Gangs: Nothing to smile about

INTERVIEW / Robert M Lombardo

There is no reason to smile with respect to combating gangs. A de-industrialized economy has poorly educated kids grow into adulthood in gangs that look to the drug trade for income. Resources are channeled into law enforcement and there is little investment in alternative programs, from overburdened parole officers with 500 ex convicts to a man, to reduced funding for programs from civil society. And this on the verge of the largest contingent in history to come out of the jails of the United States of America. 

The grim evaluation comes from Robert M. Lombardo, a police officer for 30 years in Chicago, who has since transitioned into the halls of academic research, for an additional 10 years.  “From the 1920s to the 1980s you could say that gangs were about adolescents hang outs in street corners, with the drug trade that changed.”

His hope is in raising the level of police intelligence. “Most police departments are street level” and in partnerships with more powerful institutions that can target gangs where it hurts, arresting their leaders. “It is easy to arrest the small fish, and they are always equally easily replaced, “gangs can be dismantled by seizing assets.” As the economic recession looms Lombardo expresses concern for the legacy of academic research.  The money is not there for civil society and neither are the jobs there for gang members, what it comes down to, is:  “Who will employ a man with three tears tattooed under his eye, like the man I saw in the subway the other day, one for each person he shot?”

Could you briefly describe your experience with gangs?

I was a police officer for 30 years, and worked 10 years in the organized crime division, with traditional organized crime.

Are gangs today what they were 20, 30 years ago?

Gangs have changed dramatically, with the advent of drugs, originally they were adolescent street corner groups, one generation got into a little trouble, drank some beer, wine, did a little marihuana, but eventually left these things behind and moved on, leading normal lives.

The drug trade totally changed gangs, from adolescent street corner type groups they became criminal organizations… if you look at gangs over the last 100 years, they were usually made up of adult criminals. Then came the Chicago group of sociology, and Frederic Thrasher began to study gangs as an adolescent phenomenon. In Chicago beginning in the 30s and 40s… all the way to the early 80s, gangs were not criminal, they were adolescent groups.

What do gangs do?

Gangs control neighborhoods for reasons of turf and they defend their community from people who are racially or ethnically different, this is how it worked until the 80s. Today we have this next phase of development, there is crime, but it is limited form of crime, mostly associated to drug distribution.

And has the age of gang members changed accordingly?

Now we have the phenomena of older people in gangs. In the 60s and 70s, come 21 people were out of gangs, but with the deindustrialization of American society, when factory jobs became scarce for those who lack education; people remain in gangs for jobs in drug trade. Today most work in the US is in the service sector or in management, factory jobs have moved out of the country.

This means that, with more people staying in gangs, if you are a leader you can be 30, 40 years old, however, there is a slow aging out affect. Often gang members also see their careers interrupted by incarceration, many end up in prison in their early 20s, they may desist from crime and go to something else because of their prison sentence.

So gangs are not primarily associated with violence in the US?

Violence is a problem too, but it is the violence associated with the drug trade. What they do is sell drugs, that is all they do, sell drugs, and shoot each other over drug distribution territories.

There is this fear that with a massive wave of people are coming out of prisons, they may go back to gangs, how do you see it?

I am not sure it is so simple. They may become alcoholic, go on welfare, or become bank robbers, we do not know. More people are going to come out of jail than in any other time in history, I can understand that this generates a certain amount of apprehension, but I do not necessarily share the concern.

There was a change in correctional philosophy in the US in the 1980’s, the emphasis moved from focusing on rehabilitation to having criminals repay their debt to society, so they were given longer sentences. Drug offenses also increased the population behind bars. Drug users were given very severe sentences, as we continue to do today.

Crime has gone down dramatically in the US, do you associate this with more people being in jail for longer periods of time?

Everything we read says that there is no one thing that has contributed to lowering crime rates. Abortions are also credited with playing a role. I don’t know if it is true, the birth rate declined, so there are fewer young people to commit crimes. Others point at community policing, I personally doubt it. There is certainly a cumulative effect with no single determining cause. But interestingly, the literature points out that crime has gone down in other industrialized countries, studies in Canada, New Zealand, they have had this dramatic decrease, and with different variables at play.

What of the argument that prisons actually help gangs?

I’ve been visiting prisons with students for 10, 15 years, early on they had open campus, prisoners were allowed to leave cells, check out books, go to the gym, or a job. If you were to visit the prison in those days, you would see the campus split up in corners, by gangs, so the prisons were a continuation of gang experience. Today many prisons are on lock down, no one leaves their cell except for a walk and a shower a day, semi solitary confinement, it has broken the gang control of prisons.

Is this unlikely to change?

 
Perhaps, with the new president and administration, there has always been some concern that prisons are too punitive, that we need to do a better job with rehabilitation …again with the economic climate… I doubt that this will happen.

How about parole programs, for rehabilitation?

 
They vary, but overall, they are hardly affective. The problem is resources… no one wants to pay more money to help criminals lead a better life, perhaps there are individual success stories, but the general experience is that there are far too many prisoners and far too few parole officers. One parole officer may have, say, 500 people to manage, it would be a different story if he had 10 or 20, but if you have hundred to manage, there is no real time to do anything but a 20 min interview once in a while.

Do former gang members get jobs after prison?

The other day in the subway I saw a man with three teardrops tattooed under his eyes, it means he shot three people, he would be stigmatized in my mind, if he goes back to his community, I don’t see him getting a job. When it comes to employment there is a tremendous amount of stigma associated with having a prison record. Why hire an ex prisoner when there are plenty of non-criminals that need work?

What works against gangs?

Gangs are certainly a priority and a threat and a social problem. Law enforcement is important and people must know they must face the consequence of their actions. Can we arrest ourselves out of the gang problem? Apparently not, we have tried that for the past 10 15 years, jobs and education are certainly part of the puzzle.

However, I was a policeman for 30 years and now I am an academic for 10, there are other things that can be done, and that we do not do: we do not want to invest in rehabilitation, we rely on the police, and put few resources into other types of activities, such as for example jobs that would take away from the lure of the gang.

Immigration is important, some of these gangs have a continual replenishment of their workforce. In the 1920s most of the gangs in Chicago were composed of Italians, there are no Italians in gangs today. On the other hand, we cannot assimilate the Hispanic population because the immigration never ends. They have become a steady stream for 30 years into the gangs of the south west.

Can one distinguish gangs from organized crime?

As far as drug distribution organizations, yes they are organized crime, some of these major gangs, the Crips and Bloods the Latin Kings, they have an organized structure they import cocaine, I call them organized crime, although some of my colleagues may disagree.

Of course crime can be less conspicuous. Shootings call tremendous attention of the police. But drug dealing has changed. The cell phone for example, makes it harder for the police to track down such activities. Less violence by the gangs would reduce police attention.

Are there civil society initiatives doing violence prevention successfully?

There have always been initiatives doing preventive work, these range from the Cease Fire project, the Chicago Area Project, the YMCA. Historically there are civil society groups that aid young people to get out of gangs, offering gyms, football, baseball, basketball, that stuff is all important.

How can you measure results?

As police we measure gang violence, we count gang shootings, police are great bureaucrats, it is difficult however to quantify preventive work. The police have a one track mind, and while academics look at other aspects, such as rehabilitation, the money and investments nevertheless, go to law enforcement.

Are there things that are exciting developments with respect to gangs?

There is exciting work in academic field, such as John Hagedorn’s work at the University of Illinois. His book a World of Gangs provides a whole new perspective on gang research.

There is also the issue of intelligent policing, it holds a lot of potential. So much of law enforcement is at the street level. Larger police departments, the FBI, ATF and of course, DEA too, can go much further than your neighborhood police station. They have  access to wire traps, grand jury work, launch nation-wide investigations, so the partnerships between local police and federal government is promising in targeting leaders of gangs. More sophisticated investigations local police conduct would brings you closer to arresting the leaders of the criminal organizations, if you dismantle the leaders at the top, it is much more useful than arresting the small fish.

One way to target and dismantle gangs is through asset forfeitures, we did a couple of tremendous cases when I was involved in investigations. There was the Melvin Clay case, on Willard Court in Chicago. A faction of the Vice Lords owned 3 or 4 houses and they controlled the block to sell the drugs, along with a stash of 10 to 15 guns. Through forfeiture we were able to take control of the property and actually evict them. This was a turning point after a string of street level arrests had been unable to interrupt their work.

Gangs in your opinion, are not on their way out?

I don’t think its ever going to get better because the industrial jobs are disappearing, big, the jobs are going away. Of course, we could consider the decriminalization of drugs, we decriminalized alcohol, it helped dismantle the alcohol gangs, but, apart from there being no environment conducive do decriminalization, it is no solution. Even if we decriminalize it would still be illegal for people under 21, so we would not totally eliminate the need for gangs.

How about the role of women in gangs?

The role of women in gangs today is probably the same as it was back in the early days, before it was a teenage phenomenon, back in the 20s when women participated in crimes with gang members. They provide cover, they deliver drugs, they are carrying weapons and even participate in drug sales…but it has not been my experience that they operate independently of men.

Is law enforcement of a single mind on how to work with gangs?

From a police officer’s point of view, it is a war, war on drugs and war on gangs. Police departments are very bureaucratic organizations; they have to show results, they are detached from social problems.

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