We have been looking at gangs all wrong, and we have been doing so for decades. We fetishize gangs, obsessing over the details of their rituals, rites, and ceremonies. We exaggerate their numbers and their crimes. We stereotype them, grouping all gangs and gang members into a monolithic whole. And, despite all this attention, we have yet to find any specifically gang-oriented policy that consistently works to reduce crime or, more importantly, violence.
... while a glance at the evidence seems to show that gangs cause violence, a deeper look also reveals the opposite: violence causes gangs.
Police create gang units, prosecutors build gang cases, and politicians pass laws prohibiting all manner of gang activities. Nothing has worked. Some activists coo over gangs, mistaking them for nascent community groups. That has not worked either. We have been so wrong about gangs, for so long, that an entirely new approach is needed. We have to start over and refocus our efforts not on gangs but on gang violence. If a gang or gang member is violent, they deserve our anti-violence attention. If they are not, our time and energy are better spent elsewhere. With gangs, the issue is not the group's identity; it is the group's behavior. Gangs are not the problem; gangbanging is.
If you attack gangs, they get stronger. You must declare war on violence and trauma.