The Gangs of Denver

Both a result and an exteder of Denver's economic downturn inthe 1980s and early 90s was the open gang warfare on the city streets. And one of Wellington Webb's achievements as mayor was putting an end to it. Now there's concern that it might be coming back, and citizens are rightly nervous. Two Sunday articles in the Denver Post about a recent gang shooting involving a couple of Adams County teens explain quite clearly how to keep this violence under wraps, although it's not clear that the authors would know this.

"Area Gangs Focus More on Ties, Less on Turf" shows both good news and some naivete. First, it's good to see that the police aren't taking the juvenile delinquents lightly because of their age. It also appears that Denver gangs are defined less by territory and race than by business goals. So I guess diversity really does make organizations stronger, after all. Still, Commerce City detective Al Hutton lumps the loss of the city's gang unit together with the recession as a cause of gang crime. I'd wager that if they'd bring back the former, the latter wouldn't matter so much.

The other article, an interview with jailed gang members, also contains this enlightening quote:

They often don't realize the impact of killing someone until they have spent several years behind bars, said Shane Davis, a member of the Crips serving a life sentence in Limon for murder.

"When the jury says 'guilty,' he still doesn't understand what he did," Davis said. "It may be five years in prison before he realizes.

"We're a living example of the negative side of gangs."

In other words, what works is to lock the bastards up for a good, long time until they get some sense knocked into them. This should surprise anyone who doesn't understand how crime rates can fall even as prison populations rise.