as a Mara. He says though that gang violence is getting worse.
"They go around killing police, soldiers," he says. "It's partly because of the lack of work, the poverty.
"There are lots of former gang members who want to change their lives but they don't have a way out, nobody gives them an opportunity. So they go back to what they used to do."
Jorge was lucky. He is now one of the chief pattern cutters at League Central America & is thankful for another chance at life.
'No choice'
"People join gangs because they have to. They join because they have no other choice," says Carly Gerstman, the development manager at League Central America.
"We've found that they have the motivation and they have the drive and they have the appreciation that, you know, we are bringing them back in and we are giving them this opportunity, and they take it and they run with it."
Company boss Rodrigo Bolanos says businesses need to play a part in solving the cycle of violence.
"The war between the government and gang members is already here, it's already started," he says.
"In the process of suffocating the economy and the country the private companies need to take a position to look for a dignified way out."
Although, it was good to read this article that US has started to look into reforming its prison system, I don't have much hope of something actually happening. Reason being that US prison system, similar to its medical system, is becoming profit-driven.
Some states have contracted out the prison system to private contractors. Those private contractors benefit from prison population's almost-free / "slave" labour & they also get subsidies / tax breaks from the government (similar to several other companies / industries). Of course, if the contractors are profiting from the labour, they need more of that "free" labour. So, of course, they lobby hard & get the judiciary (judges, attorney generals etc.) on their side of the table.
Result is harsh sentencing laws, e.g. minimum mandatory sentence, are then passed. By the way, there was a good crime drama 2013 movie on this issue, "Snitch," starring Dwayne Johnson, & based on a real story. Anyway, so contractors need to keep a certain level of beds fill in their prisons. They may even be getting tax breaks or subsidies based on prison fill-rate (sort of like how hotels operate their business). On top of that, attorneys' successes are measured based on their conviction rate. So the more they put people behind bars, the more they are considered as making the public safe. That perception comes in very handy if those attorneys are dreaming of getting into government one day.
So who suffers in all of this self-serving agendas, fiasco & corruption? The Public.
1. Taxpayers: As the article states, millions of taxpayer $$$ are spent in housing these prisoners. Those same millions which could have been spent on improving infrastructure, putting food on the poor family's table (by increasing the budget of food stamp program, instead of cutting it), improving schools in poor, urban areas so kids of disadvantaged families also get the same quality of education as the kid from an elite family.
2. People: Those people who get snared in this prison system. As recent incidents have widely shown how much racism is still existent in the American society; African-Americans, who are usually on the disadvantaged spectrum of the general population, face the brunt of these harsh laws. They get locked up for minor offences, assuming they did commit an offence in the first place.
Once they caught up in that cycle, there is no exit out of that maze. Even when they do get out, they have a hard time securing employment and/or housing. Result is they may not have enough money to pay alimony or provide a suitable place to live for their kids or live in a safe & secure place just by themselves.
So, if, due to unemployment, that person, who was not a violent offender in the first place, but has an "ex-con" label now, doesn't pay child support, then he is put into prison. If that person, due to unemployment, can't secure housing, & starts living on the streets, where he/she can easily become a drug addict, & if he gets caught with a drug, he/she visits the prison, again. What happens with all these prison visits? That person is labelled a multiple offender, & has much longer sentences.
Essentially, that person, who was wrongly / perhaps, harshly convicted of a minor offense, becomes a hardened criminal. Who gets the blame then? That person him/herself.
My solution:
1. Be extra careful in sentencing a person in the first place. Don't make stupid harsh laws, which, in effect, make the net bigger, so more "fish" are caught.
Try to make laws which focus on catching violent criminals in the first place, rather than, making one out of a non-violent offender.
2. I'm a proponent of capital punishment. That's why, I said in point one above, that try to make laws to catch violent criminals in the first place.
Once those hardened criminals are caught, the hopes of those criminals ever becoming good guys again are slim to none. So, execute them swiftly.
What these two points will do in tandem?
1. Improve relations between the public & law enforcement, since the law enforcement is focusing more on violent criminals & not catching any & all people. Arresting violent criminals will be looked at appreciatively by the general public, since then, the perception would be of a just society.
2. Law enforcement will also become more efficient & their efforts more effective, since their conviction rates will go up, since they are focusing on violent criminals, who will, most likely, get convicted, & since, they are focusing more on few people, they will get more efficient.
3. Law enforcement agencies will focus more on less people, so they may also need fewer cops, which in turn, will result in decreasing the tax burden on the public.
4. Decreasing tax burdens from keeping few people, if any, in prison, fewer cops, fewer prisons, & a less clogged judicial system, where cases are moving faster.
5. Seeing the end result of what happens to a violent criminal, other people, e.g. misguided youths in the public, will also avoid pursuing that lifestyle. Currently, they see that the worst happening to them, if they do pursue that lifestyle, is going to jail & perhaps, staying in there, & in return do some work & get free housing & food, & make friends with life-minded individuals. Life is sweet.
That mindset will get a jolt that no, if you commit a serious crime, you will get the lethal injection. No free lunches & friend with a gang leader.
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Since 1990, Missouri’s Hedy Harden has been lobbying for criminal justice reforms in the Midwestern state. On March 11, the 70-year-old chair of the Missouri branch of CURE—a national criminal-justice-reform organization founded in 1972—joined other like-minded activists for a lobby day in the state capital of Jefferson City to pressure lawmakers to pass a handful of bills aimed at reducing the state’s mandatory-minimum laws & other reforms.
Missouri’s prison system cost state taxpayers some $680 million in 2014—up from $220 million in 1994 after the state brought in harsh sentencing legislation that curbed early prison release. Its prison population has since increased nearly 9 times over the past 3 decades, mirroring similar trends across the US.
And while Harden has 25 years under her belt advocating for changes to Missouri’s justice laws—& is growing increasingly skeptical that proposed legislation will ever make it into law—the case for criminal-justice reform is riding a wave of support across the US.
That support has been spurred by a combination of budgetary constraints, prison overcrowding, shifts in public attitudes & a media spotlight trained on events such as the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in August in Ferguson, Mo., by police officer Darren Wilson, & the subsequent nationwide protests & scrutiny of policing & the criminal justice system. “Definitely, we all had some really high hopes because of Ferguson,” Harden says, “& we know the legislature has to deal with the whole issue of Ferguson.”
The results of the federal justice department’s investigation into the Ferguson police force in the wake of the shooting ... uncovered a municipal justice system rife with racial bias & geared more toward generating revenue for the St. Louis suburb than any concern for public safety. The federal probe found that, according to the police department’s own statistics, between 2012 & 2014, blacks accounted for 85% of traffic stops, 90% of citations, & 93% of arrests made by Ferguson police, despite making up 67% of the city’s population. They also faced significantly more citations for minor offences & bore the brunt of documented force by police. The municipal court, meanwhile, routinely ordered arrest warrants for residents who failed to pay fines for minor infractions such as traffic tickets & parking violations.
President Barack Obama cited Ferguson—as well as other recent high-profile police-related deaths in New York & Cleveland—in his March 7 speech in Alabama on the 50th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights marches. “We can make sure our criminal justice system serves all, & not just some,” he said. “Together, we can address unfair sentencing & overcrowded prisons, & the stunted circumstances that rob too many boys of the chance to become men, & rob the nation of too many men who could be good dads, & good workers, & good neighbours.”
In Washington, Obama isn’t alone in calling for change in how America handles matters of crime & punishment. Criminal-justice reform has turned into a rare point of bipartisan consensus in a Congress that’s become synonymous with partisanship, gridlock & division.
The US is currently the world’s largest jailer, with roughly 2.2 million people behind bars. According to data compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), maintaining that prison system cost American taxpayers $80 billion in 2012. In 2013, the US had an incarceration rate of 716 prisoners for every 100,000 Americans. (By comparison, according to stats from the Sentencing Project, Canada’s incarceration rate is 118 per 100,000.) And, since 1980, the federal prison system grew nearly 800%, with some 219,000 people behind bars.
Policy-makers such as outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder are now increasingly likely to talk about being “smart on crime” instead of “tough on crime,” & there is a raft of proposed legislation meant to fix the system. The Smarter Sentencing Act, introduced in February in the Senate by Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee & Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, & in the House by Republican Raul Labrador & Democrat Bobby Scott, would reduce the mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders, along with other measures.
A prison-reform bill also introduced last month by Texas Republican & Senate majority whip John Cornyn & Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, aims to shrink the federal prison population by offering incentives to low- & medium-risk prisoners to participate in recidivism-reduction programs. And, last week, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul (a potential presidential candidate), along with New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker, introduced the Redeem Act. That sweeping legislation would reduce the collateral problems former prisoners face when voting & seeking housing & employment. It would also make it easier for juveniles & adults convicted of non-violent offences to seal their criminal records, among other provisions. These & similar bills have been introduced in prior sessions of Congress in the past few years, but failed to gain real traction.
Groups such as the ACLU say increasingly harsh sentencing & parole policies, the war on drugs & rising parole revocations are behind the spike in the US prison population over the past 3 decades. Recently, however, sentencing reforms at the state level have helped to spur the first drop in prison populations in decades—a modest overall decline (2.8%) between 2009 & 2012.
Those state-level successes ... mean advocates for criminal-justice reform are optimistic. “I do think something significant will happen this year. I think the stars are really aligned,” says Marc Levin, co-founder of the advocacy group Right on Crime, & a prominent voice in the conservative criminal-justice-reform movement. “[It] is such a rarity in a gridlocked system [to find] actual agreement. I think there’s a desire on the part of many Republicans, & many of the consultants to Republicans, to show they’ve got a positive agenda, that they can govern & get something done. There’s a real breakthrough, where there’s something in it for everyone.”
Levin also has prominent conservatives lined up behind him: Big-name Republicans such as Newt Gingrich, presumptive 2016 frontrunner Jeb Bush, & Arkansas governor & former US Drug Enforcement Administration head Asa Hutchinson have all signed on to his organization’s statement of principles. Jesselyn McCurdy, who works with the ACLU in Washington to get members of Congress on board with criminal-justice reform, agrees the timing is right. “Any successes we have at the state level we’re hoping to translate to the federal level,” she says.
In November, the ACLU netted $50 million from liberal billionaire benefactor George Soros’s Open Society Foundations to push at the state level to reduce prison populations. Soros has also joined forces with the conservative Koch brothers & other groups (including the ACLU & Right on Crime) to form the new Coalition for Public Safety, billed as “the largest national effort working to make our criminal justice system smarter, fairer & more cost-effective at the federal, state & local level.”
... in a January op-ed in Politico magazine, Charles Koch made the case for reform, writing: “Overcriminalization has led to the mass incarceration of those ensnared by our criminal justice system, even though such imprisonment does not always enhance public safety. Indeed, more than half of federal inmates are non-violent drug offenders. Enforcing so many victimless crimes inevitably leads to conflict between our citizens & law enforcement.”
Still, while there’s broad agreement that the current prison system isn’t sustainable, not everyone agrees on the proposed blueprints for reform. In Congress, those skeptics include Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, who, as head of the Senate judiciary committee, holds sway over which reform bills end up on the legislative agenda. On the Senate floor this past week, Grassley voiced strong opposition to the Smarter Sentencing Act, saying the arguments for it “are merely a weak attempt to defend the indefensible,” & pointing to examples such as growing heroin use in states such as Vermont. He also expressed misgivings that the legislation could impede efforts to curtail major drug-trafficking operations, or that it would allow repeat offenders to avoid serious jail time.
In California, Proposition 47—a ballot initiative passed last November with nearly 60% support that reclassifies some drug & theft crimes from felonies to misdemeanours—is also facing opposition from critics who argue it’s a flawed & dangerous measure. David Bejarano, president of the California Police Chiefs Association, argues that Prop 47 has: scrapped felony charges for possession of substances such as the date-rape drug; created a loophole for handgun theft; & removed a legal tool used by law enforcement to force people into drug rehab in lieu of jail time. “Other states are watching what California does. What we’re trying to do now through our legislature is correct some of the most obvious concerns we have,” he says.
In Missouri, there’s another campaign building to pass House Bill 657, which would reduce the state’s so-called “85% law.” The Republican-sponsored bill would lower the threshold of time served before being eligible for parole for certain dangerous felonies (arson, robbery, & assault) from 85% of the sentence to 50%. Even with that push, & a slew of bills aimed at reforming everything from those mandatory minimums to juvenile justice & the death penalty, Harden called the state legislature “a tough nut to crack.”
As I have blogged before with the story about French ghettos of immigrants & their children who feel marginalized, & are ready to follow anyone who make them feel like family & falsely promise a future, for committing violence, in return. Sweden is also going through the similar problem.
Primary problem is once again marginalization of immigrant youths from the mainstream society. Be it North American or Western Europe or Northern Europe countries, immigrants are welcome with both arms, but they are made to feel second class citizens. Older immigrants accept their fate. But the young ones, who are growing up with their mainstream / indigenous friends start to see the discrimination when they see their friends moving onwards & upwards, & those kids of immigrant backgrounds feel left behind.
The main reason is that they were always come to expect that their new homes are in fair & just societies. But then the ugly head of discrimination rears up, which is very much rampant in these societies. They see the garbage hiding under the nice carpet. Some immigrant youths drink the Kool-Aid & will vehemently oppose any such idea that there is any discrimination in their new homes, but most don't.
Those youths then either suffer silently & become mentally & physically ill, or they hit back. Violence is never the answer to resolve these problems, but then problems cannot be solved from merely saying nice words to immigrants, either.
These problems, which will only going to get worse, since more & more immigrants are flowing in North American & European countries, can only be solved in 2 ways:
1. North American & European countries completely ban the sale of any & all arms & weapons sales to corrupt, authoritarian, & developing countries in Africa & Asia. A blanket ban on all such sales, no ifs & buts.
The immigrant wave will start to abate by itself, since their corrupt governments don't have weapons to kill innocent civilians.
2. Whatever immigrant populations are already in their countries, help them integrating through objective, merit-based qualification process; be it for education or jobs etc. Abolish the practice of networking. That will in itself help diversify the talent pool & the economy will improve. Immigrant youths will see a bright future that if they work hard, they will achieve something in the mainstream society, instead of working hard & achieving something in a gang or radical religious group.
These suggestions are simple & will only help the North American & European societies. The question is are the leaders willing to take such steps, since arms sales increase GDP & exports of the country, & immigrant populations create a silent 2nd class of people who will do the dirty jobs, while nice cushy jobs to the indigenous population.
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As drinkers watched the final minutes of the Barcelona versus Manchester City football match in the Vår bar in Gothenburg on Wednesday night, all hell broke loose. Two masked men opened fire with automatic weapons, killing 2 & injuring a dozen more.
Petar Petrovic, 20, a Swede of Serbian origin, died in the storm of bullets. A DJ at the bar, he was due to start university in London this year.
The other dead man, aged 25, was a leading figure in a local gang, the Vårvädersligan, named after the square where the shootings took place. With a string of convictions, including drug offences, he had only recently left jail, according to press reports.
Sweden has been shocked by the barbarity & indiscriminate nature of the Gothenburg shootings. Gang violence has featured occasionally in local news, but this was the first time an innocent bystander had been killed. Regional police chief Klas Friberg called it a “heartless attack with no human feeling”.
The tragedy has also shone a spotlight on a hidden aspect of Swedish society that reads like the sub-plot of a Stieg Larsson novel, in which poverty, racism & segregation are driving young men from immigrant backgrounds into gangs & gun crime.
A few days before the shooting, police had arrested another member of the gang after he was observed in a railway station handing over a shoebox stuffed with 500,000 krona (£39,000). A third figure in the gang had left the Vår bar shortly before the shooting took place.
The killings broke a 9-month period of relative calm in Gothenburg. After a double murder in early 2013, police poured resources into Biskopsgården, the deprived borough where Wednesday’s killings took place, which has high levels of recent immigration & overcrowding. Entitled operation Safe Gothenburg, the police targeted 9 gangs across the city involved in turf wars over drugs, weapons & contraband.
... After 57 shooting incidents & 8 fatalities in 2013, there were 4 deaths last year, while arrests led to the jailing of key gang leaders. The trend seemed to be clear.
In December, a dozen members of the Bergsjö gang were jailed & only last month, the leader of Bulls motorcycle gang started a 10-year sentence for violence. He had an earlier conviction for “crucifying” a man by strapping his wrists to a plank & leaving him hanging.
However, fears of a flare-up of gang crime lingered when the leader of the Bandidos gang was released from jail last summer after a 7-year sentence for a bomb attack.
“We have groups that are really marginalised, cut off from mainstream society, dropouts with no work,” says Sven-Åke Lindgren, professor of sociology at Gothenburg university who last year authored a report on gang crime. He sees Wednesday’s attack as a show of power in a battle for supremacy between gangs.
“These are ‘radical losers’, more desperate, more angry & frustrated, who are prepared to use weapons & violence that is really shocking to Swedish society, to compensate for their loss of status,” Prof Lindgren said.
Gang crime is not confined to Gothenburg – 22 Swedish cities are affected, said Magnus Lindgren of the Safer Sweden Foundation. This is a “new Sweden”, he said, which means new methods of crime fighting are needed.
I love this area, but we have a problem with young people feeling they can’t share the aspirations of the majority.
“The main problem is the Swedish model of crime prevention which dates from the 1960s, trying to build a good society with good education & child care. That’s all very well, but we are fighting the crimes of yesterday, not necessarily the crimes of today or tomorrow.”
Friberg, the police chief, said police were working “to do as much harm to the individual criminals as we can” while trying to halt the trade in illegal weapons. Interior minister Anders Ygeman called for a doubling of sentences for gun crime.
... There was also a sense of fear – the library was quiet because parents had kept their children at home, locals said.
“This is a ghetto,” said Nora, 25, who was born of Saudi parents who moved to Biskopsgården when she was just a few months old. “There is racism & young people can’t get jobs; they feel they have no future in Swedish society.”
Now studying to be a nurse, she is worried what may happen to her brother, aged 10, when he gets a little older. “The gangs make boys feel like family, they look after them,” she said. She wants her brother to go to a school outside the borough where there is no drug dealing.
Katarina Despotovic, a researcher who has chronicled what she calls the neglect of boroughs such as Biskopsgården, said Gothenburg was concentrating resources in the city centre, creating suburban satellites “that no one cares about”.
“I love this area & its people, but we have a problem with young people feeling they can’t share the dreams & aspirations of the majority,” said Ulrika Stöök, 45, who works for the local council in Biskopsgården.
“We need to give young people hope. We can do a few things locally but now we need help.”
