Gangs and Unemployment: The System isn’t Working
Oftentimes, when problems seem too complex, the popular notion seems to be that we are actually unable to discover the problem’s root cause. Instead, we chip away at the symptoms, hopefully looking for clues while doing so. However, as I delve into these semingly unsolvable issues, the more logical inquiry seems to prove it’s merit. All life on this planet is systemic. It’s a matter of testing possible causes against symptoms until we can track them all backwards to one or more root causes.
In Hearts and Hands, Luis J. Rodriguez was able to do this within the first 40 pages. Taking the inter-dependent and multi-faceted topics of gang activity and violence, illicit lifestyles and means of income, and poverty, he has summarized their causes: all of which stem from the same place.
Unemployment. Unavailable or otherwise inaccessible jobs.
(Thus far, the book has not explained this “inaccessability”, and I am eager to learn more about the barriers that create such a stratified society. Deep-seated and institutionalized racism, sexism, and classism may be the root causes. But again, those will have deeper roots of their own…)
Looking at the history of “gangs” in America, we can see periods of growth and evolution. Coinciding with the civil rights struggles of the 60’s and the creation of activist groups like the Black Panthers, there was an uncharacteristic lull in gang activity. “However, after a concerted government effort to destroy those groups, and with an influx of Vietnam War veterans- mostly without jobs, heavily trained in weapontry, and some addicted to drugs- a new level of gang activity emerged”. By the mid 70’s, America had changed from a mechanical/industrial to a electronics/computers focus, resulting in a huge loss of industrial jobs. These new technology jobs “failed to significantly impact the areas hardest hit by the loss of work. New economic outlets, such as the now pervasive drug trade, were fashioned”.
I’ll skip the 80’s for now, since Reaganomics and the resulting unemployment/poverty rates are obvious culprits. Additionally, that time saw a rise a strengthening of older Chicano prison groups, and I simply don’t know the implications of that yet.
Fast forward to the mid 90’s, and the number of youths who report “gangs” in their schools has about doubled in a 6 year period. And the increase is the same across all communities. Rodriguez says, “There are complex forces contributing to this phenomenon. Within the present social class divisions of modern technology-driven capitalism, many youths- urban and rural- are being denied the option of earning a ‘legitimate’ living. [Children of blue collar workers] are affected, as well as those coming from the shrinking ‘middle class’… Everyone needs a productive and meaningful job, not just to survive, although this is paramount, but to thrive. Without this, the imbalance gets ‘stablilized’ in gang or illicit enterprises”.
As a fellow southern Californian, I appreciate his focus on this locality, but I was surprised to learn that “Los Angeles… has had more gang violence than any other city”. In addition, we experienced “the greatest incidence of gang-related acts during the 1980s and early 1990s when 300,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in California”. While I was pondering this incident as a possible coincidence, I flipped to the citations, where another local source corroborated the unemployment = gang/illicit activity claim.
According to a study cited in this LA Times article, “[No contributing factor] is more significant than the staggering rates of unemployment in their communities.” They examined eight social, economic, and demographic factors against gang homicide stats, and found joblessness to be the top factor in gang death tolls.
Since unemployment is not a root cause itself, this means further digging is required. It’s shed a lot of light on the subject for me, but it seems to further indicate that our capitalist structure is a failed model of economy. I’m still figuring out exactly how, but it seems as though “the system” is truly unsalvagable.
Note: all emphasis in quotations are my own. They’re kind of notes for what areas I need to research next.
