Let me start first by saying that I do not condone gang violence. Street gangs for the most part bring down a community. Where there are gangs, there normally exist a quarry of negative social and economic deficits. Of all of the issue that coincide with street gangs the two that stand out the most is violence and the high incarceration rate of young men of color. Why and what causes gangs to exist is a different topic for a different day. When a problem exist I am not much for all the reasons why they exist, we can discuss the causes later, initially when I see a problem I just focus on the solution first. Solve the problem then work out the who what where and why, in others words, a drowning man doesn’t need you to explain to him why he’s drowning he just wants to be pulled out of the water. With that being said, I want to make a suggestion to all members of every street gang that might help solve both of these problems at simultaneously.
Every gang has one or maybe a few people at the top who is responsible for making the calls on how the business runs. Now any smart person who has the responsibility of keeping a business going knows that death and incarceration is bad for business. Considering the structure and nature of an illegal organization this kind of turnover is expected, but any good CEO knows to keep these numbers as low as possible. The two common factors that are the cost of these specific types of turnovers in an illegal organization are law enforcement and rival completion. Too much fuzz or constant territorial wars not only hurt sells but it also puts a strain on recruiting, training, middle and lower management, etc. As we have seen many of times, in not only fictional movies, but also the consistent news reports of drugs rings being busted and thousands of dollars in the hands of law enforcement. Alternatively, the unspoken reports of when a rival gang hits another gangs spot and the same dollars and products, again, are in the hands of the opposition. It is needless to say that this is a common problem for every street gang across the board.
So what is the solution? To me it’s pretty simply, but it takes the hardest thing available, trust. Many times we’ve seen two separate factions in the same photo with a banner stating some form of unity or truce. Usually these truce’s are short lived due to the erosion of trust. I should rephrase that to say these truce’s are short lived because both factions gone into the agreement having no true foundation to place their trust on. No platform that show both sides that at minimum they are on the same trajectory. When two people have deep divides but realize that they are walking towards the same goal its easier to trust in compromise. The goal for both is to run a successful illegal organization with minimal turnover from death and incarceration. I’m sure that they both would enjoy the success of knowing that they have members within the organization that have long tenure without being locked up and not having to kill any competition. Furthermore, the less killing between the competitions ensures less police involvement and safer less restrictive communities.
The solution to all of this lies within the collective wealth of the gangs. Money is power, we know this, and collective money is almost indestructible. Look at the Catholic Church, the Jewish community, the World Bank Group, the Republican and Democratic parties, etc. They all have their own central premise, which is the pooling of collective wealth to secure the future health of their businesses or organizations. Now if you are a normal everyday Gang member or leader, maybe noting that the success of the mafia is also based in this premise. Take the mafia for instance all of the families put a small percentage in a pool. This money is used for all sorts of purposes like opening up small businesses within their communities. Funeral services, weddings, kids college funds. Most importantly, if members had law troubles they all had good lawyers, which would assist in beating cases or getting lesser charges. One of the reasons why mob members never snitched was because they trusted that the organization was structured and funded well enough to support them in these situations. If they were locked up, when they returned home, the organization had money and businesses to help get them back on their feet. Some well-run mafia families have funds set aside to assist in family support for members who did time. So going in, a person knew he did not have to worry about his wife, his kids, and how they were going to pay the bills. Some would go even further and pay medical bills for unexpected health issues.
For street gangs a money pool would do wonders for their image, business, and community. Imagine if all the street gangs in a city like Chicago pool a percentage of their profits together for things like, college fund for members who major in finance or criminal law, business grants so that members and can open up legitimate business to help launder the illegal money, or putting school and or funding sports programs. To avoid conflict rival gangs can build safe zones and parks on territorial borders where citizens from both neighborhoods can congregate without fear for their safety. You see, this not only will ensure the continual success of your organization, but also more importantly ease the negative effects that street gangs have on us personally and as a society on a whole.
In addition, the power you would have over local and state government. The true power comes from the donations to political campaigns to sway politicians into voting on the legislation that you prefer. Think what gangs would look like if during the Reagans “War on Drugs” campaign if all the gangs in Chicago, L.A., N.Y., Miami, and Dallas pool their money together and donated to campaigns that were against this legislation. When the RICO Act was voted into legislature how many lives of gang members were destroyed and how many could have been saved if the gangs had organized their collective wealth and had their local and state representative’s vote against it. You add in the fact that street gangs have an added bonus in the bag, which is the believable threat of violence; the street gangs could have enormous weight within our political system. You need proof, look at the American Mafia; they had tremendous weight in local and state governments due to their organized wealth and the whole “sleeping with the fishes” thing.
Again, this is in no way an approval or acceptance of street gangs. Street gangs do not exist because of the people in them, they exist because of the socio-economic and educational deficits that exist in our black and brown communities. They will continue to exist until these deficits are filled. Until then the solution is to minimize the damage done by bringing down the death and incarceration rate that has been destroying our communities even before street gangs existed. Hopefully, opening up pathways that will show us a way out of our current state.
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