Gang Related Crime
Voices from Hollenbeck

by John Ryan

Here are the 2006 LAPD gang crimes statistics published in the LA Times, and unfortunately the news is not good for our police division, Hollenbeck. Our area had the second highest number of serious gang related crimes in the city last year, and we've had a 62% increase in these crimes in the past five years. 

I guess all the increased graffiti and other activities is not a coincidence. I have no answers...

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Huge Spike in Gang Activity in Hollenbeck Division
OPINION

by Jake Jacobs

I've been reading these Emails for years, literally. I have been told that increases in tagging activity were the result of some particular gangster/tagger having been released from a penal institution. I have also heard the "general increased gang activity" postulate, as well as the "decreased enforcement/eradication budget" theorem. They're all good ideas and they have some, if not merit, at least truth to them.

In less public fora, private conversations, etc., I have heard people discuss the cultural differences between Mexican-born and raised people and those who have grown up on the northern side of the border, particularly as regards a long tradition of political graffiti south of the border and a general tolerance for visual pollution in third world countries. There is no question that culture and politics have an impact.

But not once have I heard anyone discuss the CAUSE of the problem. The cause, in my opinion, is found in an analysis of why those of us who DON'T tag ... don't tag. We have a common aesthetic that we apply to those things we own. I believe we apply that aesthetic to those things that we COULD own as well. That's part of the social agreement we make to allow others to have what they have. And because we possess resources, we have a large sphere of ownership/potential ownership and control. Furthermore, we've been helped to develop that important aesthetic by our parents, our social institutions and our schools.

Don't you believe that it is a Herculean task for most people growing up in a socio-economic class that has NO potential -- short of the lottery -- of ever owning anything substantial to develop a sense of potential ownership or an understanding of the right of others to keep their proprty as they wish? Do you believe that a solid aesthetic and a sense of responsibility flourish in the deprived segments of a society that distributes educational opportunity to the highest bidder?

I've watched the graffiti in our neighborhood over the last fifteen years. At the beginning of the 1990's, Highland Park/Montecito Heights was a war zone. Graffiti was rampant and the sound of nighttime gunfire was far from unusual. But then things started to get better and it wasn't because people with resources were buying into MH. People on the hill weren't contributing to the tagging problem. It was because things were really improving for the huge underclass of this country. There were real opportunities for education other than Basic Training and there was a at least a pinhole view of the American Dream through the pall of desperation that had covered the lowest socio-economic layer of society during the Reagan years. The Clinton nineties were a pretty good time. A lot of people made a lot of money and paid their taxes. And there was some semblence of equity in the distribution of those resources. Or there was at least an acknowledgement of the inequities.

And then along came W and his band of angry, greedy, loathesome, neo-con vampires. They sucked the financial life out of the economic stratum in which most of the population exists and kept it all for themselves. They wouldn't add a single penny to the minimum wage. They staffed an expensive war with the poor, who needed jobs of any sort, and the unwilling, who substituted for their own kids who just might not be able to escape the draft they really needed to execute this unpopular war. And, to top it off, they feasted voraciously on the financial banquet that supports the killing.

Good grief! I'm embued with a sense of hopelessness and I have substantial resources and power. Imagine for just a moment how it is for others. Let yourself feel the desire to control SOMETHING, to be supported by SOMEONE, to own ANYTHING. I don't know about you, but it makes me want to head down to Home Depot and load up on flourescent red.

Please devote your energies to fighting the CAUSE of the problem as well as finding ways to keep our little haven squeeky clean.