The same arrogance has reappeared in Los Angeles. Bratton recently took to claiming that Los Angeles is "as safe as 1956," an assertion sharply questioned by the dean of LA gang researchers, Malcolm Klein at the University of Southern California. Bratton replied: "That's his opinion and what the hell do I care about his opinion. Nobody is listening to him anyway. I don't know who he is, and if you walked down the street and asked the first 100 Angelenos do they know who he is, they're not going to know."
The most crucial step in police reform may be information reform. The federal court could order the city to contract with a reliable university-based research team to develop independent data on gang-related crime patterns in Los Angeles. The inspector general could be empowered to conduct independent or parallel investigations. In the current fog, police budgets go up automatically whether crime rates rise or fall, based on pre-set budget formulas that are mostly Xerox-based.
Alex Sanchez and the Globalization of Gangs
California now leads America, and America leads the world, in locking people up, holding an astonishing 25 percent of all inmates on earth. That's more than any dictatorship, and rather resembles our disproportionate military budget, which vastly exceeds that of any comparable country. The war-on-gangs-and-drugs paradigm is being fused with the "war on terror" into a template for suppression-first policies without end. Despite these military expenditures, the globalization of gangs is proceeding apace, with street gangs mushrooming everywhere that neoliberal policies have left a hopeless underclass behind. The lack of real checks and balances guarantees that the voices of "law and order" will dominate the discourse. Ending the consent decree in Los Angeles, if it happens, will allow the LAPD to resume its antigang wars unmolested.
The epicenters of this new war are the border regions of the United States, Mexico and Central America, where Alex Sanchez comes from along with tens of thousands of immigrants who are deported and return again every year. To break the cycle, the paramilitary model of war will have to be replaced with a model that includes space for ex-gang members that want to help restore the communities they once ravaged. But the politics, for now, favor the police. The Alex Sanchez case will open a window into practices that police, politicians and the public have avoided or denied for a decade.
About Tom Hayden
Tom Hayden is a former California state senator and author of Street Wars (Verso, 2005). more...
--- * Copyright ???? 2009 The Nation
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The most crucial step in police reform may be information reform. The federal court could order the city to contract with a reliable university-based research team to develop independent data on gang-related crime patterns in Los Angeles. The inspector general could be empowered to conduct independent or parallel investigations. In the current fog, police budgets go up automatically whether crime rates rise or fall, based on pre-set budget formulas that are mostly Xerox-based.
Alex Sanchez and the Globalization of Gangs
California now leads America, and America leads the world, in locking people up, holding an astonishing 25 percent of all inmates on earth. That's more than any dictatorship, and rather resembles our disproportionate military budget, which vastly exceeds that of any comparable country. The war-on-gangs-and-drugs paradigm is being fused with the "war on terror" into a template for suppression-first policies without end. Despite these military expenditures, the globalization of gangs is proceeding apace, with street gangs mushrooming everywhere that neoliberal policies have left a hopeless underclass behind. The lack of real checks and balances guarantees that the voices of "law and order" will dominate the discourse. Ending the consent decree in Los Angeles, if it happens, will allow the LAPD to resume its antigang wars unmolested.
About Tom Hayden
Tom Hayden is a former California state senator and author of Street Wars (Verso, 2005). more...
--- * Copyright ???? 2009 The Nation
---
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