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Gang injunctions do not work

April 7, 2010

The problem is that gang injunctions create two conditions that do guarantee further crime and violence: isolation and detachment.  When young people feel isolated and detached from their community, school, and the labor market, their chances of committing crime drastically increase. 

Gang injunctions limit positive mobility for young people, many who have arbitrarily been labeled gang members by police. 

Blocking young people from believing that they can attend school without being marked as a criminal or walk in their neighborhood without feeling the wrath of an entire community only breeds resentment and hopelessness. 

….Gang injunctions are not the answer.  Restorative justice and positive police-community relations have been the only approaches found to help law enforcement find the small number of offenders who are responsible for most of the violence committed in a particular neighborhood and avoid criminalizing an entire generation.

Read the whole article.

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