Tackling the gang culture

THE ATTEMPTS by the government to confront the culture of gang violence via the declaration of a state of emergency represents an acknowledgement of the extent to which such culture has permeated society.

It is an extreme measure in response to a social problem that has assumed unprecedented proportions, infiltrating and negatively impacting almost every facet of society, including formal institutions that are supposed to shield and protect law-abiding citizens from such social dysfunction.

Unfortunately, schools have not been spared from the clutches of the gang culture. Police reports repeatedly corroborate the anguish of school authorities regarding the extent to which the sanctity of many school communities have been targeted and penetrated by gang elements.

The brazen and emboldened nature of the gang elements demonstrates little or no respect for law and order and the agencies charged with enforcement. Again, schools and the moral authority they once wielded have not been spared the gangs’ perversive influence.

As we attempt to confront this severe social crisis, which through our inaction and collective malaise was allowed to anchor its tentacles deeply in our moral psyche, the typical blaming and passing-of-the-buck rhetoric has dominated the headlines from religious leaders, social commentators and politicians.

Unfortunately, few are willing to assume the level of social responsibility needed to address the problem seriously and scientifically through a deep analysis of the factors and circumstances that facilitated its emergence and exponential growth over the past decades.

The warning signs were always there but apathy and abdication of civic responsibility by the authorities and the general citizenry allowed the social dysfunction to become normalised. Schools were left almost singularly in their battle to treat with the propensity for social disorder and deviance.

Even worse, a plethora of rights-based injunctions and restrictions, devoid of corresponding responsibilities, were increasingly imposed on school officials, virtually handicapping their efforts to treat with such deviance.

What are the factors and circumstances that facilitate the seeming unending supply of young people as gang recruits? This is the question that the entire society must collectively confront. A deep analysis of the blue-collar dimension of the problem will reveal a common thread – marginalised young minds who feel hopeless and neglected; even cheated out of a bright future.

They have resigned themselves to their underprivileged circumstances, seeing schooling and its empowerment opportunity as irrelevant and meaningless. They watch their social deficits exponentially increase as they go through a school system that is designed to certify them as "failures," unable to add value to their lives or address their pain.

Teachers have consistently flagged such vulnerable students, whose social deficits make them ideal targets for recruitment by gang leaders, who are intelligent enough to recognise such vulnerabilities as "qualifications" and capitalise on them.

They welcome and embrace them, giving them a sense of belonging, dignity and self-worth, a state of well-being for which they have longed. They identify with each other’s social deficits and emotional trauma arising from parental neglect, physical, emotional, and even sexual abuse.

They come from communities where established moral and ethical standards have been abandoned in the daily struggle for economic survival. Such environments that make them indifferent to emotional and physical pain; survival of the fittest being the order of the day.

The highly disciplined and structured/hierarchical nature of gangs provides a sense of validation and empowerment to which they willingly gravitate, giving in to the financial inducements and the understanding that such deviance will not carry any punitive consequences.

The gang culture will never be seriously challenged unless the solution is based on an understanding of the problem’s genesis and tackling it from its source. A state of emergency is only a stop-gap measure.

A more long-term solution must be crafted from a sociological perspective, recognising that the gang problem is the outcome of social dysfunction. While better policing and a more efficient judicial system are certainly critical in the crime battle, it only deals with the problem at the outcome stage.

The sensible approach would be to intercept these vulnerable young minds by compensating for their social deficits in targeted interventions at the school and community levels.

Schools must be given the resources and support to ensure that such students become decent productive citizens rather than allow them to be inducted into a level of crime and criminality.

The support from every educational institution – the media, religious and community organisations – is critical in that regard. It must be a long-termed, multi-pronged approach to a multi-faceted social dilemma that includes all stakeholders and not just the government or the police.