Prevention Works

Battling Gangs: A Novel Use of Civil Injunctions

According National District Attorney's Association (NDAA), the United States has 30,000 gangs with 800,000 members whose crimes, tactics, and strategies are getting more sophisticated each day.  Communities and local law enforcement agencies are responding with new strategies as well—in this case, the use of civil injunctions to disrupt gang activities. John Wilkinson, an attorney and program manager for the Gun Violence and Homeland Security programs of the NDAA, says that using civil injunctions to disrupt gangs is not a cure all, but can be useful for communities that are serious about reducing the influence of gangs.

In a recent NCPC conference call, Mr. Wilkinson explained that an injunction is a court order to stop individuals, their associates, or an organization from preventing an individual or the general public from enjoying life and property.  Civil injunctions previously were used to prevent harm to the community by a factory or business; however California began to take this new anti-gang approach with  criminal street gangs because the law considers them identifiable associations (due to their “colors,” “signs,” or tattoos). The primary tool of the civil gang injunction is its ability to stop gang members from associating in a defined geographical area. For example, if a gang hangs out on the corner and a homeowner can’t sit on his or her nearby porch without being disturbed or intimidated, relief may come in the form of a civil injunction. Such civil injunctions are not aimed at recovering monies or compensation for lost enjoyment or happiness, but are aimed at disrupting the daily criminal activities of the gang and removing the gang’s ability to derive its strength from associating with other members. Additional civil injunction restrictions could result in curfews and prohibitions against weapons, drugs, alcohol, graffiti (or graffiti tools), forcible recruiting, or against efforts by gang leaders to keep members from leaving the gang.

It was noted during the discussion that in order to be targeted, the gang must be creating a public nuisance and be responsible for activities that are continuous and ongoing. Additionally, it is necessary to demonstrate a defined geographic area that is impacted by the gang and the selected gang must have identifiable members. When filing suit, notice of the suit must be provided to individual gang members. Attempts must be made to serve all members of the gang with the injunction; the injunction can only be enforced on members who have been served. To protect residents from retaliation by the gang, law enforcement agencies should request the injunction.

Using these tools, police and communities are reclaiming neighborhoods, reducing crime, and restoring peace. Here’s a resource to help from the NDAA website.  Mr. Wilkinson has additional information and technical assistance to help your community pursue civil injunctions against gangs. He can be reached at John.Wilkinson@ndaa.org.

Breaking the Code of Silence

While there is still debate over how the recession will continue to impact crime over the next few years, there is little debate about the important role that the community plays in the fight against crime. While communities must take the lead, I continually hear from law enforcement officers that communities are not engaged. There are many factors at work that keep community representatives from attending police-community meetings, and that keep residents from reporting crime and working with police to both prevent and combat crime.

A recent report from the Police Executive Forum (PERF) that was funded by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services highlights some of the factors that have led to a “stop snitching” movement. We all know the reasons why people are reluctant to report crime or take a stand against it. In all likelihood, we have experienced these factors where we live—fear of retaliation, mistrust between residents and police, and the ineffectiveness of the judicial system. While fear is a real factor, 74 percent of those agencies participating in the Executive Session that the PERF report was based on indicated that they knew about only a few isolated incidents of retaliation.

This issue hit home for me even more when I recently attended the funeral of a long-time community activist, Ms. Loree Murray, in Washington, DC. Ms. Murray was in her nineties, had started a community organization that works against gangs and drugs, and literally changed the face of her community. She was the victim of retaliation on more than one occasion—her house had been burned down, her tires slashed, her life threatened, and yet she persisted. Why? What made her persist? I don’t know the answer, but this is what I do know about Ms. Murray. She had a strong relationship with police officers and managers over the years—one that was based upon honesty, communication, and accountability. Ms. Murray was not what we call in the community organizing world, “a lone ranger leader.” She used her gift of persuasion and her personal strength as an elder to develop a cadre of community activists who joined her on patrol, stood with her at numerous community events and activities, and joined with her in a phone tree when the situation necessitated reporting crime. Finally, she treated all in her community with respect, but expected you to respect her and her home (the larger community) in return.

How do we get more Loree Murrays in the world? How do we get the community engaged to report crime and work with law enforcement? Some police departments initiate community policing efforts. Others change how they handle community contacts. The New York Police Department added a third step to its Stop and Frisk procedures: “Explain.” Another law enforcement agency initiated a more customer-friendly police stop. Most recently, I read about two technological approaches to bridge the police-community gap. The Yarmouth Police Department in Massachusetts, like many law enforcement agencies across the country, initiated an online reporting system. The Detroit Police Department recently announced a unique multi-media approach. Its three-phase plan includes a Network Alert system that allows people to sign up to get information via text or email. A 411 tip line will allow those who fear retaliation or mistrust police to report crime anonymously. The most unique approach is a Detroit Police Department page on the social media sites Facebook and MySpace that are aimed at reaching more young people.

Decreased community involvement in the fight against crime will exacerbate crime trends in the years to come. We must act now to continually create avenues to reach all residents in the fight to protect our communities. Is technology the answer? Are relationships the key? I personally believe that relationships, communications, and involvement are all key to successful police-community relations and will produce safer communities.

For more information on community crime prevention resources, visit www.ncpc.org. For more information on the PERF research,"The Stop Snitching Phenomenon: Breaking the Code of Silence" at the COPS office, visit http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/RIC/ResourceDetail.aspx?RID=514.

Highlighting Norms Can Reduce Crime

There is a common perception that public service messaging is not as effective as commercial messaging in influencing people's behavior. According to research (pdf) by Professor Robert Cialdini, even though commercial messages often have greater budgets and production values, there may be an unintended psychological message in many PSAs that undermines their public interest message.

Most PSAs rely on a technique called "injunctive norms" in which a certain type of behavior is shown to be either socially approved or disapproved. This type of message can successfully motivate people because most of us are interested in avoiding the disapproval of others. For instance, a PSA that depicts a teenager positively for abstaining from drug use can be persuasive.

The problem arises when that injunctive message is combined with a "descriptive norm" that portrays the drug use by the teen's peers as commonplace. Just as people are motivated to behave appropriately, they are also motivated to imitate the actions of their peers – even if those actions are viewed disapprovingly by society in general. According to Professor Cialdini's research, the most effective ad in this situation would combine a depiction of most teens abstaining from drug use with disapproval of a single teen's use of drugs. In this way, both descriptive and injunctive norms could work in concert.

This research has broader implications for crime prevention than the content of public service announcements. When communicating with people about crime, stress that most people do not engage in criminal behavior, and that criminal activity is met with deep disapproval by all parts of society.

The Ultimate Price—and Responsibility

The National Crime Prevention Council mourns the loss of four police officers in the shooting tragedy that unfolded recently in Oakland, CA.  Sergeants Mark Dunakin, Erv Romans, Daniel Sakai, and Officer John Hege were lost in the line of duty defending the safety of the people of Oakland, the safety that all of us, in communities across the country, depend on and, all too often, take for granted.  The loss of these officers was the most in one day since the September 11th attacks.

What caused this tragedy? Were there warning signs or other indicators that could have alerted us to the extreme danger the shooter represented?  Were there systems and practices in place that would have tipped us off to the possibility of a tragedy occurring?  The gunman, recently released from prison for violating a previous parole, was monitored by a parole officer whose caseload was 70 parolees, well above the American Parole and Probation Association’s recommended ratio of 50 cases per parole offer. Seven thousand parolees return to Alameda County, in which Oakland is situated, each year, all needing services, counseling, a job, and hope.

In the United States, more than 5.1 million adult men and women are supervised in the community, either on probation or parole. Every year more than 700,000 previously incarcerated persons return to their communities. The situation is exacerbated by the often unproductive time spent by inmates when they are behind bars, the drain on communities while its inhabitants are incarcerated, and the inability of communities and systems to re-integrate ex-offenders upon their eventual return.

"California's parole population is now so large and its parole agents are so overburdened that parolees who represent a serious public safety threat are not watched closely," a National Institute of Justice-funded report released last year, and quoted in the Oakland Tribune, states. "And those who wish to go straight cannot get the help they need."

Some people knew that the gunman had recently obtained a gun (in violation of his parole), but did nothing with that information. Crime prevention is not the responsibility of law enforcement, or corrections, or the National Crime Prevention Council alone. It takes a community working together to keep itself safe.

This time of mourning must also be a time of learning.