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Alejandro A Alonso, PhD Candidate |
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Department of Geography |
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University of Southern California |
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…a group of associating individuals which has an |
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identifiable leadership and organizational
structure, |
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either claims a territory in the community, or |
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exercises control over an illegal enterprise;
and |
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engages collectively or as individuals in acts
of |
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violence or serious criminal behavior
(California |
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Office of Criminal Justice Planning 1987:3-4). |
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What are Gang Injunctions? |
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Background on Gang Injunctions in Los Angeles. |
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Theoretical Basis for Their Use |
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Challenges Against GI |
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Research Questions |
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Conceptual Framework |
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Methods |
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=Law suit against a gang filed by City or
District Attorney |
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=Spatially based suppression technique |
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=Forbids specific gang members from
congregation in a specific geographic areas |
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=First implemented in 1987 against the Play
Boy Gangster Crips |
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=Intended to reduce the activities of violent
street gangs |
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Harbor City Gang Injunction area, 2000 |
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Inglewood Injunction |
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Against Crenshaw |
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Mafia Bloods in 1997 |
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Three levels of injunction |
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TRO = Temporary
Restraining Order |
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Prove that a gang is a nuisance through police
declarations and community members. Prosecutor applies for a TRO and OSC to
judge. |
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PI = Preliminary Injunction |
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The OSC sets the framework for the PI and judge
grants PI until the suit resolved. |
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Permanent Injunction |
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After a trial where the defendants loose. |
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= City Attorney James Hahn made them popular
in 1987 |
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Play Boy Gangster Crips in the Cadillac-Corning
area |
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= LA County DA Ira Reiner, 1991-1993 |
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= Blythe Street Gang injunction, Van Nuys,
1993, 1st permanent |
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= Court challenges ultimately fail, 1997 |
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= LA County DA Gil Carcetti, 1997 |
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Other Los Angeles County Cities Seek
Injunctions,1995-1997 |
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Norwalk, 1993 |
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Long Beach, 1995 & 1997 |
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Pasadena, 1995 & 1996 |
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Redondo Beach, 1996 |
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Compton, 1998 |
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Besides congregating, GIs prohibit an array of
other activities: |
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=having a pager |
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=using a cell phone |
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=standing on roofs of buildings |
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=whistling to other people |
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=ACLU appealed an injunction in 1987 and 1994
as being legally indefensible. |
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=Norwalk Superior judged agreed and so did a
San Jose Judge 1993. |
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=These cases were heard by the California
Supreme Court (People ex rel. Gallo v. Acuna), they reinstated injunctions
with some limitations. |
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= Illinois Supreme Court (City of Chicago v.
Morales) denied a similar strategy
because it was too vague. |
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law enforcement community |
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2 main purposes |
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to reorganize and deal with social
disorganization that has afflicted a community |
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to work as a deterrence strategy to prevent
other gang members from engaging in criminal activity |
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Social Disorganization (Shaw and McKay,
1942) is the link to “Broken
Windows” theory (Wilson and Kelling, 1982) |
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Wilson and Kelling, 1982 |
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Communities that become vulnerable to criminal
activity will lead to increased social disorganization. |
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Social disorganization or disorder are inextricably linked to crime. |
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Police officers believe that if a window in a
building is left broken, the rest of the windows will soon be broken. |
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Visual disorder are initial signs of visual
decay. |
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Gangs represents that visual decay. |
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states that crime results because the
probability of receiving punishment outweighs the anticipated benefits of
committing a crime. |
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if core members are targeted by law enforcement,
that will influence other gang members and deter them from engaging in
particular activities. |
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Most literature is from the law journals |
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Constitutionality |
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Civil rights |
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Legal issues |
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Pro and con |
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ACLU Report, 1997 |
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Blythe gang |
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Crime displacement |
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Expensive |
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No cost benefit |
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Maxson & Allen, 1997 |
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Inglewood injunction, no community support |
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Maxson, Henningan & Sloan, 2000 |
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Raised issues about their continued use |
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Are community members involved |
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Do they actually work? |
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Grogger, 2002 |
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Test crime displacement, 13 injunctions |
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Used reported crime data and stated no diffusion |
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No gang crime data used |
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1. Why are gang injunctions targeted to some
gangs and places and not others? |
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On 24 in the LA county, 35 State-wide |
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About 1,000 gangs in LA County |
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Are these the most vicious and menacing gangs? |
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NIMBY? |
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Privileged adjacency |
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2. What are the impacts of gang injunctions on
the geography of gang-related crime? |
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Examine all 24 gangs injunctions |
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Displacement? |
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Pre- & post- analysis |
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Crimes, type 1, & 2 plus gang related crime |
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Calls for service |
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Other data ? |
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Gather gang territories |
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Time series analysis to examine displacement
(ARIMA Box & Jenkins) |
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Factor analysis (confirmatory) to characterize
community demographics using 1990 & 2000 census data |
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Notes