As it becomes a more desirable route to worldly success, the numbers seeking entrance will continue to increase, and prison time is an important aspect of membership sustainability rather than a deterrent.
An excerpt from USA Today.
“Gang membership, a traditional trigger for violent crime, is rising even as murder and other violent crime have declined substantially in much of the USA.
“Across the country, gangs have grown to about 1 million members, according to the federal government's most recent count in 2009, and law enforcement officials say that number is increasing.
“The 25% jump in the membership ranks from 2005, recorded by the National Gang Threat Assessment, defies the steep decline in violent crime. That has sunk to its lowest levels since 1973, according to a National Criminal Victimization Survey released last month by the Justice Department.
“Violent crime declined to 17.1 incidents per 1,000 people in 2009, down from 19.3 incidents in 2008, the report says.
"With gangs usually comes a lot of violence; we're looking at this very closely," says John Moore, director of the National Gang Center, an arm of the Justice Department. He says national surveys of gang membership continue to show growth.
“Just as a spike in crime did not follow the nationwide financial crisis, Moore says, violent crime has not followed expected patterns linked to the proliferation of gangs.
“In Chicago, where gang membership is up to 105,000 this year from about 70,000 in 2000, murders are on pace to drop to the lowest levels since 1965, Police Superintendent Jody Weis says. The 343 murders this year are eight fewer than this time last year, Weis says.
“Among the reasons, Police Commander Leo Schmitz says, is that some gang leaders — including those ordering murders and other retaliatory attacks — are serving long prison sentences.
“Their absences, Schmitz says, have contributed to disorganization in the ranks and cause some lower-level operatives to form their own groups with new members, a factor driving an increase in Chicago gang membership.
"We've taken out so many of the leaders — stone cold killers — that it has fractured some of these organizations," Schmitz says.”
Lampstand Foundation website, http://www.lampstandfoundation.org/
"The sinner is at the very heart of Christianity. Nobody is so competent as the sinner in matters of Christianity. Nobody, except the saint." Charles Peguy (1873-1914)
About
- David H. Lukenbill
- I am a California native, married, we have one daughter and live close to the American River with two cats and all the wild critters we can feed. I am a management consultant to nonprofit organizations and have an Associates of Arts degree in Administration of Justice from Sacramento City College, a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco and a Master of Public Administration degree, also from the University of San Francisco.