Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) was a program designed to solve your number two problem- having a police force trained to deal with these neighborhoods. Unfortunately, it quickly became corrupted, which given the nature of LAPD and the city itelf(not to mention the gang culture itself) was probably inevitable. After the rampart scandal, it had to be disbanded.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/lapd/scandal/crashculture.htmlThe third problem you nail pefectly: hopelessness of poverty that is passed on from generation to generation. Investing in the children with education, food, health care and job training would go a long way in reducing the number of kids who join gangs.
SoCalDem had two really insightful posts on that exact point once about 6 weeks back:
Want to stop gangs and the violence that comes with them??1. decent housing
2. real playgrounds with real equipment for little kids
3. real jobs for teens
4. guaranteed 2 yrs at community college with a C+ or better GPA
5. guaranteed 2 yrs at state college with a B or better GPA at community college
....
Give kids a GOAL..and they can achieve it..
Desperation and hopelessness are what feeds gangs..
Instead of jails, we need to be building community colleges , real technical/vocational schools, and regular colleges..
It's cheaper to teach them , than to incarcerate them.
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they join gangs because they are desperate to "belong"They have fractured families, and they see nothing good ahead for themselves.. If they had it in writing... a promise of college... they would try harder and see a future for themselves..
If you have no future, the present is meaningless.
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My guess is that even Kody Scott might agree with that.