So I was reading the Baltimore Sun recently… No, you read the name at the top right, this is Dan, not Alex (Author’s Note: I’m the guy that does this, remember?). So I was reading the Sun… Damnit stop laughing, I read stuff all the time! No, I swear, I’m such a voracious reader that usage of vocabulary terms like “voracious” gives me a big flavor of Ben and Jerry’s. Okay. Compose yourselves. I know I’m the guy that wrote an entire ode to Todd Heap’s genitalia, but today we’re going to talk about the rising gang presence in Baltimore City and the surrounding counties. For real for real.
So I was reading the Baltimore Sun recently and I came across an article in their crime and courts section entitled, “Md. Prosecutors want tougher anti-gang law”, which is essentially a discussion of what many people involved in the inner-city judicial system already know: the Maryland Gang Prosecution Act of 2007 doesn’t have the power to back up it’s voter-friendly name. I hate to force the issue, but the article itself is under twelve hundred words long and will catch you upon the current legal situation. I can wait.
One of the main obstacles in writing and enacting the “gang-busting” legislation, which the article doesn’t mention outright but is implied in any discussion on the subject, is the First Amendment. One, how does law enforcement/judiciary prove membership in an organization that doesn’t follow set rules for governance? Two, how can one label such a directionless group as a criminal conspiracy if there is no set objectives to be followed? Therefore, without that overarching criminality, shouldn’t gang members have the same right to assembly as you or I?
The emotional answer, of course, is a definitive HELL NO followed by a sharp and sassy snap of the fingers that few pigmentation-ally challenged people can muster. But that goes against the Constitution and doing so either gets you in big trouble, or reelected for a second term (Author’s Note: Depending on who you daddy is). That’s why the article mentions handgun possession as key to prosecuting gangs. More “basic” charges such as handgun possession, truancy, and narcotics possession/distribution all become key in incarcerating gang members who don’t execute the more felonious activities of gang warfare.
See, just like the average person, law enforcement knows that gangs are bad, they just can’t do much about it besides bring in members on lesser charges and watch them get out on probation. That’s why they want statutory law that can increase the minimum sentencing for these crimes when the perpetrator is a member of a gang; so that the only approach they have ever tried in earnest could possibly work for once. You can tell by the sarcasm dripping down your screen that I believe that all approaches have not been as exhausted as they are portrayed.
A more concise follow-up to the original article expresses the main difficulty in writing an effective law: defining the term “gang”. Criminal behavior is much more likely to be organized on a smaller scale that the overarching “gang”, with street crews, neighborhoods, and smaller sets preserving their own self interests rather than some larger ideal. As observers to this tragedy we seem to believe that there are the Crips and the Bloods killing each other and innocent people who wander into their crosshairs. Include Dead Man Incorporated, Black Guerilla Family, MS-XIII, etc. and you would believe the streets of Baltimore to be a Wild West shootout between groups looking for dominance.
The truth is actually a little less glorified but potentially a lot more frightening. These main groups are divided up into multiple sets according to geographic location (i.e., the Tree Top Piru [Author’s Note: Piru is a name associated with Bloods, taken from Piru Street in Compton, CA] being one of an estimated fifteen sets of Bloods in Baltimore). Many of these groups would only join up in the case of a common enemy. The majority of the time they are out to protect and, rarely, expand their pre-existing turf. That and to sell drugs. They love to sell-a the drugs.
Now that you have a basic understanding of the problem (gangs are bad), the solution (throw them all in jail), and the impediments (the judicial process can take months to years to fully prosecute anyone heavily and doing so takes a lot of work and evidence), I ask you to store that knowledge to the side because none of this was what really interested me about the article. What caught my focus was the quote by Assistant State’s Attorney Kevin Wilson when he said, “gangs are relatively new to Baltimore, which is still in it’s first generation of such activity…”
Judges? BAHHHHH!!! Oh, I’m sorry ASA Wilson but that is incorrect. Join me in the way-back machine to the pre-Civil War era in Baltimore. The Crips and Bloods are generations from existence, but Baltimore has it’s own criminal gangs: the Plug Uglies (Author’s Note: Not a gang of New York as Martin Scorsese would have you believe) and the Blood Tubs.
Both of these organizations were referred to as “political clubs” and were white people’s response to more white people coming over from Ireland and Germany. With politicians courting the votes of those coming in on boats, these true patriots felt the need stand up for their heritage by, in the case of the Plug Uglies, walking into rallies for opposition party candidates and stabbing supporters with awls (shoemaking tools). The Blood Tubs simply earned their rhyming name by dunking political opponents into tanks of slaughterhouse blood.
First of all, this little piece of history explains the nickname for Baltimore before we got Charm City: Mobtown. Second of all, could you imagine the press this would get if it happened today? Jon Stewart’s head would explode! There would be a whole new season of The Wire (Author’s Note: RIP)! Last of all, there’s some joke to be made about Ray Lewis but it’s four in the morning and I haven’t slept.
So I guess what Mr. Wilson was trying to say was that black gangs are relatively new to Baltimore. It’s not like this is true either as pre-existing neighborhood gangs (i.e., the Angels of Death in west Baltimore) are being assimilated into national groups (in this case the Bloods) but it makes no never mind.
The one thing I will hold against the ASA is his stating that it’s still the first generation. My time working in the Juvenile Detention Center with youth who joined the gang because they were raised in it and some who plan to raise their boys up “crippen” makes the fallacy of that belief ring out. It’s not that I think he’s lying, I just think that the attitude that this is a modern problem is one of the roadblocks to progress.
The Crips and the Bloods weren’t formed with the express intent of causing mischief, neither were the Plug Uglies or the Blood Tubs. Gangs are created with a purpose, mostly out of the need for protection against some perceived societal ill that poses a great threat to the members individually, but less of a threat when banded together. If we could identify that catalyst and work to remedy it as a society, we just might gain more of our streets back than we do by simply throwing everyone who owns an illegal handgun (which you used to be able to get AT THE UTZ STAND AT LEXINGTON MARKET) into our already overcrowded prisons.
This was actually just supposed to be the introduction for my review of a book entitled “Blue Rage, Black Redemption” by one of the co-founders of the Crips, a man by the name of Tookie Williams. I apologize for rambling but I feel that it’s important to understand that when I discuss events from this book, his memoirs, even though they take place multiple decades and an entire country apart, we’re still living his nightmare today.
Check back in the next few days for my review of the book and maybe even a few thoughts as to what it means.
SUBSCRIBE