Anti-Gang Action in Santa Barbara

"a situation in which the community feels alienated and divorced"

The way law-abiding citizens feel alienated from their community and government when the police and city council refuse to protect them from gangs?

Imagine if the all night party and fire that got out of control and led to the Tea Fire disaster had been laid at the feet of a meeting of 10 or so "local Eastside youth" instead of "local college students."
Instead of a community reaction of cakks for understanding and tolerance there would be a public outcry for vengeance and retribution which would cross into racism and xenophobia.
Experiencing this double standard is the "alienation" known first hand by youngsters in the poorer parts of Santa Barbara.

The most important and interesting parts of this article were so brief that I almost wonder why it was written. Specifically, how do you prevent "blowback"? What are the long term strategies they've developed? How does the educational system need to be reformed? At the least it should have provided a website or source for obtaining more information.
Instead, this is a tease and aims to superficially justify what I believe was a serious offense to civil liberties. The crackdown was called "Operation Gator Roll" for the martial arts move that brings submission through an attack to the head. The name alone is enough to cause alienation and even violence. But then there are the innocent relatives, including young children and elderly, who had their heads pinned to the floor, sidewalk or "Dome of Doom" (Earl Warren) while being interrogated. Maybe that could create alienation & blowback too?
And then this op-ed comes along and mentions the crackdown could actually worsen SB's gang issues unless social strategies are employed. BUT it doesn't even give one.
I'm feeling angry - and I'm white, priviledged & quite safe in my westside home. Anyone else tired of blaming youth for the situation we put them in?

Curious,
It is law-abiding Latino youth who are being forced into gangs and/or brutalized by them who are paying the price for your "white privileged" guilt.

Would you feel the same way if the gangs were composed of white skinheads?

I refuse to be sorry for a family having a scary day, when they are harboring a criminal. Those families did not just wake up one day and find a gangster in their house. Anyone who thinks that these gangsters are not criminals is insane. I just hope the police continue to take this seriously.

Revisionist, actually there is a "White skinhead" gang in the SB area, the Rock Creek Skins. But their numbers are small in comparison to the Latino gangs.
Look, the fact is a gang is a gang, regardless of race, ethnicity, skin melanin content, whatever.
They're nothing but domestic terrorists that prey on the hard working folks of ANY kind to further their agenda. Their agenda is to have whatever they want w/out the legal or normal cost of attaining it & will use whatever means to get it, including assault & murder.
City leaders talk about providing jobs, but some of these gang members arrested in searches or sweeps were apprehended @ their place of employment. So much for the lack of jobs for gang members. But you got to give them credit, @ least they have jobs.
We've tried appeasing them, but that's gone nowhere either. What's the answer here?
Of course, many are going to try to make a racial issue out of the gang thing, but guess what? When you have predomoinant numbers in a population, chances are you'll also have predominant numbers in deviant behavior based on the size of said population.
In a predominantly Black neighborhood, many of your deviants will be Black.
In a predominantly White neighborhood many of your deviants will be White.
In a predominantly latino neighborhood many of your deviants will be Latino.
The list of ethnic groups can go on, but the fact remains, it comes down to predominance of a certain ethnic group.
The way some people see it on a racial/ethnic scale makes me think of the book back in 1994 called "The Bell Curve" which tries to equate intelligence on race.
No difference there, just another take on race & behavior, wrong approach nonetheless.
Let the race thing go & look 2 the fact: Gangs are bad because crime is bad & they commit crimes on a daily basis :) henry

Gangs are bad because they are a direct reflection on the values of the society in which they exist. It's not the apples, it's the barrel. This has been shown over and over in controlled experiments and in real life (Abu Ghraib, for example). I wish I could excuse myself, but I can't. The only thing I personally have done is volunteered some time at Los Prietos Boys Camp. At least, having grown up in Latin America, I don't harbor an immediate resentment towards illegal immigrants like many of our fellow SB residents apparently do. My values are that we support each other, regardless of our provenance, and in doing so we reduce the opportunity for gang activity to flourish.

When all is said and done, this all about treating the symptoms of the growing problem rather than addressing the root of the problem.

RHS says:

"Imagine if the all night party and fire that got out of control and led to the Tea Fire disaster had been laid at the feet of a meeting of 10 or so "local Eastside youth" instead of "local college students."
Instead of a community reaction of cakks for understanding and tolerance there would be a public outcry for vengeance and retribution which would cross into racism and xenophobia.
Experiencing this double standard is the "alienation" known first hand by youngsters in the poorer parts of Santa Barbara."

RHS that is the most ignorant comment I've heard in a long time. Stop trying to tie everything to racism and oppression and there might be less racism, because of people like you that keep stirring the race pot. Most of us have no idea the race of these kids or if they have any gang ties, but even without that info you will see if you will go here that there is in fact an outcry for vengeance and retribution and it has nothing to do with race, in fact the vengeance was first targeted toward Westmont, hardly a gang hangout:

http://www.independent.com/news/2008/nov...

"The gang lifestyle takes root where education has failed: Dropouts and truants are the recruitment pool for gangs. No matter how many criminals we arrest, we cannot stop the growth of gangs unless we shut down the breeding ground for gang membership that is chronic truancy."

Here's an idea - discipline and punishment for truancy. Here's another - stop with the bilingualism so these kids can be motivated to learn English and have a better shot at life and more hope and stop feeling isolated in an English speaking country.

I'll add my 2 cents worth to AShaw's above post: I would also say that in addition to what he says, we should pull our heads out of the sand and realize that tacit support of illegal immigration is also a huge cause of the gang problem. I say this for two reasons: First, the whole idea for encouraging them to come in is so that they will be cheap expandable cogs in the machinery known as our economy. When the children of these people grow up here, they fell marginalized because they see their parents are not part of the cultural mainstream. The second reason is that unless one has been asleep for the last few years, the population of Santa Barbara has increased dramatically. Cramming *endless* numbers of poor people who don't (and in many cases won't learn to) speak the language of the land into already crowded areas with gang violence simply adds to the "rats in the cage" feeling resulting in more people fighting over turf, hence the never ending and ever-increasing gang, "at-risk" youth problem.

When will people ever realize that the solution is Mexico's becoming part of the developed world instead of making the U.S. a third-world country? Also, for those of you who use the tired argument "our economy needs them", I have a news flash for you: There are countries around the world who do quite well without exploiting immigrants by using them as cheap labor. (In spite of what our goofy president Bush says) Japan and Norway come to mind as two examples of this. Moreover, the foundation of a good economy is *not* creating an anti-intellectual society such as Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge did in Cambodia back in the 1970's where the masses are undereducated, but instead having a situation where the majority of people *are* skilled and educated. Clearly, the U.S. is moving toward the former example and all you have to do is look at the crime and corruption and oppression in Mexico to connect the dots. Creating a society where the majority of people are poor, undereducated, and desperate is incompatible with prosperity and more importantly, social stability.

This piece was almost making some sense until I got to the corporate jargon.

Residents of a city are not "Stakeholders", they are residents. They live there...they aren't investors in some business. This kind of jargon as annoying as that of these chi-chi decorators who call a house a "space". Please; speak plain English so we can all understand one another.

Second; education has not failed.

This situation is not about education, and by the way, I smell a sales pitch coming for more money for the schools. The schools have enough money, they just don't spend it wisely. Instead of spending it on the kids and the teachers, the money goes to buildings and executives. We know this, this is why so many of us refuse to vote for the endless bond measures "for the schools"; Johnny still can't read, arts and music programs are nearly nonexistent, teachers are buying pencils for kids out of their own meager salaries, the football team flourishes, and the guys at the top are still rolling in dough

Gangs don't occur because the schools need more money or as an assault on the "investors' or "stakeholders".

Gangs occur, if anyone has noticed, in poor neighborhoods where parents are struggling just to get by. The adults are working several jobs, nobody is home when these kids get home from school, so hello....kids form their own "family" a la Lord of The Flies.

And gangs affect everyone, all residents and even visitors of a city.

Where are the gangs? Let's see...oh yeah...the Lower Eastside and the Lower Westside. Not San Roque. Not Hope Ranch. Why is that? Oh right...because those families are blessed with enough income from ONE job instead of four, and often only one parent has to work..and there is always someone home and on those kids like a dog on a bone.

AShaw & billclausen, Revisionist & hank, you guys make some great points, by the way. I always learn new things from you!

There is a lot of money in being a program director or an anti-gang chief, and I don't see any of these people doing anything concrete to deal with these problems. If they did, they'd be out of work. Just like the directors and execs of homeless programs, they have vested interest in maintaining a certain level of clientele both incoming and static. If people get out of gangs or never form them, or never become homeless or are left to self-shelter as they need, then all these "administrators" would have to jump into the work force with everyone else, and (gasp) maybe learn to live on the same lousy salaries and nonexistent benefits everyone else does.

As for the porous borders surrounding this country, that's another nightmare, and a huge contributor to this problem!

Holly:"AShaw & billclausen, Revisionist & hank, you guys make some great points, by the way. I always learn new things from you!"
Holly, thank you, we ALL try our best in the form of an opinion because that's all we can offer. But will the city officials ever see the same things many do? I really don't know. The thing is for everyone to keep making suggestions & let the best ones get implemented :) henry