Last week I wrote a piece about an article trying to describe criminal street gangs as insurgencies and a serious threat to nation states. It did generate a couple of comments that highlighted my tendency to offer superficial answers and I think it’s worthwhile to flesh out my ideas a bit.
Where I part company with Dean is the idea that urban counter-gang strategy should be modelled on counterinsurgency doctrine. In Dean’s words, “Restore order, establish you’re there for the long haul and rebuild infrastructure, opportunity and trust”.
In theory this sounds like a good plan. But in practice, how many American municipal authorities have the resources to do this justice? And how would they sustain progress for the long haul? Success ultimately depends on people having secure jobs in legit economies. That in turn relies on industry returning to inner cities. There are good reasons why industry left – like changing patterns of demand, new means of production, the lure of cheap offshore labour – and that will be impossible to reverse.
There are some problems with me advocating counterinsurgency principles when discussing dealing with domestic criminal networks. I’m not talking about calling in troops, imposing martial law or anything like that. Rather, it’s an understanding that there are underlying factors which are driving the negative behavior (whether financially or politically motivated) and until you address those factors, you aren’t going to get any long term success.
So, we’ve seen policy groping towards this idea through Broken Windows theory or the implementation of the Boston Gun Project or its new incarnation. These programs attempt to go beyond the standard ‘Book ‘em Dano’ approach and aren’t unrealistic in terms of resource requirements. They do however face some serious problems:
- While, at their best, they incorporate and encourage social service/community involvement, law enforcement by its nature (with access to reliable funding, it’s highly structured organization and the ‘long tail’ of the criminal justice system behind it) is gong to be the (very) senior partner in any such program and effectively calling all the shots.
- Government decision makers are similar to business decision makers in that they have short term horizons. Instead of looking at the next quarter or fiscal year they are primarily concerned with the next election cycle. Therefore, reducing crime now is usually more favored than enacting policies which might lead to reduced crime later. That means money and resources will flow to those things (like cops on the streets, new prisons, tougher criminal penalties) which encourage short term suppression rather than those (better job opportunities, social services, education) that lead to long term crime reduction.
- There are few to no potential partners for any of these schemes which can address long term concerns. In COIN language of ‘Clear, Hold, Build’, we’ve got the ‘clear’ capability, might have the ‘hold’ capability and aren’t even trying to address the ‘build’ portion.
Admittedly, local and state governments (most of which are strapped for cash) would need to make some tough decisions if they wanted to address these problems over the long term.
Right now, anti-crime/gang initiative usually originate in the same way:
- Ignore problem
- Some ‘newsworthy’ event occurs (usually a child killed in a crossfire between warring groups)
- Public outrage ensues
- Officials spring into action and flood the area with police resources, arresting anyone and everyone they can
- Criminals lay low
- Crime falls
- Law enforcement is quietly withdrawn
- Return to #1 above
This is not a recipe for long term success and I reject the idea that we have to tell (implicitly or explicitly) that this is the best they can hope for. Local/State/Federal governments will have to make some choices and I’m by no means an expert who can recommend what should be cut to pay for this but accepting the status quo seemsincredibly short sighted.
The first priority must be to restore order and not with the ‘drive by policing’ system we have now. In many communities the public safety sector is viewed as indifferent (at best) to hostile (at worst) and trust can be non-existent.
Law enforcement and emergency services therefore should be permanently stationed (and adequately staffed) in the worst areas and not just drive through on patrol. This will be difficult for some municipalities which find themselves running from one emergency call to another but where county or state law enforcement resources can come into play. Right now, those resources are often disbursed on a myriad of investigative missions, diluting their effectiveness. Instead, those forces should be used as a strategic reserve (think of county/state law enforcement as a potential comitatenses to the local police’s limitanei). This is where the Broken Window/Operation CeaseFire plans can be implemented. Restore order and trust. Commit to a long term presence.
While I’m not an urban policy guy I suspect there are a host of ideas and initiatives that could be tried to restore legitimate opportunities for employment in even the most depressed communities. People in these areas get by now through the gray or black markets. Microfinancing for small, legitimate service jobs (auto repair, tailoring, babysitting, etc.). Tax subsidies for outside business/industry. Converting/leasing open space for food production. Don’t worry about competing in the world economy but initially focus on serving the local community (which is what the illicit market has done so well by providing narcotics, prostitution, gambling, etc).
