The Chicago Crime Commission recently published an update to its gang book. NPR's Audie Cornish speaks with Columbia University professor Desmond Patton about the book and why it's problematic for communities of color.
PATTON: So the Chicago gang book is a comprehensive guide that highlights gang activity in Chicago over the last six years since their last publication in 2012. And so it starts off with a comprehensive guide of gang profiles, highlighting and underscoring the 52 gangs that are in Chicago. And then it goes into some really well-done maps of gang activity and territories and boundaries in the city. It then has a new section that I think people are really excited about in terms of the role of social media and gang activity. And then it concludes with briefer discussions around suburban gang activity, cartels and drugs, gun trafficking. And then what I am most interested in is the directory for assistance to support those who are gang-involved.
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PATTON: I think the most innovative and newest part of the book is this contribution around social media. It highlights and underscores the ways in which gang-involved individuals have used social media to taunt one another and to amplify and to engage in violent activity both on and offline.
PATTON: Essentially arguments between rival gangs that are posted on various social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram or YouTube. And then you see the argument unfolding via conversations, the use of emojis and the use of images that are oftentimes used to display gang activity, to include hand gestures or to display guns as well.
PATTON: Absolutely. And the same can be said for the rest of the book as well. The gang profiles - there are about 200 pages with alleged gang members. And they have their mugshot, their name and their nickname. And so there are tons of photos primarily of black and brown men that forever stamp them as a gang member.
PATTON: I don't think it has to be public. I don't think it needs to be in a book that forever labels these individuals. And so to what extent is it actually helpful to label people who may be in a time in their life where they may be gang-involved but at some point decide to leave the gang or decide to have a different life? But if their future employer or future university finds this book and sees them labeled as a gang member, how might that impact their future life course outcomes? And that's what I'm most concerned about.
But how can we prevent gang-joining, especially during a time of limited national, state, tribal and local budgets? To help meet the challenge, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) engaged some of the nation's top criminal justice and public health researchers to explore what the evidence shows. The result of that effort is the book Changing Course: Preventing Gang Membership and its companion executive summary, which are available in print, Web and e-book formats.
In Changing Course, Scott H. Decker says that to prevent kids from joining gangs we must move beyond "Hook 'em and book 'em." Police officers, he says, must enhance their traditional role as crime fighters by collaborating with public health, school, community and other public- and private-sector partners on primary, front-end prevention strategies.
In a press conference announcing the book's release, Commission president and former top cop Jody Weis said gangs constituted "an entire sector of Chicago's population." Many residents, he said, live within feet of a gang's operations.
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