ALL COUNTIES: In urban centers like Raleigh and Durham, many young people fall through the cracks of a broken public school system. Some come home to a disintegrating family structure where they remain unsupervised until single parents get home from work.
Community programs in the Triangle’s poorest areas are dwindling due to lack of funding or neighborhood violence. And in the midst of all these realities, some teenagers fill these voids with a life of crime.
They turn to gangs to find community. They turn to gangs to find acceptance. They turn to gangs to find family. They turn to gangs to find power.
Whatever the reason, too many young people are turning to gangs.
As Shenekia Weeks, director of Wake County’s Gang Prevention Partnership, told NC Wanted: The gang problem results from “the breakdown of many systems.”
That’s why grassroots gang prevention groups are examining the societal forces that breed delinquency among young people, while North Carolina’s gang problem continues to thrive.
One year ago, Wake and Durham counties received a combined $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to combat gang-related crime in the Triangle. Today, bills pending in the North Carolina legislature (HB 274 and SB 1358) aim to better define gangs in order to better equip law enforcement, community programs and the court system to deal with gang members who commit crimes.
Without assessing the magnitude of the gang problem, law enforcement agencies and community groups may be having a harder time suppressing gang-related crime and preventing the state’s youth from joining gangs in the first place.
“If you grew up in a neighborhood where rampant crime was the norm, you wouldn’t know any different,” said Hank Smith, gang prevention coordinator for the John Avery Boys and Girls Club in Durham.
While the gang lifestyle may appeal to young people, gang prevention specialists want to get the word out that it’s easier to do the right thing in the long run, and the pay offs are greater.
“I always say ‘The juice isn’t worth the squeeze,’” said Weeks.
She added that gang culture has become increasingly mainstream, bleeding into music and fashion targeted at teens. Weeks grew up with hip hop culture and sometimes naively followed fashion trends that had their roots in gang activity, she said.
Gangs recruit heavily in the Triangle’s urban areas because, at the end of the day, gangs aren’t just a lifestyle, they are an enterprise designed to make money. They need members to survive.
The key for prevention is to start young and recruit children to be productive before they are targeted for gang membership.
“The population that is recruited basically is looking for something. They need a sense of belonging, a sense of competence, a sense of influence, a sense of power,” said Smith. If they become engaged in activities outside of gang culture, Smith and Weeks believe, they will be much less susceptible to gang recruitment pressure.
While Durham has openly admitted its gang problem and been proactive in addressing it, other Triangle communities have been reluctant to open themselves to the negative stigma associated with “gang-ridden” cities. But Smith said that Durham’s openness has actually helped the city in many ways, securing funding for anti-gang programs and identifying gang suppression as a central goal of law enforcement agencies.
The Wake County Gang Prevention Partnership has shed light on the county’s estimated 2,000 gang members and 12 different gangs. The partnership works with law enforcement agencies and youth-centered community organizations to identify a “best practice” model for gang prevention and suppression.
Ultimately, North Carolina’s at-risk youth need to rethink their value systems if the gang problem is going to improve.
Before the gang lifestyle becomes multi-generational, Weeks said, grassroots organizations have to fight to take their communities back. Instead of following in the footsteps of gang-affiliated role models, at-risk youth need to be saying, “My granddaddy was a hard worker, my daddy was a hard worker and I’m going to be a hard worker too,” Weeks said.
Smith, who works with an average of 120 club attendees per day, agreed.
“I think they need to hear that they can do it. They need to be encouraged to do the right thing. I think they need to hear that they can make a difference, that they can change their lives,” he said. “It is gonna be hard, it is gonna be tough. You’re gonna make mistakes, you’re gonna fall down, but you will get back up.”
