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If we want to stop neighborhood gang violence in the long term, we need to work on why people join gangs, and what they are fighting over. We can't do that with

If we want to stop neighborhood gang violence in the long term, we need to work on why people join gangs, and what they are fighting over. We can't do that with police, who generally don't come into the situation until after it's too late and things have gone wrong. But if most of our money is going to the police, then what resources are available to do the longer-term work on gangs and neighborhoods? In software development terms (since this is HN), it would be like spending more and more money on QA and support because your products have so many problems. At some point a wise manager is going to say "wait, we should invest in better product development instead." If you have infinite funding, you can do both. If you don't have infinite funding, you need to look at changing your allocation.

lostlogin 6y ago
Talking with police is interesting. I talked policing with a police officer who had worked in New Zealand, the UK and Australia. These are countries that are relatively close in culture and the differences in policing described by the officer were striking. A lot of this was in relation to what the police role was and how other services cooperated (or didn’t). It would be great to have a description of system differences from an officer who had worked in more systems.
- NickNameNick 6y ago
  Could you expand on that? I'm really curious about what the differences were.
  - paragraft 6y ago
    One starting observation I'd venture is those countries (and Canada) base their policing on Peelian principles, which establish a basis of policing and the relationship with the public. The US police culture had different roots. Edit: for reference, the list of principles that were issued to each new police officer in London from 1829 onward. 1. The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder 2. The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions 3. Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public 4. The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force 5. Police seek and preserve public favour not by pandering to public opinion but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law 6. Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient 7. Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence 8. Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary 9. The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it I find much wisdom there, and as I go down that list I find it hard not to think for each item of counter-anecdotes from the news about US policing in recent years.
    - lisper 6y ago
      The problem is that these principles work great in a homogeneous society where everyone has some kind of stake in the societal outcome. If you take people with a particular skin color and enslave them and otherwise systematically discriminate against them to varying degrees over the course of 400 years then these principles break down. It is going to take a long, long time -- probably multiple generations -- for American society to recover from 400 years of institutionalized racism.
      - Joeri 6y ago
        The reality is that US police kill all races at shockingly high rates. Black people are killed at a higher rate, but they are a minority of those killed. The problem of the US police system is excessive use of force against all races, compounded by racism. Take the UK for example. The UK also has a history of importing slaves, it also has minorities living in poor neighborhoods, it has a similar degree of income inequality as the US, but the rate at which UK police kill civilians is orders of magnitude lower. The UK has as many police killings in a quarter century as the US has in a month, despite having a fifth of the population. The US police system’s approach seems to be to fight fire with fire, not prevent the fires in the first place. Hence the call to defund the police and invest in prevention. But I think defunding is only part, the police need to be retrained to prevent and deescalate, not to respond to all resistance with deadly force.
        lisper 6y ago
        I think the problem starts long before the deadly force. It's not just the rate at which black people are killed, it's the rate at which they are harassed for minor offenses like jaywalking.
        lostlogin 6y ago
        The below reddit link includes a video of a black man being cited for driving 65 in a 70 area, and it hits home. He has been pulled over many times in the area so is cautious, but it turns out that is a problem too. https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/h0xxva/comment/ftq64uj?context=1 https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/h0xxva/comment/ftq6...
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    The guy was quite down on his time in Australia, and the aggressive policing he was expected to do. He contrasted that with his time in the UK and (particularly) in NZ the role seemed to allow more tolerance and leeway and was described by him as 'progressive'. The NZ police aim seemed to be to get compliance without police charges or fines by engaging in a less combative manner. He described quite harsh measures taken for minor disruptive behaviour and property damage (eg graffiti) in Australia. He had a low opinion of the way children were managed in all three countries. Police had little option but to lock young kids in cells when found out and about late at night in NZ. He had previously had the ability to get social services in the UK could house a child for a night. This was theoretically available in NZ, but never was in practice. So when they found a kid out in the small hours, if they couldn't find their caregivers, the kid had to go to a cell. He was very down about this. I left with the distinct impression that in order of severity of policing (for want of a better term) it went from a relatively relaxed and easy going NZ to UK then a quite severe and punitive Australia. It would be interesting to know if this is borne out by others impressions/data.
    - ACow_Adonis 6y ago
      Aside from a notable exception in the Australian Capital, it's worth noting that in Australia you have the Federal Police (AFP) which is responsible for policing federal offences, but the states are responsible for enactment and policing of most things that Americans would consider "everyday policing". The main issue this represents in your story is that it's not correct for the most part to present an "Australian experience" of policing, as the laws and enforcement are state level matters (of which there are ~8). A level i think we're missing might be city-based law enforcement? Each state has its own laws, population, and police force. while it's true we're not going to have as much variation as say France vs Sierra Leone, policing in QLD/ACT/NSW/NT/VIC is liable to be fundamentally different. furthermore, we've got federal gun control, and in a federal welfare system that would almost look like a universal income to many American contexts (indeed, I recall one discussion I had recently with an online friend about where the UBI rates being discussed as impossible were effectively the ones our welfare system currently provides), notwithstanding the difference in practice between remote indigenous/rural/urban/ migrant law enforcement. All this can make it somewhat frustrating drawing analogies between the American experience and the local one (and I'm not just talking about Americans drawing lessons from ours, I also mean Australians being influenced by portrayals of American law enforcement and issues in popular media/culture). I imagine that's just as frustrating as pretending that law enforcement is the same across a nation as diverse as America.
banads 6y ago
Why is the money given to the police the only allocation you are wanting to drain for this cause?
- nitrogen 6y ago
  I don't think you can safely infer that absolute ("only") from the parent comment. Nevertheless... 1. Police are often a large percentage of a city budget, so if all city expenditures were decreased equally, it would inevitably look like the police were giving up more in absolute terms. 2. If the current solution to the problem is only more policing, then the only thing in the "solution to this problem" sub-budget that could be reduced is the police. In other words if X is the amount allocated to the problem and X is currently 100% police, it may be worth rebalancing X to a more diversified portfolio.
  - banads 6y ago
    We can safely infer it because: 1. That's the only thing they suggested, and they framed it as either/or "If you have infinite funding, you can do both." (Implies we cant do both, because we obviously dont have infinite funding) 2. The overarching context of this conversation is about "defunding the police" >If the current solution to the problem is only more policing Is anyone seriously suggesting that? If so, its safe to discount these types of facile absolutist views ("we need more police to solve the problem" & "We need to eliminate the police to solve the problem") Edit: I'd like to add thay I jusy reviewed my cities budget, and was surprised to see how large the law enforcement budget was compared to everything else. Thank you for bringing that to my attention.
- adamsea 6y ago
  Because budget is a tool for enforcing accountability when other tools have failed.
- Talanes 6y ago
  Police spending is inadequately large because the threat of a police walk-out scares city governments than the threat of any other department striking.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
longtimegoogler 6y ago
Seems flimsy to me. I can't see how this would produce the type of funding for social programs and schools.
fastball 6y ago
Do we know in any definitive manner why people join gangs?
- datavirtue 6y ago
  Relative safety and a lack of better options (perceived or real).
OptionX 6y ago
And what are the victims of violent crimes in those neighborhood do in the interim between the take resources from the already strained police departments and use them other for long-term measures? And I'm even assuming they even would have worthwhile results of course despite the premise that such programs would work is given in a matter of factly manner. Put yourself in the shoes of an innocent PoC who's house just got robbed. Will not having cops available to your neighborhood to respond to the call make you feel more or less prejudiced against? Will they derive that much comfort in knowing that maybe, in one or two generations thing MIGHT be slightly less bad. And will the criminal elements, seeing the lowering in police response, not grow more bold and escalate?
- ngold 6y ago
  Police should solve crime. Instead they are put in charge of everything that is not their job since there is no funding for mental health services, homeless, etc. etc.
- p49k 6y ago
  People saying “defund the police” are not advocating the complete elimination of police forces; they’re advocating for the elimination of the 75-90% of things that police spend their time on that has zero or negative ROI for society. “Responding to legitimate crimes” is not one of those things.
  - fennecfoxen 6y ago
    Imagine arguing for a better world, instead of arguing about what your slogan means. You might be able to secure majority support for your policy proposal, instead of... checks YouGov poll again... 16% support, for the phrase "defund the police".
    - p49k 6y ago
      It’s also a nascent movement so it’s not surprising that many people don’t understand it. There are many successful policies that began with very low public support.
mikemotherwell 6y ago
What I think society needs is an rspec of government spending (I'm using rspec as it is clear, or should be, what that implies). Test driven government, in essence. Society is varied across county, city, state and country lines, and we are in our infancy in understanding what policies work, when, where and why. Combine that with no overt expected outcome, i.e. do we expect this policy to have an absolute outcome (assert(absolute_wealth > X)) or if we want a comparative outcome (assert(relative_income > 0.77)), and we end up with arguments about spending that are judged by rhetoric rather than success or failure on what should be a knowable scale. Being more overt in how society judges government spending, especially when the goal is a social good, gives us the best shot at spending more on effective interventions, and less on ineffective ones. I think it also helps mitigate the circus nature of politics, where politicians gain kudos simply for with their spending decisions, and are rarely held accountable to actual outcomes. Like TDD, it would by no means be a panacea, but it would be a step in the right direction. While it true that a policy can be fantastic for society, but exacerbate inequalities (i.e. get better at extracted value from smart people), or be terrible for society but reduce inequality (just make sure everyone has nothing and job done), if we at least tested the policy along some overt lines, and threw out the very worst policies, I can't imagine social spending would have worse outcomes, if only until the loopholes are worked out.
monksy 6y ago
One of the reasons is: They can't trust the police to come out and take the people who cause trouble out. Neighbourhood gangs, esp in chicago are territorial and they try to "protect the neighbourhoods." (I think they do cause more problems) This came up during the riots earlier this month. The police were stretched way too thin. Gangs did stop the looters and rioters from extending into their neighbourhoods. (Deeper within Logan Square and Little Village were an example)
- MuffinFlavored 6y ago
  why don’t they protect their neighborhoods from murder/drugs/fraud on a daily basis?
  - monksy 6y ago
    My thought is that they're like Uber they do the bare minimum enough to justify and recruit and then just do what they want.
datavirtue 6y ago
A wise manager would know that investing in better product development is an inglorious losing battle that is of little interest to people other than themselves (on an academic level) and to junior developers who simply don't know any better, yet. Your thought is adorable though.
Mirioron 6y ago
The biggest reason why people join gangs is because they're there. It's a cultural problem above all else. People like blaming it on poverty and lack of education funding and all kinds of other things. Yet compare former Soviet countries to the US. All of them spend less on education than the US does. Their populations are likely poorer than even the poor in the US. Their quality of life is lower, however, gangs aren't as big of an issue because they're not allowed to fester. The culture doesn't view gangs as something to aspire to. Being part of a gang isn't seen as "cool" by large groups of people nor is failing in education. I do agree that a lack of education and subsequent opportunities is a large part of the problem, but it's probably not a lack of education funding that's causing it. Learning simply isn't considered "cool" by a lot of people. This puts them on a path with few opportunities, which leads to their kids having fewer opportunities. What makes all of this even worse is that prisons in the US are breeding grounds for gangs. As long as things like that remain a part of society you won't be getting rid of gangs no matter how much money you throw at education.
- saithound 6y ago
  While I acknowledge this (especially your last observation regarding the shameful state of U.S. prisons), and laugh at the ignorance of the claim that E.E. street gangs not having had easy access to firearms (they very much had, especially post-Yugoslav Wars), I still think that less policing has the potential to improve things. Harsh policing would not change culture, even if it was done fairly, in the interest of community welfare. But U.S. policing is far from fair: U.S. police instill fear, rather than respect in the public, even in many moderately well-off areas that are free of street gangs. Legal and regulated prostitution, a definitive end to the drug war, would allow us to significantly defund the police, and pour those into efforts that could actually help. Moreover, this would decimate the revenue streams of many street gangs, which immediately reduces their "coolness factor". There is some concern that most of the money freed up by this could end up poured into efforts that have a track record of not working. Alas, I think this is fairly likely, but it's no big loss: currently, all of that same money is being poured into different efforts that still definitely do not work. And if we get lucky, a fraction of the money may actually go to efforts that actually have a positive impact on cultural problems.
- 6y ago
wang_li 6y ago
Most of our money doesn’t go to police. A search online reveals that in 2019 the US spent $300 billion on protection and security, which is police, fire department, and other related services. We spent $1.2 trillion on education.
mrslave 6y ago
> If we want to stop neighborhood gang violence in the long term, we need to work on why people join gangs, and what they are fighting over. This may be utopian and fails the "perfect is the enemy of good" maxim. Meanwhile entire neighbourhoods if not cities (and sometimes entire countries) are anti-social, where the average resident has to suffer through a constant threat of violence.
gentleman11 6y ago
There is short term and long term crime prevention. Long term, you are absolutely, 100% right about how to decrease crime. In the short term though, it would be nice if my friends bikes would stop getting stolen and if aggressive drunk people on the local train couldn’t steal someone’s hat and then ask everyone on board “you gonna do something about it?” (neither are gang issues, I wanted to choose non-extreme but real examples). Ideally we could spend 100% on the long term but that is impractical.

lostlogin 6y ago

Talking with police is interesting. I talked policing with a police officer who had worked in New Zealand, the UK and Australia. These are countries that are relatively close in culture and the differences in policing described by the officer were striking. A lot of this was in relation to what the police role was and how other services cooperated (or didn’t). It would be great to have a description of system differences from an officer who had worked in more systems.

NickNameNick 6y ago
Could you expand on that? I'm really curious about what the differences were.
- paragraft 6y ago
  One starting observation I'd venture is those countries (and Canada) base their policing on Peelian principles, which establish a basis of policing and the relationship with the public. The US police culture had different roots. Edit: for reference, the list of principles that were issued to each new police officer in London from 1829 onward. 1. The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder 2. The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions 3. Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public 4. The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force 5. Police seek and preserve public favour not by pandering to public opinion but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law 6. Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient 7. Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence 8. Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary 9. The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it I find much wisdom there, and as I go down that list I find it hard not to think for each item of counter-anecdotes from the news about US policing in recent years.
  - lisper 6y ago
    The problem is that these principles work great in a homogeneous society where everyone has some kind of stake in the societal outcome. If you take people with a particular skin color and enslave them and otherwise systematically discriminate against them to varying degrees over the course of 400 years then these principles break down. It is going to take a long, long time -- probably multiple generations -- for American society to recover from 400 years of institutionalized racism.
    - Joeri 6y ago
      The reality is that US police kill all races at shockingly high rates. Black people are killed at a higher rate, but they are a minority of those killed. The problem of the US police system is excessive use of force against all races, compounded by racism. Take the UK for example. The UK also has a history of importing slaves, it also has minorities living in poor neighborhoods, it has a similar degree of income inequality as the US, but the rate at which UK police kill civilians is orders of magnitude lower. The UK has as many police killings in a quarter century as the US has in a month, despite having a fifth of the population. The US police system’s approach seems to be to fight fire with fire, not prevent the fires in the first place. Hence the call to defund the police and invest in prevention. But I think defunding is only part, the police need to be retrained to prevent and deescalate, not to respond to all resistance with deadly force.
      - lisper 6y ago
        I think the problem starts long before the deadly force. It's not just the rate at which black people are killed, it's the rate at which they are harassed for minor offenses like jaywalking.
        lostlogin 6y ago
        The below reddit link includes a video of a black man being cited for driving 65 in a 70 area, and it hits home. He has been pulled over many times in the area so is cautious, but it turns out that is a problem too. https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/h0xxva/comment/ftq64uj?context=1 https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/h0xxva/comment/ftq6...
- lostlogin 6y ago
  The guy was quite down on his time in Australia, and the aggressive policing he was expected to do. He contrasted that with his time in the UK and (particularly) in NZ the role seemed to allow more tolerance and leeway and was described by him as 'progressive'. The NZ police aim seemed to be to get compliance without police charges or fines by engaging in a less combative manner. He described quite harsh measures taken for minor disruptive behaviour and property damage (eg graffiti) in Australia. He had a low opinion of the way children were managed in all three countries. Police had little option but to lock young kids in cells when found out and about late at night in NZ. He had previously had the ability to get social services in the UK could house a child for a night. This was theoretically available in NZ, but never was in practice. So when they found a kid out in the small hours, if they couldn't find their caregivers, the kid had to go to a cell. He was very down about this. I left with the distinct impression that in order of severity of policing (for want of a better term) it went from a relatively relaxed and easy going NZ to UK then a quite severe and punitive Australia. It would be interesting to know if this is borne out by others impressions/data.
  - ACow_Adonis 6y ago
    Aside from a notable exception in the Australian Capital, it's worth noting that in Australia you have the Federal Police (AFP) which is responsible for policing federal offences, but the states are responsible for enactment and policing of most things that Americans would consider "everyday policing". The main issue this represents in your story is that it's not correct for the most part to present an "Australian experience" of policing, as the laws and enforcement are state level matters (of which there are ~8). A level i think we're missing might be city-based law enforcement? Each state has its own laws, population, and police force. while it's true we're not going to have as much variation as say France vs Sierra Leone, policing in QLD/ACT/NSW/NT/VIC is liable to be fundamentally different. furthermore, we've got federal gun control, and in a federal welfare system that would almost look like a universal income to many American contexts (indeed, I recall one discussion I had recently with an online friend about where the UBI rates being discussed as impossible were effectively the ones our welfare system currently provides), notwithstanding the difference in practice between remote indigenous/rural/urban/ migrant law enforcement. All this can make it somewhat frustrating drawing analogies between the American experience and the local one (and I'm not just talking about Americans drawing lessons from ours, I also mean Australians being influenced by portrayals of American law enforcement and issues in popular media/culture). I imagine that's just as frustrating as pretending that law enforcement is the same across a nation as diverse as America.

banads 6y ago

Why is the money given to the police the only allocation you are wanting to drain for this cause?

nitrogen 6y ago
I don't think you can safely infer that absolute ("only") from the parent comment. Nevertheless... 1. Police are often a large percentage of a city budget, so if all city expenditures were decreased equally, it would inevitably look like the police were giving up more in absolute terms. 2. If the current solution to the problem is only more policing, then the only thing in the "solution to this problem" sub-budget that could be reduced is the police. In other words if X is the amount allocated to the problem and X is currently 100% police, it may be worth rebalancing X to a more diversified portfolio.
- banads 6y ago
  We can safely infer it because: 1. That's the only thing they suggested, and they framed it as either/or "If you have infinite funding, you can do both." (Implies we cant do both, because we obviously dont have infinite funding) 2. The overarching context of this conversation is about "defunding the police" >If the current solution to the problem is only more policing Is anyone seriously suggesting that? If so, its safe to discount these types of facile absolutist views ("we need more police to solve the problem" & "We need to eliminate the police to solve the problem") Edit: I'd like to add thay I jusy reviewed my cities budget, and was surprised to see how large the law enforcement budget was compared to everything else. Thank you for bringing that to my attention.
adamsea 6y ago
Because budget is a tool for enforcing accountability when other tools have failed.
Talanes 6y ago
Police spending is inadequately large because the threat of a police walk-out scares city governments than the threat of any other department striking.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

longtimegoogler 6y ago

Seems flimsy to me. I can't see how this would produce the type of funding for social programs and schools.

fastball 6y ago

Do we know in any definitive manner why people join gangs?

datavirtue 6y ago
Relative safety and a lack of better options (perceived or real).

OptionX 6y ago

And what are the victims of violent crimes in those neighborhood do in the interim between the take resources from the already strained police departments and use them other for long-term measures? And I'm even assuming they even would have worthwhile results of course despite the premise that such programs would work is given in a matter of factly manner. Put yourself in the shoes of an innocent PoC who's house just got robbed. Will not having cops available to your neighborhood to respond to the call make you feel more or less prejudiced against? Will they derive that much comfort in knowing that maybe, in one or two generations thing MIGHT be slightly less bad. And will the criminal elements, seeing the lowering in police response, not grow more bold and escalate?

ngold 6y ago
Police should solve crime. Instead they are put in charge of everything that is not their job since there is no funding for mental health services, homeless, etc. etc.
p49k 6y ago
People saying “defund the police” are not advocating the complete elimination of police forces; they’re advocating for the elimination of the 75-90% of things that police spend their time on that has zero or negative ROI for society. “Responding to legitimate crimes” is not one of those things.
- fennecfoxen 6y ago
  Imagine arguing for a better world, instead of arguing about what your slogan means. You might be able to secure majority support for your policy proposal, instead of... checks YouGov poll again... 16% support, for the phrase "defund the police".
  - p49k 6y ago
    It’s also a nascent movement so it’s not surprising that many people don’t understand it. There are many successful policies that began with very low public support.

mikemotherwell 6y ago

What I think society needs is an rspec of government spending (I'm using rspec as it is clear, or should be, what that implies). Test driven government, in essence. Society is varied across county, city, state and country lines, and we are in our infancy in understanding what policies work, when, where and why. Combine that with no overt expected outcome, i.e. do we expect this policy to have an absolute outcome (assert(absolute_wealth > X)) or if we want a comparative outcome (assert(relative_income > 0.77)), and we end up with arguments about spending that are judged by rhetoric rather than success or failure on what should be a knowable scale. Being more overt in how society judges government spending, especially when the goal is a social good, gives us the best shot at spending more on effective interventions, and less on ineffective ones. I think it also helps mitigate the circus nature of politics, where politicians gain kudos simply for with their spending decisions, and are rarely held accountable to actual outcomes. Like TDD, it would by no means be a panacea, but it would be a step in the right direction. While it true that a policy can be fantastic for society, but exacerbate inequalities (i.e. get better at extracted value from smart people), or be terrible for society but reduce inequality (just make sure everyone has nothing and job done), if we at least tested the policy along some overt lines, and threw out the very worst policies, I can't imagine social spending would have worse outcomes, if only until the loopholes are worked out.

monksy 6y ago

One of the reasons is: They can't trust the police to come out and take the people who cause trouble out. Neighbourhood gangs, esp in chicago are territorial and they try to "protect the neighbourhoods." (I think they do cause more problems) This came up during the riots earlier this month. The police were stretched way too thin. Gangs did stop the looters and rioters from extending into their neighbourhoods. (Deeper within Logan Square and Little Village were an example)

MuffinFlavored 6y ago
why don’t they protect their neighborhoods from murder/drugs/fraud on a daily basis?
- monksy 6y ago
  My thought is that they're like Uber they do the bare minimum enough to justify and recruit and then just do what they want.

datavirtue 6y ago

A wise manager would know that investing in better product development is an inglorious losing battle that is of little interest to people other than themselves (on an academic level) and to junior developers who simply don't know any better, yet. Your thought is adorable though.

Mirioron 6y ago

The biggest reason why people join gangs is because they're there. It's a cultural problem above all else. People like blaming it on poverty and lack of education funding and all kinds of other things. Yet compare former Soviet countries to the US. All of them spend less on education than the US does. Their populations are likely poorer than even the poor in the US. Their quality of life is lower, however, gangs aren't as big of an issue because they're not allowed to fester. The culture doesn't view gangs as something to aspire to. Being part of a gang isn't seen as "cool" by large groups of people nor is failing in education. I do agree that a lack of education and subsequent opportunities is a large part of the problem, but it's probably not a lack of education funding that's causing it. Learning simply isn't considered "cool" by a lot of people. This puts them on a path with few opportunities, which leads to their kids having fewer opportunities. What makes all of this even worse is that prisons in the US are breeding grounds for gangs. As long as things like that remain a part of society you won't be getting rid of gangs no matter how much money you throw at education.

saithound 6y ago
While I acknowledge this (especially your last observation regarding the shameful state of U.S. prisons), and laugh at the ignorance of the claim that E.E. street gangs not having had easy access to firearms (they very much had, especially post-Yugoslav Wars), I still think that less policing has the potential to improve things. Harsh policing would not change culture, even if it was done fairly, in the interest of community welfare. But U.S. policing is far from fair: U.S. police instill fear, rather than respect in the public, even in many moderately well-off areas that are free of street gangs. Legal and regulated prostitution, a definitive end to the drug war, would allow us to significantly defund the police, and pour those into efforts that could actually help. Moreover, this would decimate the revenue streams of many street gangs, which immediately reduces their "coolness factor". There is some concern that most of the money freed up by this could end up poured into efforts that have a track record of not working. Alas, I think this is fairly likely, but it's no big loss: currently, all of that same money is being poured into different efforts that still definitely do not work. And if we get lucky, a fraction of the money may actually go to efforts that actually have a positive impact on cultural problems.
6y ago

wang_li 6y ago

Most of our money doesn’t go to police. A search online reveals that in 2019 the US spent $300 billion on protection and security, which is police, fire department, and other related services. We spent $1.2 trillion on education.

mrslave 6y ago

> If we want to stop neighborhood gang violence in the long term, we need to work on why people join gangs, and what they are fighting over. This may be utopian and fails the "perfect is the enemy of good" maxim. Meanwhile entire neighbourhoods if not cities (and sometimes entire countries) are anti-social, where the average resident has to suffer through a constant threat of violence.

gentleman11 6y ago

There is short term and long term crime prevention. Long term, you are absolutely, 100% right about how to decrease crime. In the short term though, it would be nice if my friends bikes would stop getting stolen and if aggressive drunk people on the local train couldn’t steal someone’s hat and then ask everyone on board “you gonna do something about it?” (neither are gang issues, I wanted to choose non-extreme but real examples). Ideally we could spend 100% on the long term but that is impractical.