Gang Injunctions Research Paper

1145 Words3 Pages

MY FELLOW COUNCILMEMBERS, MS. MAYOR, CITY ATTORNEY TRUTANICH, AND FELLOW CITIZENS: Present day crime has detoured and disadvantaged our youth from an auspicious education. Gangs limit our children’s future by preying on their vulnerabilities. Nationally, law enforcement has cracked down and come up with new ideas to subdue gangs. The most debatable idea law enforcement agents have come up with is that of gang injunctions. A gang injunction is an order of a court directing gang members to refrain from an act or Acts. Civil law suits that allege in the grievance that the gang and its affiliates have occupied and used the specified target Area in a manner that institutes a public nuisance under California Civil Code sections
3479 and 3480; …show more content…

Gang Injunctions are meant to be a pre-emptive tool that gives the police the capability to arrest gang members merely for being organized in public view, demonstrating a gang hand sign, or wearing gang specific clothing within the specified target area. There are some people who claim that gang injunctions violate first amendment rights. One of the main reasons being that Gang injunctions permit the police to contact and arrest suspected and known gang members: In certain cases before they have the opportunity to commit a crime. Other talked about criticisms are that gang injunctions is that it fails to tackle the root problems of gang activity. Another is the miss use of very valuable resources and taking it away from programs that could address those problems; gang injunctions also give the police too much power in harassing young men of color (even if they are not gang …show more content…

Statistics provided by the LAPD and the NYPD show that overall gang violence declined in communities that implemented gang intervention programs deprived of the use of excessive policing. Furthermore, a study conducted on convicted criminals shows possible benefits of rehabilitation among both gang members and non–gang members: gang members who received treatment experienced a 20% difference in recidivism rate versus those who did not, and –gang members who received treatment experienced a 6% difference in recidivism rate versus those who did not

Open Document