RSS
With crime going up in many cities, I wanted to call attention to the 2014 article “The End of Gangs” by Sam Quinones, author of Dreamland about the opioids disaster, in the Pacific Standard about a sizable improvement in Southern California law enforcement that I’ve never heard anybody else mention. About 15 years ago, when William Bratton was top cop at the LAPD, So Cal police and prosecutors started going after gangs root and branch, rather than just trying to trim the top off the gang.
According to Quinones, the first reform was to get the multitudinous law enforcement agencies in Southern California to cooperate.
The second part of the new strategy was to stop focusing just on arresting the kingpins and instead round up all at once almost all the foot soldiers on RICO charges.
The third reform was to send the gang members to federal penitentiaries in distant states where their girlfriends couldn’t visit them and carry messages back to the gang members on the streets.
In April 2006, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s public affairs office in Los Angeles issued a press release under the headline “Joint Investigation Knocks-Out Two Los Angeles Area Gangs.” Federal prosecutors had indicted dozens of members of the HLP gang in Highland Park and the East Side Wilmas in Wilmington, and the press release ended with a thick list of 25 law-enforcement agencies—federal, state, and local, from the FBI and LAPD to the Covina Police Department—whose help had been “invaluable.” The media covered the press release only perfunctorily, but hidden in its 996 words was another sea change in gang enforcement.
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute was enacted by Congress in 1970 and best known for its use against Italian Mafia dons. But the RICO statute had also been used a couple of times in Los Angeles in the 1990s to go after the Mexican Mafia, a notorious California prison gang that had extended its influence to the streets, where it controlled the activities of Southern California Latino gang members. …
The HLP prosecution had begun as a drug trafficking case, but the federal prosecutor, Chris Brunwin, was also finding evidence of insurance fraud, immigrant smuggling, extortion, and witness intimidation—the sort of criminal activity that RICO was written to combat. So Brunwin expanded the case and charged the gang under the statute, netting 43 convictions.
The 2006 case against HLP was the first in Los Angeles to use RICO statutes on foot soldiers as well as gang leadership. Street gangs had previously been seen as small fry, but, by the mid-2000s, “the culture changed in terms of using this great tool,” says Jim Trusty, chief of the U.S. Justice Department’s Organized Crime and Gang section in Washington, D.C.
RICO cases also required interagency cooperation—federal budgets and wiretapping capabilities with local cops’ knowledge. Federal prosecutors and district attorneys began meeting, sharing information, and putting aside old turf rivalries. Today, federal agents and local police officers routinely work together on cases. On the day of arrests, officials—local cops, sheriffs, agents from the DEA, FBI, IRS, and others—will spend several minutes of a half-hour press conference recognizing one another’s cooperation.
Prosecuting street gangs has meant abandoning the previous focus on kingpins. “‘Cut off the head and body dies’ just isn’t true” when it comes to Southern California street gangs, says Brunwin.
It’s almost as if you don’t need to be a criminal mastermind to be head of a gang.
“You have to go after everyone—anyone who had anything to do with, supported, or touched the organization. You have to have an effect on the structure, its daily operation. The only thing that works is adopting a scorched-Earth policy.”
Since 2006, there have been more than two dozen RICO indictments in Southern California, targeting Florencia 13, Hawaiian Gardens (HG-13), Azusa 13, Five-Deuce Broadway Gangster Crips, Pueblo Bishop Bloods, and many more of the region’s most entrenched and violent gangs. Most of the indictments have dozens of defendants; the Florencia case had 102, while Hawaiian Gardens, in 2009, was one of the largest street-gang indictments in U.S. history, with 147. Some of these indictments once provided news fodder for days. Now they’re so common that they no longer earn the Los Angeles Times’ front page. A recent RICO indictment against 41 members of the El Monte Flores gang, detailing alleged extortion, drug taxation, and race-hate crimes dating back more than a decade, didn’t even warrant a press conference.
… Most of the Southern California RICO prosecutions have instead swept up large numbers of street gang members. Leaders of prison gangs like the Mexican Mafia usually aren’t even charged in these prosecutions, and are referred to as “unindicted co-conspirators.”
“In prosecuting the members, you make [prison-gang leaders] powerless,” Brunwin says. “If no one’s out there on the street doing their work, then they’re just guys in cells.”
Southern California RICO cases have sent large numbers of street-gang soldiers to prisons in places like Arkansas or Indiana, where no girlfriend is coming to visit. In California prisons, inmates usually serve only half their time before getting out on parole, but federal prison sentences are long and provide for no parole.
My vague impression is that Mexican violence tends to be more organized (e.g., cartels), black violence more disorganized (e.g., unwanted party guests). If you take the gang structure away from Mexicans, they tend to calm down.
English
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Dutch
French
German
Hebrew
Hindi
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Vietnamese
This all is well thought out – and now it’s who’s turn? To – do what? – Especially with regard to the almost perfecct match of Steven Pinker and eigthy-one Nobel laureates supporting Joe Biden, BLM, the Antifa (peaceful protesters, Joe Biden) and the Democratic Party on the one hand and – Donald Trump and “bad people” (Joe Biden) and the National Guard on the other?
So Ron is right?
We’ve read about this here before, and no doubt it is correct. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fit into the current zeitgeist.
If only people in government and law enforcement would listen to people like Steve Sailer…
It is probably a fixed characteristic of the human condition that no one listens to the people who notice things. There is a busy play going on, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” and it is nearly impossible to hear anything else.
My vague impression is that Mexican violence tends to be more organized (e.g., cartels), black violence more disorganized (e.g., unwanted party guests).
I don’t know, from my years in New York city I recall lots of tabloid generating Mexican shoot ups involving baptisms, communions, weddings and quinceaneras, but again, that seemed to be a Mexican thing. Porto Ricans, Dominicans and Andeans didn’t see to go in for that stuff, (the shoot ups, that is, at least in the context of these life transitioning celebrations.)
Interesting, I do not ever recall a shoot up at a Mexican wake. Isn’t it true that Mexicans have a fearful dread of the dead?
All you gotta do is get Hector
Ind order to work, such meta-ditties must be flawlessly written (=logically consistent) and - perfectly phrased. And Morrissey succeeds, so - thanks for posting this.
All this expense and convoluted strategy seems like so much trouble. Moving violent criminals to distant states because girlfriends? Western law was developed to secure protection for the innocent. If you have a list of arrests and convictions for assaults and thefts and what have you, you are not among the innocent. A bullet to the back of the head seems more appropriate and cost effective.
Mussolini pioneered the mass arrest approach in Sicily, very successful there.
So what happened to the end of gangs?
This all sounds great but we still have lots of gangs around the country. Did they keep up the indictments in California and really get rid of the gangs? Something tells me the answer is no.
Unlike the Italian and Irish mobs there always lots of new people for these gangs to recruit so law enforcement and prosecutors would have to be both constant and relentless in going after these people.
I did a search and found the FBI’s gang page. They are arresting some people but obviously a lot more needs to be done.
We need what was described in the article to happen every day wherever there are gangs in this country. I assume today that is just about every state except Alaska.
https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/violent-crime/gangs/gang-news
The Crips alone have fifteen franchises there:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Crips_subgroups#AlaskaReplies: @Kronos, @notsaying
I fear these RICO legal tactics will lead the Department of Justice one step closer to “Judge Dredd” territory. When the police force is fully federalized from coast to coast and the DoJ is the only government in town.
https://youtu.be/kbcoOqGKFi8
-signed a proud yet concerted Italian American who fears the DoJ’s racial profiling of Italian Americans (the original “People of Color.”)
https://www.hautetime.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/tony-soprano.jpgReplies: @notsaying, @Anon
And that’s funny, because back then California was like 90% White, full of suburban kids like Steve riding Stingray bikes and collecting baseball cards. It was a lot more peaceful, so those arrests must have cleared out the troublemakers to keep our tract house life as idyllic as it was then. No, actually the problems and arrests were all going on in other neighborhoods…
The juvenile arrest rate in California has fallen by over 90% from 1966 through 2019.
The decline became especially sharp after 2007.
So a California juvenile was 10x more likely to be arrested in the 60s than today.
I would prefer we arrest every juvenile delinquent and for serious crimes keep it on their permanent record. I do not buy that they are too young to know right from wrong.Replies: @S
If only people in government and law enforcement would listen to people like Steve Sailer...
It is probably a fixed characteristic of the human condition that no one listens to the people who notice things. There is a busy play going on, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," and it is nearly impossible to hear anything else.Replies: @Dieter Kief
People tend to laugh about those who oppose the narrative because it is unpleasant to be an outsider. – The path to God, the Bible says, is crooked. – This idea has not only, so to speak, a literal meaning. – This sentence can also be understood (=read) as a comment about the nature of truth. And if I go one step further and make the test how this sentence about the way to God being difficult looks like if it is seen from somewhere within The Darkness on The Edge of Town (the opposite side), it says: The devil (=our illusions) are tempting and often times more attractive – and easier to have – at first sight… cf. Matthew 7 – broad is the way, which leadeth to destruction…and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it.
Freud – in his book which reflects on these topics***, says, it doesn’t matter if there are only a few at times willing to adhere to the truth – as long as they understand that they have to be – – polite and patient and – insisting – in order to succeed.
***Civilization and its Discontents
13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Compare Hesiod, quoted by Plato in the Republic, Book ii:
Vice in plenty is easy to find,
The road is smooth and begins beside you,
But the gods have put sweat between you and virtue,
and a road that is long, rough, and steep.
Those ancients - they knew some stuff.
Too many laws.
Too many gangs.
Too much government.
Government is a RICO violation.
Why would you except Alaska? The criminal roustabouts are too individualist to form gangs?
The Crips alone have fifteen franchises there:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Crips_subgroups#Alaska
https://youtu.be/NmOMNExrcI0
Should we make a careful distinction between gang and mafia? The term “gang” is a pretty lose term. Seven guys that hang around stoned (and not having sex with each other) would easily constitute a gang. They may not sell drugs, have guns, or rob/intimidate people but they can be considered a gang. To get rid of that entirely is impossible, like getting rid of drunks during prohibition.
I fear these RICO legal tactics will lead the Department of Justice one step closer to “Judge Dredd” territory. When the police force is fully federalized from coast to coast and the DoJ is the only government in town.
-signed a proud yet concerted Italian American who fears the DoJ’s racial profiling of Italian Americans (the original “People of Color.”)
I am a lot more worried about the effects of the gangs than I am what the DOJ is doing to get after them. That seems to be clearly not enough.
I have no desire for prosecutors and law enforcement to go crazy and target innocent people. But Tony Soprano should have been in prison. How is going after people like him ethnic profiling? I am puzzled that you put his picture up to go along with your comments. You aren't complaining that actual Mafia guys get put in prison, are you?Replies: @Kronos
Rest assured, RICO has been used and will increasingly be used against people who dare to point out that the emperor has no clothes. RICO is an abomination and should be repealed.Replies: @Anon
Apologies in advance.
This film was scored by Mike Patton, btw.
Steven Pinker is Canadian in my heart, so I don’t count him.
I live in a city infested with Mexican gangs and they are very focused on their targets. All their shootings are rival Mexican gang members and never random people.
People often complain about gangs but I always wondered why they were allowed to exist in the first place. Just being in a gang should be a crime in itself. I also don’t think gangs should be allowed in prisons yet we let them become an integral part of the prison experience.
"Gangs" are just groups of people, formally or informally organized. No one "allows" them to exist. Is being a Knicks fan part of a gang? Should that be criminal? The Boy Scouts? Perhaps you are only (poor communicating) about "criminal gangs." Yes?
Well the RICO statutes, federal and similar state ones, do make "membership" in a criminal gang a criminal offense. Mr. Fink, that hasn't stopped them from existing. It's not like the Crips have a handy online membership database, like AAA. Nor do they hand out membership cards. So you have to prove membership. In prisons, they are already there due to criminal convictions. How do you prevent prisoners from joining groups? Everyone in isolation?
No one "lets" prison gangs exist. They do all kinds of of things to prevent it. But it occurs. You would do well to first educate yourself about a subject, unless you are merely trolling.Replies: @Jay Fink
I was watching the Robbie Benson Chicano Street Romance un-classic Walk Proud recently (don’t ask why). After an armed robbery gone wrong cops raid a community get-together and take all recognized members of their little gang to the precinct. They proceed to question them one-by-one to find out who was behind the robbery. Which I liked, because the leader and the perpetrator were relatively smart but the rest you gotta assume ain’t the brightest.
By the way, this movie is okay despite its bad reputation. Which it partly deserves for casting Benson as a Mexifornian gangster while failing for the first two-thirds of the movie to clarify he has a white father.
https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.48cfCqSGdkzlxF7N5cVezAHaFj?pid=Api&dpr=1.5
https://imgur.com/a/ueumRTO
The decline became especially sharp after 2007.
So a California juvenile was 10x more likely to be arrested in the 60s than today.Replies: @Jay Fink
As someone who holds the unpopular view that America does not arrest and incarcerate enough of her people those statistics make me sad. I wonder if other states have had such a sharp decline or if it’s juat California?
I would prefer we arrest every juvenile delinquent and for serious crimes keep it on their permanent record. I do not buy that they are too young to know right from wrong.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Black_Dahlia_Mugshot.jpg
The old LA centered DragnetTV series from the 50's and 60's are interesting in this regard because on occasion they would show the arrests of youthful offenders, and they were (purportedly) based on real cases in many instances.
Banning tattooing would be another way of reducing the effect of gangs, because members would not be marked as gang members for life and it would be easier for them to age out.
it seems like most of our cities are infested with these young men of various ethnicities who are not smart enough to graduate from high school so they graduate into crime.
Without a high school diploma access to almost all kinds of employment is restricted. You can’t even get a job as a cashier in Walmart without a high school diploma. So it is almost inevitable that they graduate to areas like stealing, burglary, drug dealing to make money.
Inside prisons it is almost mandatory to belong to a gang for reasons of self-defense, because if you are not a gang member then you are a loner and a potential victim. Some prisoners actually do go through prison without gang affiliation, but once they have been tattooed they don’t have much choice.
Absolutely no excuse for a life of crime.
About 15 years ago, when William Bratton was top cop at the LAPD, So Cal police and prosecutors started going after gangs root and branch, rather than just trying to trim the top off the gang.
Bratton has done more for urban quality of life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries than pretty much anyone else. If we were a serious country he would have statues in NY and LA. But I suppose they would be one of the first to be torn down by our modern day Visigoths.
The Crips alone have fifteen franchises there:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Crips_subgroups#AlaskaReplies: @Kronos, @notsaying
I would guess it’s more clan-based crime than gang crime. The family clans are much more directly related than a random bunch of guys who grew up in the same housing project. But, they might lack the large scale network of cousins that’s often associated with Mafia/Mobs.
Yeah, it’s just funny rereading Steve’s “End gang murders with RICO” stuff in the current environment.
The hated police are involved, check.
BIPOCs are disparately impacted, check.
The prison population is increased, not reduced, check.
The underlying cause of gang violence, white supremacy, is not targeted, check.
The world has gone upside down. No, there won’t be any multiagency gang crackdowns any time soon.
“Since 2006, there have been more than two dozen RICO indictments in Southern California, targeting Florencia 13, Hawaiian Gardens (HG-13), Azusa 13, Five-Deuce Broadway Gangster Crips, Pueblo Bishop Bloods, and many more of the region’s most entrenched and violent gangs.”
Why the frequency of “13” among gang names?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-13
says, “The ‘13’ is believed to stand for the letter M, the thirteenth letter of the alphabet, but it is also been rumored to pay homage to a California prison gang, the Mexican Mafia. … Aspirants are beaten for 13 seconds as an initiation to join the gang, a ritual known as a “beat-in”.”
I fear these RICO legal tactics will lead the Department of Justice one step closer to “Judge Dredd” territory. When the police force is fully federalized from coast to coast and the DoJ is the only government in town.
https://youtu.be/kbcoOqGKFi8
-signed a proud yet concerted Italian American who fears the DoJ’s racial profiling of Italian Americans (the original “People of Color.”)
https://www.hautetime.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/tony-soprano.jpgReplies: @notsaying, @Anon
Collections of guys who hang out together are not gangs in my book. What we are talking about here are criminals. I do not think that all police departments are going to link up into one too big and too powerful organization.
I am a lot more worried about the effects of the gangs than I am what the DOJ is doing to get after them. That seems to be clearly not enough.
I have no desire for prosecutors and law enforcement to go crazy and target innocent people. But Tony Soprano should have been in prison. How is going after people like him ethnic profiling? I am puzzled that you put his picture up to go along with your comments. You aren’t complaining that actual Mafia guys get put in prison, are you?
Why the frequency of "13" among gang names?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-13
says, "The ‘13’ is believed to stand for the letter M, the thirteenth letter of the alphabet, but it is also been rumored to pay homage to a California prison gang, the Mexican Mafia. ... Aspirants are beaten for 13 seconds as an initiation to join the gang, a ritual known as a "beat-in"."Replies: @Steve Sailer
Quinones says:
In the 1990s, in meetings billed to the press as negotiations for a gang truce, members of the Mexican Mafia ordered Latino street gangs to stop drive-by shootings. They also ordered gangs to start taxing drug dealers in their neighborhoods and kicking the proceeds to Mexican Mafia members and their associates. That system created the first region-wide crime syndicate in Southern California history, turning scruffy neighborhood street gangs into tax collectors and enforcers. (As M is the 13th letter of the alphabet, many gangs took the number 13 as a symbol of their obedience to the Mexican Mafia.) It also made them vulnerable to federal conspiracy prosecution—the RICO statute in particular.
Hey, wait a minute. The letter M is the 13th letter of the alphabet in the English alphabet, but not in the Spanish alphabet, which contains "ch" and "ll" as separate letters. In the Spanish alphabet, M is the 15 letter. See
https://www.spanishdict.com/guide/spanish-alphabet-pronunciation
But wait, reading more closely, the digraphs "ch" and "ll" are no longer considered separate letters. I withdraw my remark.
The Crips alone have fifteen franchises there:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Crips_subgroups#AlaskaReplies: @Kronos, @notsaying
Well I stand corrected. How did the Crips get to Alaska? Were they running away from the cops in California?
By the way, this movie is okay despite its bad reputation. Which it partly deserves for casting Benson as a Mexifornian gangster while failing for the first two-thirds of the movie to clarify he has a white father.
https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.48cfCqSGdkzlxF7N5cVezAHaFj?pid=Api&dpr=1.5Replies: @Steve Sailer
Really white Mexican gang leaders in L.A. are a phenomenon, like Joe “Pegleg” Morgan of the Mexican Mafia and Timothy McGhee:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_%22Pegleg%22_Morgan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Joseph_McGhee
https://youtu.be/CtizGhJ2X5U?t=245
Starts at the point, ~4 min mark, where Joe Ray speaks of his "outsider" origins.
The War on Drugs is being waged by Persons on Drugs: It is time to legalise drugs and let the chips fall where they may.
I need subtitles to understand the dialogue.
My theory is the reason that older people complain all the time about people talking in the audience at the movie theater is because their hearing is declining and they miss their closed captions.
Which seems perfectly reasonable, especially with Christopher Nolan movies.
Although Nolan came up with a brilliant response to criticism of his hard to understand dialogue for the last scene of “Dunkirk.” Most directors would have ended Dunkirk with a voice-over or title card from Churchill’s Dunkirk “We shall fight” speech.
Instead, the two surviving Tommies make it back to England and get on a train, despondent over being beaten. Somebody hands one a newspaper and he starts reading Churchill’s speech to the other in a low, flat monotone. When it gets to the exciting part, the other asks “What?” and the reader raises his voice for the peroration.
Tommy: [last dialogue] We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be…
Alex: What?
Tommy: We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. and even if this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
The US revived the mafia when invading Sicily in 1943.
It’s not really the end of gangs, though. It’s pushing them out – and some of them commute! It may just be semantics, but it’s not fair for LA to create a problem for itself through its thirst for cheap labor, then foist it on smaller towns that have, to a fair greater extent, minded their own business.
Too many gangs.
Too much government.Government is a RICO violation.Replies: @BB753
You could argue that the Government is the biggest gang of them all, trying to get rid of the competition, for control of the protection racket (IRS) and drug and arms trafficking.
I think loud music in the 80’s was the downfall of many eardrums.
Looks like someone transcribed it, but there are too many bad words for a wholesome blog like this.
http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/a2/crank-2-high-voltage-script.html
Another part of the film does contain subtitles, however.
That particular film has an artistic take on the gangs of LA.
I enjoyed it, but I suspect it may have led to the directors getting cancelled because they only made one more after that one, I think.
So even the Mexican Mafia fears the IRS?
The IRS can and does go after gangsters over tax issues (Al Capone was the first to find out). But I doubt the MM fears a tax audit.
The tax auditors I've known all said they would avoid any "business" that appeared to be a crime front. Someone else's problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJO9e_F-PuQReplies: @Dieter Kief
Morrissey is ironic – so – – his song is pretty much a matter of his brains (much more so than of his heart). It’s almost sung stand-up comedy.
Ind order to work, such meta-ditties must be flawlessly written (=logically consistent) and – perfectly phrased. And Morrissey succeeds, so – thanks for posting this.
Brilliant idea.
Should be used against Antifa and BLM.
Dunkirk was way overrated, and that Yank who acts in England is a mumbler with zero charisma.
I’m here for the Ron Unz jokes.
One weakness of Ron’s analysis is using state incarceration only to examine crime rates and assuming federal will be similar. But alien criminals and gang members skew Hispanic crime towards the federal system.
I don't know, from my years in New York city I recall lots of tabloid generating Mexican shoot ups involving baptisms, communions, weddings and quinceaneras, but again, that seemed to be a Mexican thing. Porto Ricans, Dominicans and Andeans didn't see to go in for that stuff, (the shoot ups, that is, at least in the context of these life transitioning celebrations.)
Interesting, I do not ever recall a shoot up at a Mexican wake. Isn't it true that Mexicans have a fearful dread of the dead?Replies: @Hannah Katz, @ATBOTL
I can already hear the ACLU and MSN whining that a crackdown on gangs creates a disparate impact on people of color. Please….
Steven Pinker seems to count himself in somehow – he sounds really excited to announce the support of the 81 wisecracks for Joe Biden! – Well, Joe Biden could need help if it comes to bain-power. So – is Steven Pinker playing it safe here because his tweed could also be read as an ironic or even sarcastic one – with regard to Sleepy Joe’s obvious cognitive deficits? – Haha – that just goes to show, how bright Steven Pinker is! – Brighter than me anyhow!
it seems like most of our cities are infested with these young men of various ethnicities who are not smart enough to graduate from high school so they graduate into crime.
Without a high school diploma access to almost all kinds of employment is restricted. You can't even get a job as a cashier in Walmart without a high school diploma. So it is almost inevitable that they graduate to areas like stealing, burglary, drug dealing to make money.
Inside prisons it is almost mandatory to belong to a gang for reasons of self-defense, because if you are not a gang member then you are a loner and a potential victim. Some prisoners actually do go through prison without gang affiliation, but once they have been tattooed they don't have much choice.Replies: @bomag, @TWS, @Jay Fink
Still plenty of employment/welfare/charity.
Absolutely no excuse for a life of crime.
Dunno. It does look like people need to be protected from themselves.
People often complain about gangs but I always wondered why they were allowed to exist in the first place. Just being in a gang should be a crime in itself. I also don't think gangs should be allowed in prisons yet we let them become an integral part of the prison experience.Replies: @Jonathan Mason, @Muggles
Gangs are not really allowed in prisons.
However classification systems in prisons do note inmate gang affiliations because when you are selecting people to be cellmates for example there are various criteria to be applied and you don’t want members of rival gangs being made cellmates because it is likely that one will kill the other.
In any prison population people are likely to divide into cliques along racial lines for example Latins, Haitians, Jamaicans, American blacks, whites.
And that is part of their identity. Haitians are called Zoes and Latinos are called chicos.
if a Chico is moved from one dorm to another dorm he will immediately hook up and associate with other Chicos.
So it doesn’t really matter whether you call them gangs or not. These groupings will still exist and maybe have their own basketball or soccer teams.
The US blacks will play basketball, but the Jamaicans and Latinos will play soccer, because that is what they know and like.
Soccer is a very good game for prison because the only things that you need are a ball or some kind of approximation to a ball, and a couple of fence posts or even a couple of sweaters on the ground to mark the goals. No other equipment is needed and it can be played on dirt, grass, or concrete, or on a wooden gym floor, or even on carpet.
When they get out of prison many of these inmates will be associating with former prisoners who share common experiences. Of course this is a bad thing and rehabilitation services try to get them move in a different direction. Some succeed some don’t.
Arrest the usual Hispanics
https://www.lapdonline.org/top_ten_most_wanted_gang_members
Targeting the invasive Mexican social insects in order to protect the LAPD game reserve on which black men–selected by their own partying women to be magnificently testosterone crazed–are hunted for sport.
—–
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_%22Pegleg%22_Morgan
Well this strategy should coincide nicely with the liberal push to let everyone out of prison.
Given that the crux of the matter is to prevent the girlfriends from acting as go-betweens by jailing the gang leaders in remote states; what a shame that they cant deal with the root of the problem and prosecute the girlfriends directly, for conspiracy.
it seems like most of our cities are infested with these young men of various ethnicities who are not smart enough to graduate from high school so they graduate into crime.
Without a high school diploma access to almost all kinds of employment is restricted. You can't even get a job as a cashier in Walmart without a high school diploma. So it is almost inevitable that they graduate to areas like stealing, burglary, drug dealing to make money.
Inside prisons it is almost mandatory to belong to a gang for reasons of self-defense, because if you are not a gang member then you are a loner and a potential victim. Some prisoners actually do go through prison without gang affiliation, but once they have been tattooed they don't have much choice.Replies: @bomag, @TWS, @Jay Fink
We can’t agree on laws to keep people from killing babies. What in your experience would lead you to think America would outlaw tattoos?
We could improve facial tattoo removal techniques and make it easier to get. Perhaps a guy doesn’t need to go to prison to get it funded? But outlaw tattoos? Make a law against consensual sex between adults, you’ll get as much compliance and enforcement
OT: More on the End of Germany
😩
This kind of reporting is out of bounds
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/corona-demo-in-berlin-ohne-maske-ohne-respekt-ohne-scham/26058144.html
Basically “fascist antisemitic lumpenproletariat mixed with Karens” if I interpret correctly.
I think the push for “Hygienemassnahmen” will become interesting soon.
If gang kingpins are easily replaceable, how are entire gangs not easily replaceable? The profit motive for the activities is still there, isn’t it? Convict 100 people for gang activity, send them away, congratulate yourself – meaningless result if 1000 people wait to take their place. Drugs are usually their number one profit source, do drug prices spike hard when “entire gangs” are taken out?
I think “law enforcement” is fooling itself here.
Steve,
Bill Bratton’s #1 attribute is self-promotion. Mayor Giuliani canned NYPD Commissioner Bratton for having a larger PR department than his own – a classic clash of egomaniacs!
I am a lot more worried about the effects of the gangs than I am what the DOJ is doing to get after them. That seems to be clearly not enough.
I have no desire for prosecutors and law enforcement to go crazy and target innocent people. But Tony Soprano should have been in prison. How is going after people like him ethnic profiling? I am puzzled that you put his picture up to go along with your comments. You aren't complaining that actual Mafia guys get put in prison, are you?Replies: @Kronos
I’m being sarcastic. RICO is brought up quite a bit in the Sopranos.
I don't know, from my years in New York city I recall lots of tabloid generating Mexican shoot ups involving baptisms, communions, weddings and quinceaneras, but again, that seemed to be a Mexican thing. Porto Ricans, Dominicans and Andeans didn't see to go in for that stuff, (the shoot ups, that is, at least in the context of these life transitioning celebrations.)
Interesting, I do not ever recall a shoot up at a Mexican wake. Isn't it true that Mexicans have a fearful dread of the dead?Replies: @Hannah Katz, @ATBOTL
Same here. On the East Coast, Mexicans are known for pointless killings over “respect” just like blacks. Our East Coast Mexicans are dark skinned indios.
Ron’s great insight is that the elites – at some psychological level – prefer hiring Mestizos for low skilled labor. This hit home when the moving company my wife’s firm paid for hired Blacks at the other end of the spectrum from the talented tenth. Two of the guys literally almost got in a fight with each other. (FWIW I went to half Black schools from middle through high school). Several years later for the move out we got Mexicans. What a difference! Maybe their children won’t be Google coders and maybe they’ll be a net drain on the tax base and vote for Democrats, but boy were they nice, pleasant and reasonably hard working. Everything is relative, I suppose.
I fear these RICO legal tactics will lead the Department of Justice one step closer to “Judge Dredd” territory. When the police force is fully federalized from coast to coast and the DoJ is the only government in town.
https://youtu.be/kbcoOqGKFi8
-signed a proud yet concerted Italian American who fears the DoJ’s racial profiling of Italian Americans (the original “People of Color.”)
https://www.hautetime.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/tony-soprano.jpgReplies: @notsaying, @Anon
Or maybe they aren’t even guys who hang around stoned. Maybe they are a group of guys who hang around on a website discussing dissident political views.
Rest assured, RICO has been used and will increasingly be used against people who dare to point out that the emperor has no clothes. RICO is an abomination and should be repealed.
That wraps up Unz, Sailer and any commenters or writers the gov feels like getting rid of.
You can't even hire a good lawyer because as part of a white supremacist conspiracy all your assets will be frozen and seized. RICO is actually a terrifying law.
Back during the original Chicago homicide/BLM increases, various theories were thrown out. One was that the rise in homicides was in part because the established gangs had been routed, leaving a vacuum filled by unorganized micro gangs of teens who had a never ending series of beefs with other similar gangs. A companion their was that people from razed projects were moving to the neighborhoods and causing chaos.
I am pointing this out, not to discourage anti gang efforts, but rather to be realistic about the likely effect on homicides.
Overall, I am pessimistic about law enforcement as a tool in addressing Chicago crime problems. There is no interest in using prisons at scale to disrupt criminal conduct. Meanwhile, technology moves on: cash usage is being reduced, blacks are using smart phones and social media, video surveillance is widespread, stolen electronics are worth less and less, all new cars are effectively wired to the internet, etc. There is simply less money in crime. In spite of reduced policing, high profile murders of whites (and blacks) will get serious attention.
An interesting first hand account of Black v Mestizo crime:
https://www.amren.com/features/2020/07/my-career-as-a-white-police-officer/
Rest assured, RICO has been used and will increasingly be used against people who dare to point out that the emperor has no clothes. RICO is an abomination and should be repealed.Replies: @Anon
Maybe one day Reg Caesar loses it. He starts seeing coded messages in his anagrams that tell him to shoot up an office building. Bam.
That wraps up Unz, Sailer and any commenters or writers the gov feels like getting rid of.
You can’t even hire a good lawyer because as part of a white supremacist conspiracy all your assets will be frozen and seized. RICO is actually a terrifying law.
Huh, I’ll have to check it out then.
“As M is the 13th letter of the alphabet, many gangs took the number 13 as a symbol of their obedience to the Mexican Mafia.)”
Hey, wait a minute. The letter M is the 13th letter of the alphabet in the English alphabet, but not in the Spanish alphabet, which contains “ch” and “ll” as separate letters. In the Spanish alphabet, M is the 15 letter. See
https://www.spanishdict.com/guide/spanish-alphabet-pronunciation
But wait, reading more closely, the digraphs “ch” and “ll” are no longer considered separate letters. I withdraw my remark.
In the “Godfather”, Don Corleone was respected because he had the politicians and their appointed judges in his pocket. Therefore, his political influence was more valuable than a crew of knee breakers. Now, this brings me to my point, there is no group in America more worthy of a RICO investigation than union teachers, their national leadership and all the politicans in their pockets.
You might as well say we should RICO the ADL and AIPAC; not gonna happen.
More fun in the Coalition of the Fringes
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8692615/Woman-filmed-spewing-vile-racist-tirade-three-black-women-run-Los-Angeles-beach.html
Agree. There should be no such thing as a “career criminal”. At some point society should conclude “this person has no intention of living by accepted norms” and remove them, whether by capital punishment, life imprisonment, or some sort of banishment. The Aleutians probably have a lot of open space.
Lots of open water, extremely cold water.
The options regarding ridding society of career criminals are few in the 21st century with no colonies to dump the trash.
Offshore prisoners to China, providing free labor for Walmart's Chinese factories?
Asteroid mining? Turbinium mines on Mars? Call Elon to get on it pronto.
Matty Yglesias is not overly concerned about Blacks killing other Blacks,,,,,
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1301526120869789699
That 88 triggers me.
The last scene of Dunkirk really stood out. I had wondered if was a subtle reference to Brexit and the rising nationalist tide in the Western world. Very powerful scene.
It would explain why it was snubbed (by you know who) for any major awards, particularly when all of the other movies that year were so weak. The Shape of Water as best picture?
“Really white Mexican gang leaders in L.A. are a phenomenon, like…Timothy McGhee”
McGhee might be “really white”, but the mother who raised him (after his Scottish=descent father abandoned the family) was Mexican.
Pinker’s Problem is that he is a public intellectual and academic who consistently skates too close to the edge of heresy and never swears allegiance to wokist Leftist progressivism. But he’s too smart to get caught.
So he tosses in a tweet about Joe Hidin’.
I really thought this article was going to explicitly mention using it against antifa, but I guess we’re supposed to come to that conclusion on our own.
No girl friends and no lawyers.
How about prison ships? Using renewable energy, never in port.
Contrast Anti-fa, which seems to consist of a loose mob of psychopaths which organizes and acts via some kind of computer/cell phone grapevine, presumably headed and directed by a few intelligent people who have managed to remain in the shadows, and funded by billionaires who are adept at concealing cash flow.
One thing that the Mafia and Anti-fa do(did?) have in common is a certain amount of political protection. I have not heard of any cops throwing a potential witness against Anti-fa out of a ten-story window (see Abe "Kid Twist" Reles for this) but that day may be coming.
According to Rachel Kleinfeld’s book A Savage Order, other countries, like Italy (and specifically Sicily) and Georgia, have imitated the US’ RICO laws, often with success:
Dr. Kleinfeld writes that RICO-style crime fighting typically depends on a combination of surveillance, informants and asset seizure:
“The Aleutians probably have a lot of open space.”
Lots of open water, extremely cold water.
The options regarding ridding society of career criminals are few in the 21st century with no colonies to dump the trash.
Offshore prisoners to China, providing free labor for Walmart’s Chinese factories?
Asteroid mining? Turbinium mines on Mars? Call Elon to get on it pronto.
Domestic Terrorists. Destination Gitmo.
No girl friends and no lawyers.
How about prison ships? Using renewable energy, never in port.
One interesting possible exception is Christopher Nolan. In the first half of his 2008 movie The Dark Knight, the cops, the DA and the titular vigilante fight the mob by rounding up its low-level members en masse and getting them on RICO charges. (Of course, everybody forgot about that because they were so mesmerized by Heather Ledger’s Joker in the second half.)
Re: White members of Hispanic gangs are said to have White skin but brown hearts.
I’ll say.
From the article:
Pretty much what the hostile elite are doing to Whites.
And not just the hostile elite.
His other weakness is that he completely refuses to address the very real misclassification of “hispanic” criminals as white by a significant portion of the law enforcement community.
There’s too much safety in today’s world. The lack of natural selection is causing humanity in general to degenerate and regress. It is time to stop protecting the least of us.
It is also absolutely time we stop letting the degenerates have open season on the better of us by insisting we behave as unarmed sitting ducks unsupported by the criminal-justice racket while letting the thugs run loose in the streets to our peril.
We'll have these battles as part of civilization.
I don’t think the fact that Mexicans are, as a group, less criminally-violent than blacks is a strong argument against strict immigration control..
It is as if the stereotypes about libs and, “muh ethnic restaurants,” are all true.
it seems like most of our cities are infested with these young men of various ethnicities who are not smart enough to graduate from high school so they graduate into crime.
Without a high school diploma access to almost all kinds of employment is restricted. You can't even get a job as a cashier in Walmart without a high school diploma. So it is almost inevitable that they graduate to areas like stealing, burglary, drug dealing to make money.
Inside prisons it is almost mandatory to belong to a gang for reasons of self-defense, because if you are not a gang member then you are a loner and a potential victim. Some prisoners actually do go through prison without gang affiliation, but once they have been tattooed they don't have much choice.Replies: @bomag, @TWS, @Jay Fink
As tattoos have become the norm in society I wonder if this has contributed to the soft on crime trend we are experiencing? At one time tattoos were common among prison inmates but not in the outside world with the exception of bikers (many of whom have criminal records).
Today pretty much everyone and their grandma is all tatted up. Many law abiding people look like criminals today and perhaps this causes them to sympathize with criminals more than they used to.
Completely off-topic but the Admin Hyenas are gearing up for strategic nuclear up-armement? I thought we were past all that.
Trump administration embraces a vision of nuclear armament it cannot afford, this policy will bankrupt US
More money printing then. Plus the nuclear production pipeline is already redlining, leaking and de-skilling. Hanford is still not cleaned up, Radioactive Seattle Fish might still become a thing.
I don’t see the upsides of playing nuclear international asshole?
And nuclear accidents are not fun.
I think nothing much will follow in Germany. Just the regular shallow & hollow excitement. Twitter as usual.
Yep, could well have been Steven Pinker’s intention. But then: Such statements come necessarily at a cost because here he is publicly supporting a freak show disguised as political action. – Something every thinking man should oppose.
Jonathan Haidt went even further and acclaimed Joe Biden’s main point in his DNC speech****. – Maybe for the same tactical reasons as Pinker. But, but: They both hurt – – – – Immanuel Kant’s verdict, that the public intellectual should say the truth as best as he can whenever possible. The only exception of this rule Kant accepted was, that somebody was hard-pressed by the authorities. But even then he would not allow a tactical lie. He would only allow that some truths could be withheld – that somebody then would not have to say all that he knows that’s true.
*** Biden’s false claim that Trump did support the Charlottesville Nazis.
The Feds had a number of advantages in prosecuting the Mafia with RICO: they were using relatively new and sophisticated recording/surveillance technology and techniques against people who were not ready for it (see the tale of Sal Avellino’s Jaguar for an instance of this) ; the Mafia was a fairly tightly organized and thus identifiable group; the Mafia funded itself through its activities and so its sources of income were traceable. Once the Feds got a lot of the old guard in prison and clowns like John Gotti took over, the end of the Mafia’s glory days was inevitable.
Contrast Anti-fa, which seems to consist of a loose mob of psychopaths which organizes and acts via some kind of computer/cell phone grapevine, presumably headed and directed by a few intelligent people who have managed to remain in the shadows, and funded by billionaires who are adept at concealing cash flow.
One thing that the Mafia and Anti-fa do(did?) have in common is a certain amount of political protection. I have not heard of any cops throwing a potential witness against Anti-fa out of a ten-story window (see Abe “Kid Twist” Reles for this) but that day may be coming.
I would prefer we arrest every juvenile delinquent and for serious crimes keep it on their permanent record. I do not buy that they are too young to know right from wrong.Replies: @S
One juvenile delinquent (namely Elizabeth Short) was arrested in Santa Barbara, CA, for underage drinking at the age of 19 in 1943.
The old LA centered DragnetTV series from the 50’s and 60’s are interesting in this regard because on occasion they would show the arrests of youthful offenders, and they were (purportedly) based on real cases in many instances.
People often complain about gangs but I always wondered why they were allowed to exist in the first place. Just being in a gang should be a crime in itself. I also don't think gangs should be allowed in prisons yet we let them become an integral part of the prison experience.Replies: @Jonathan Mason, @Muggles
I will suggest that Mr. Fink here is just hopelessly naive and ignorant, rather than intentionally stupid and trollish.
“Gangs” are just groups of people, formally or informally organized. No one “allows” them to exist. Is being a Knicks fan part of a gang? Should that be criminal? The Boy Scouts? Perhaps you are only (poor communicating) about “criminal gangs.” Yes?
Well the RICO statutes, federal and similar state ones, do make “membership” in a criminal gang a criminal offense. Mr. Fink, that hasn’t stopped them from existing. It’s not like the Crips have a handy online membership database, like AAA. Nor do they hand out membership cards. So you have to prove membership. In prisons, they are already there due to criminal convictions. How do you prevent prisoners from joining groups? Everyone in isolation?
No one “lets” prison gangs exist. They do all kinds of of things to prevent it. But it occurs. You would do well to first educate yourself about a subject, unless you are merely trolling.
The RICO statutes are not part of the Internal Revenue Code. They fall under the Criminal Code.
The IRS can and does go after gangsters over tax issues (Al Capone was the first to find out). But I doubt the MM fears a tax audit.
The tax auditors I’ve known all said they would avoid any “business” that appeared to be a crime front. Someone else’s problem.
The idea of Pinker of all people skating close to heresy demonstrates how easy it is to be a P.C. heretic. Because he is all-in on their side, only reserving the slightest bit of reservation on certain issues. Like, you know, the existence of human nature based on genetics. The fact that males and females are neurobiologically different. That sort of dangerous lunacy. (/s)
Of course, the Blank Slate is near and dear to the ruling intellectual order. And they don’t care for prominent intellectuals attacking the Idols. However, my guess is certain dishonest people “love to hate” Pinker simply because he gives aid and comfort to wrongthinkers.
The entire fields (“fields”) of sociobiology and “evolutionary psychology” are prone to this defect (in the eyes of the ruling intellectual order). They are useful due to Evolution being despised by various traditional types and I Effing Love Science. However, if you think about them for two seconds, they undermine egalitarianism, feminism, and “There’s a ghost in my penis!” (i.e. transgenderism), among other idols.
This isn’t Pinker’s fault. He’s just a wee bit too honest for them. Not nearly honest enough for me, though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTP_SdjD5ms
Pinker protects himself for a reason.
I doubt a proliferation of tattoos makes people sympathize with criminals. Though it may make them more difficult to identify in a crowd.
One thing I notice is that while tattoos are generally more acceptable (unfortunately), people tend to put them in places not easily seen (outside the bedroom). Especially women. Even when they’re on a bodypart normally exposed to sunlight, they’ll be positioned where most of the time you won’t see them. Unless they’re moving around a lot. But then you only see them passingly.
Criminals retain a near monopoly on tatts that are perpetually visible. Regular people don’t tend to get them on the face, neck, fist, etc.
Furthermore, criminals are the ones whose tatts mean something. And I’m not talking personal stuff like your son’s birthdate or “I like butterflies.” I mean like what group you’re from, where you’ve jailed, whether you’ve killed.
A surprising number of regular people have utterly meaningless tattoos. I have asked more than one about them and received a response like: “I dunno. I just like how it looks.”
La Eme also ordered them to stop taking mayates into their gangs. There were only a few to begin with, but the Eme wanted the practice stopped entirely.
There appears to be two different methods to end evil in an organization. These are dependent on figuring out what type of organization you’re dealing with.
If an organization has a non-nefarious purpose/creation (e.g. a charity, a church, a business), then if it becomes criminal or corrupt, you have to grab the big fish/corrupt leaders, and replace them with good people, and the organization will be saved. A fish rots from the head down.
However, if an organization –such as a gang or a violent Marxist group—is founded for the purpose of nefarious criminal action, then the better course is to round up all the members you can, even the lowest level associates, as quickly as possible and throw the book at them. A crime family with no foot soldiers isn’t a crime family at all, just a lot of older criminals with no one to boss around or get kickups from. The higher ups will be forced to start doing foot solider work (street dealing, stickups, shakedowns for Black Hand extortion) and then they, tool, will get swept up.
Right now, if the FBI employed the latter strategy against ANtifa and BLM, there would be no more Antifa or BLM by election day.
Sadly, don’t look to the feds to follow these intelligent strategies. All those sexy mafia movies involve the long slow infiltration of a criminal gang by the FBI surveilling them for years, so they can nab a big-name mafioso and get some headlines and get to be head of a field office; running down street dealers is decidedly unsexy. And what’s also unsexy is surveilling a corrupt charity or business for years to nab a high-level middle manager and his associates. No danger there, no headlines, no field office.
The FBI is, after all, not a law enforcement agency, but a complete corrupt KGB-like joke of a secret police.
The “kingpin” of Low Rider culture over the past 2 – 3 decades, Joe Ray, is White non Hispanic. Under his guidance low riding went from side/freak to $$$ mainstream. This video, from the series “LowRider Roll Models”, lays out his story:
Starts at the point, ~4 min mark, where Joe Ray speaks of his “outsider” origins.
Skip to 1’40” to see what happens when academics realize you’re not one of them.
Pinker protects himself for a reason.
…or, more completely:
13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Compare Hesiod, quoted by Plato in the Republic, Book ii:
Vice in plenty is easy to find,
The road is smooth and begins beside you,
But the gods have put sweat between you and virtue,
and a road that is long, rough, and steep.
Those ancients – they knew some stuff.
"Gangs" are just groups of people, formally or informally organized. No one "allows" them to exist. Is being a Knicks fan part of a gang? Should that be criminal? The Boy Scouts? Perhaps you are only (poor communicating) about "criminal gangs." Yes?
Well the RICO statutes, federal and similar state ones, do make "membership" in a criminal gang a criminal offense. Mr. Fink, that hasn't stopped them from existing. It's not like the Crips have a handy online membership database, like AAA. Nor do they hand out membership cards. So you have to prove membership. In prisons, they are already there due to criminal convictions. How do you prevent prisoners from joining groups? Everyone in isolation?
No one "lets" prison gangs exist. They do all kinds of of things to prevent it. But it occurs. You would do well to first educate yourself about a subject, unless you are merely trolling.Replies: @Jay Fink
“Perhaps you are only (poor communicating) about “criminal gangs.”Yes?”
As critical as you are of me I would guess you were the only one who didn’t instantly know I was talking about criminal gangs. Your lecture to me was completely unnecessary.
But your original comment was vague and, with all due respect, nearly childish. You seem to have no clue about "criminal gangs" and their history, operation, law enforcement efforts, etc.
You made vague proposals about "why do they tolerate them" and "allow" them, etc. This suggests that you lack the comprehension about what criminals are all about. No one "allows" robbers to rob or criminals to commit crimes.
I think people here on Unz welcome new ideas and positive suggestions for change. I do. But I suggest that you might wish to analyze the problems before offering ideas which are clearly on their face insufficient solutions. If the solution to gang violence was as simple as you suggest, then they wouldn't be a problem. It isn't a simple matter. There are courses in college criminology departments about gangs and how to stop them.
I too have oversimplified suggestions for change. It is all too easy to suggest obvious answers to problems when you don't know how complicated they are. It is something we all need to work on.
I’m generally sympathetic here, but getting the criminal justice system to rein in the degenerates is another type of “war on drugs.”
We’ll have these battles as part of civilization.
I don’t want to get into a beef with you over this.
But your original comment was vague and, with all due respect, nearly childish. You seem to have no clue about “criminal gangs” and their history, operation, law enforcement efforts, etc.
You made vague proposals about “why do they tolerate them” and “allow” them, etc. This suggests that you lack the comprehension about what criminals are all about. No one “allows” robbers to rob or criminals to commit crimes.
I think people here on Unz welcome new ideas and positive suggestions for change. I do. But I suggest that you might wish to analyze the problems before offering ideas which are clearly on their face insufficient solutions. If the solution to gang violence was as simple as you suggest, then they wouldn’t be a problem. It isn’t a simple matter. There are courses in college criminology departments about gangs and how to stop them.
I too have oversimplified suggestions for change. It is all too easy to suggest obvious answers to problems when you don’t know how complicated they are. It is something we all need to work on.
The WWII section of
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Luciano
has some interesting material.
If memory serves, Norman Lewis in the very wonderful “Naples ‘44” has comments about both Sicily and the relaxed attitude towards organised crime elsewhere.
And in no way, shape or form did any gallant Liberation force members benefit. Of course.