We are honored, a little flattered, somewhat amused, but mostly stunned that the Mayor took the time to respond defensively to our last column of November 20th with a letter published in the November 29th Daily Sound entitled “Get your head out of its shell, Turtle”. (See Below)
From the Mayor’s letter published in the November 29th Daily Sound:
[On the Mayor’s radio talk show] … the Mayor read from a memo by Chief Sanchez and Captain Mannix which says Part I crimes are the lowest in a decade. Those are the serious ones: homicides, assault with a deadly weapon, sexual assaults, arson, burglary, battery.
The tone in which this information was presented on the talk show was one of victory, relief, and self-satisfaction. The seeming intention of her claim was to give the impression that now that we have taken care of this inconvenient crime problem, we can return to the more glamorous non-local issues. We can now focus on things like the “Resolution urging cessation of combat operation in Iraq and the return of US troops” sponsored by the Mayor and Das Williams, scheduled for adoption at 6 P.M. Tuesday December 18th at the City Council meeting.
It should be a bit embarrassing for the mayor, however, that on the page opposing her letter in the November 29th Daily Sound is an article by Ron Soble which seems to contradict her claim, entitled “Gang violence is up dramatically”. The article conveys some facts that came from Deputy Chief Richard Glaus during the November 20th city council meeting. The article in fact states that “Gang crime in Santa Barbara soared 60 percent this past year”, and that “Even Mayor Blum, who said she reviews police reports, was unaware of this ugly figure.” The Mayor is quoted as responding “I knew it was up, I didn’t realize it was that high”. We realized it, and we ask, who has their head in their shell?
Other news from the council meeting tells us that there are over 11 separate gangs and 768 gang members that have been identified in Santa Barbara. The extent of the infestation is shocking, unprecedented in Santa Barbara, and unacceptable in a community of this size and character. This is not the inner city of Los Angeles, and certainly widespread poverty and lack of opportunity and recreational choices are not to blame.
The mayor says: “I don't know who the turtle is talking to, but everyone around me puts public safety as #1 on a list of concerns.” We turtles have no doubt that the Mayor, her staff, Police and Council are concerned. We will even concede that it is their #1 concern. However, being concerned and taking effective action are two entirely different things. We don’t challenge the level of concern. We don’t even challenge that they have gone to extraordinary effort to implement the strategy they have selected. What we are challenging is the narrow choice of strategies selected, and their effectiveness in combating an urgent and immediate problem.
We believe and have said repeatedly that the more immediate and urgent target should be currently active and dangerous gang members, not the “at-risk” youths. Recent crime events and statistics continue to demonstrate that the City’s efforts are ineffective at reducing gang crime. In fact, it is on the increase. They have identified the sole cause as “bored youths who don’t have enough positive opportunities or proper guidance that must be served by the community”. They refuse to identify and acknowledge other contributing causes, such as prison overcrowding and early release, lax monitoring of parolees, association of teens and minors with adult known criminals, illegal immigration, an effective sanctuary city for drug cartels and criminals from other countries, drug enforcement and abuse (including marijuana – medical or otherwise), insufficient street lighting, teen pregnancy, single parenting, and negligent parents not being held legally responsible.
Youth programs have the potential to curb gang growth in the long term. We do not denigrate these efforts, but we question the necessity and effectiveness of adding more when so many are already available. The Mayor notes in her letter that “there are over 40 youth-serving non-profits in this community that are helping young people grow up well”. Most of these have always been available and have not been city sponsored or financed; yet even with this generous offering from the community, the gang problem has increased. That is because availability does not ensure participation. Also, there are other causes. So why does the City feel obligated to “serve the youth” even more and spend the bulk of its efforts and resources increasing available programs while avoiding the exploration of other potential causes and solutions? Most likely, it is because this is the most politically safe means of appearing to be doing something. Who can argue with helping young people? Who has the heart to punish what the city has characterized as misguided youths who have not had enough opportunities?
As we have pointed out before, currently active gang members have not and likely will not choose to take advantage of these programs, and they cannot be forced to. Positive activities are contrary to the culture of their peers, especially the older adult gang members whom they idolize, emulate, and in some cases are controlled and intimidated by. Other gang members may be the only “family” they have. They are unlikely to turn away from gangs unless they are somehow isolated and even protected from their associates first. We are dealing with a culture of disrespect for law and positive activities. A large portion of gang members would rather have knives and drugs than hugs from the community.
More importantly, there is a naïve and incorrect presumption made by the city leaders that all of those committing these crimes and those involved in gangs are just “kids” making bad choices, that they are all minors going to school and living with their mostly negligent parents. Yet we see from the turtle compilation of recent gang crimes (November 20th Conservative Turtle) that the active perpetrators range in age from 15 to 26 and are just as likely parolees as they are schoolchildren or those living in the custody of their parents. Many of the currently active gang members are older adult criminals, possibly are involved in powerful prison gangs or drug cartels based in Mexico, are not in school, are beyond the age of parental control, and are freshly out of jail. In other words, after-school programs, as well as the prevention and intervention programs targeted at minor teens, their teachers or their parents, most likely will do nothing to dissuade these older perpetrators from gang and drug activity. Their influence on younger teens that look up to them is made clear by the number of arrests of both older gangsters and minors involved in the same crime. The city is focusing exclusively on the wrong target, and spending a lot of time and money doing it. They are “serving youngsters” instead of targeting older hardened criminals contributing to youth delinquency.
If “beefed up law enforcement” is the sole answer for addressing active criminals, is law enforcement beefed up enough? Is it conducted in the most effective manner? Why have stronger measures such as gang injunctions, enforced curfews, GPS locating devices for parolees and known gang offenders, and seeking out and deporting undocumented gang members and their parents not been considered? Or have they?
Finally, the Mayor’s attitude and probably that of the entire council toward all of this shines clearly in one of her concluding statements:
“We deserve better than a turtle telling us what to think, especially about a subject so important to all of us.“
We deduce that she feels they deserve better than any other species telling them what to think as well. The Mayor complains about columnists “insulting electeds at every opportunity”. We are not sure how she translates observations and contrary opinions into insults. Is the Mayor above reproach? Perhaps it is time for a city leadership that is more humble, open-minded and receptive to contrary opinion. Perhaps it is time for a local government that knows its place and is more concerned with your children’s safety than they are about influencing national politics in areas they have no significant business or influence in, such as ending the war and saving the planet. Drafting and pursuing the adoption of meaningless resolutions pertaining to national issues is a misuse of city time and resources, especially during a time when our streets and schools are unsafe because of roaming gangs. No worries, slow and steady wins the race.
10 comments:
Some areas not mentioned where we at the community level can make a difference in addressing gang violence are:
1. I suggest a greater presence of police officers and probation officers in our Junior High and High schools. 2. An enhanced and increased educational curriculum for non-college bound students.
3. Greater intervention options for students and parents from dysfunctional families who are easily identified by our 2nd and 3rd grade teachers. 4. A need to change the funding priority at the County level and deal with jail over-crowding, juvenile hall funding as well as the Boys camp.
5. At the City level, there needs to be an increase in the staffing of the Police Department.
6. A need for our community and political leaders from all ethnic and racial backgrounds to voice their intolerance for violence, use of drugs (all drugs),an intolerance free expression at the expense of private property(tagging), and admit the need for the change in public budget priorities which I mention above.
I guess the City fathers estimated that the gang problem would not come back to Santa Barbara when they reduced police staffing. If that is the case they were wrong. By the way we will never end the gang problem; all we can do is control, minimize and save a few chuldren but not if we let our guard down. We did let our guard down and now we see a 60 per cent increase in the problem and loss of life.
I have observed the cycle of the ups and downs of the gang problem over the years and every time our City and County leaders speak to increasing the budgets for various social and recreational programs for the youth to what end.
The level of the gang problem continues to come and go despite this funding over the years. Was money for youth social and recreational programs well spent, to a certain extent maybe; but for the expresed purpose of dealing with the long term issue of gangs;I don't believe it has made a bit of difference.
What usually makes a the difference in the level of gang violence is dependant on which gangster just got out of prison, or jail or juvenile hall at any given time.
The dysfunctional parents who are involved in crime, drugs and gangs and who give birth to so many children are the ones who influence most the gang problem over the years that follow.
The issue of dysfuntional parenting can only be dealt with at the local level by our Juvenile Court Judges, protective service workers and law enforcement officers making a priority out of addressing the welfare of the innocent children born into these families. Our elemtary teachers need to be in constant communication with law enforcement and protective services.
This issue is generational and so predictable but we seem always to be more concerned about parental rights over the welfare of these children.
This is an area where couregeous leadership is greatly needed. I have sadly been so right too many times when I have pointed to 6 and 7 year old chidren and predicted that they would become the victims of their parents and end up in jail. The level of proof required in Court is too high to deal with this issue so the problem continues year after year; child after child.
We also cannot continue to not recognize that a portion of the problem comes from the influx of parents who cannot speak english and who are uneducated even in their own language. Some of these parents themselves suffer some of the dysfunctions mentioned above. Others just cannot cope in their parenting skills to deal with the issues of their children in our society. Yet, others are doing quite well as are their children. But, for political correctness; this part of the problem is never addressed by our leadership at the expense of so many children.
So in closing, I just wish our community leadership would would speak to the real issues that drive the violence and change the discussion to focus on these and the issues you expressed in this morning commentary.
I was pleased to see the Mayor respond to the Turtle's concerns, although I did not perceive her letter as defensive. But here is my question: If gang crime is up throughout the tri-counties, what is your specific beef with Santa Barbara's leadership? Have other jurisdictions taken different tacks with greater success?
You have cited gang crimes from outside our City. So perhaps we should look at other cities' responses as well. Lompoc and Oxnard have the anti-gang injunctions in place. Have they experienced a reduction in gang activity as a result?
The fact that gang activity is up everywhere is reason to keep up our anti-gang work, and indeed to expand it. But it seems to me some folks would rather just blame our City's leaders for the problem.
It seems to me the Mayor and City Council are in fact taking steps to beef up law enforcement and to put beat cops into the neighborhoods. And there have been some successful joint agency actions targeting the "known gang members" recently. The gang members who assaulted a gentleman on Shoreline Drive recently were caught pretty quickly.
A turtle Amen to everything jb said.
Thanks jb.
Thank you jb and wineguy for the highly constructive input. To answer your question wineguy, our beef with gangs is not specific to Santa Barbara, but we are more concerned about SB because we live here and may have some influence here, but none in other cities, so our focus is Santa Barbara. Just because other municipalities are experiencing the same problem is all the more reason we should have zero tolerance for it. We have had them as an example for decades and therefore fewer excuses. The city has had access to all of the statistics and may have taken preventative action sooner, or at least sent out a warning flag to the public, but they had preferred focusing on pet environmental projects and such until gang crime has nearly spiraled out of control. They preferred cutting police funding and gang vigilance for other personal agendas and priorities supported by the active progressives.
The city had been warned in advance, both by rising local statistics and examples from surrounding cities, but largely ignored the problem until it became huge. It was pretty much hidden as a dark secret until the murders this year. Honestly, when the turtles were first awakened to the dramatic rise in gang crime and the increase in graffiti, we imagined at most three or four gangs, some on the East Side and some on the West Side with perhaps thirty members. The actual recently revealed extent of the infestation (11 gangs 768 members) is shocking, unprecedented in Santa Barbara, and unacceptable in a community of this size and character. And presumably this does not include Goleta, Carpinteria, Lompoc and closely surrounding areas.
We use other cities as examples of what is headed our way, or already has, if we remain lax and/or attack the problem with only a single minded "group think" politically safe strategy. The causes and solutions must be correctly characterized before throwing all our resources at one solution, as the city has with its single cause approach in a highly reactive way, mindful of the upcoming election.
During the November 20th Council meeting, Councilman Roger Horton set a goal of involving 100 percent of the “kids” in the community in youth programs. Not only is this unrealistic, but he seems to want us to buy into the idea that the gang problem will be solved if this goal is achieved. We wonder if he really believes this, because we don’t.
As turtles we do not have the resources or time nor is it our job to explore solutions that perhaps other municipalities may or may not have had success with. Turtles have jobs and families and we do this in what little spare time we have only as a public service, we are not paid for it. We elect and pay leaders for that, and it is their duty and responsibility to explore whatever solutions or failures other cities have had. Instead they are in denial. All we can do is present topics for discussion, and attract the attention of the leaders with our observations and criticism. If that requires what the mayor calls "insults" then so be it, at least we have her attention. She is more than happy to be critical of the Bush administration, but seems unable to handle criticism herself.
Hopefully, by bringing our ideas to the attention of the public and the leaders, they might implement some of the ideas in this forum.
We doubt that will happen since they act as though they have all the answers and the solutions are in hand, and are highly distracted by progressive agendas. They take "think globally act locally " to heart. - blue line, climate change, worthless resolutions to please their progressive circle of associates, such as cessation of combat in Iraq, Bush impeachment etc. That is the very attitude and priorities that allowed this problem to fester under their watch and makes us think nothing will improve unless the current council and mayor are replaced. So that is our goal, unless or until we see some responsiveness and openness to outside ideas.
We feel that the police department is dong an EXCELLENT job under the circumstances, of catching and arresting violators. We feel as though their hands may be tied by political correctness however, to do more.
But if they just put offenders in jail and they pop right back out again, through the revolving door of overcrowded prisons, liberal courts and deported criminals that just come right back through the porous border, unchecked and unmonitored, we will continue to see this problem and it will probably grow, despite the commendable efforts of the Police.
Beefed up law enforcement is good and is working, but it is only a partial solution. There has to be better monitoring of parolees, who seem to be involved in almost every arrest.
We do not blame the city for the problem, we blame them for ignoring many things that are really to blame - many contributing causes and their associated solutions.
They have the power and resources and duty to do things that we as citizens do not and cannot.
I might not be reading carefully enough, but will someone tell me:
(1) What are the actual numbers on which the 60 percent increase is based?
(2) What is the time period—from when to when?
(3) What, specifically, are the crime categories?
aam -
Some of the scientist turtles made the same observation - that the Mayor's claim is meaningless without a specified period over which the measurement was made. It could have been two days that the crime rate was "lower than it has been in a decade". Good observation, ask the Mayor or Police Chief. Anyone else know?
We only are repeating what was reported, and agree the conclusions are sketchy and questionable without the data. The Mayor would be more helpful if she provided the data instead of the conclusions, or let us know where we can look so we can determine for ourselves just how much danger we are in. If anyone (including public figures) can add more about how to get specifics, please do, it would be much appreciated so we can draw our own conclusions instead of having them determined for us.
Some things I'm having trouble connecting, Turtle.
Programs for at-risk youth are designed to change the ideology of the kids who might otherwise think a gang is the only answer, or that such is acceptable.
If we focus more on law-enforcement, are we doing anything to truly correct the problem?
Under current laws at the state level, we can't arrest someone for 15-life for being in a gang. We can catch people and try, convict, send them to prison. But does this do anything long-term?
Your articles have, many times, pointed to prison gangs controlling street gangs. While this is more true in other communities than in Santa Barbara according to law enforcement, I wonder if sending so many kids and young adults to prison might actually do more harm than good.
You see, it is not on the street that these connections between organized crime and street gangs are made. Rather, it is in prison where the organization of foot soldiers happens.
Were we to expand law enforcement to send kids to jail, in an example of tough love, would we simply be adding to the stock of likely organized-crime-affiliates once these same kids and young adults were released from prison or jail in 1-4 years?
Our problem might become worse by sending so many kids to prison. Our youth might develop deeper connections on the inside than on the outside.
So while we ought to arrest the law-breakers, I would think that criticizing programs at the level you do is less than helpful.
The ideology of these kids and adults is that gangs, and gang related crimes about turf, respect, and drugs are acceptable and desirable. But that ideology has to be changed.
The ideology can be changed by showing them that there is more to life than their own narrow perspective belies to them. A job, life without fear, opportunities for expression and camaraderie absent violence and gangs are, among other things, parts of a method to change their ideology.
On the other hand, obliterating those in gangs and putting the fear of god in them (just as an expression, not as a tool for religious conversion) could also do it. But that isn't an option, rightly so, for an intelligent and humane, as well as law-abiding, society we are.
One book I read recently has a chapter on such things. It's not even about gangs, but some of the principles about challenging de-centralized organizations like street gangs might apply. I found when reading one of the later chapters, that some of the assertions in the book are similar to what folks prescribe to deal with gangs.
The book is called 'The Starfish and The Spider'.
So, I wonder if we were to stop focusing on programs for youth and instead focus on law-enforcement that we'd be doing more harm. Ought we challenge the ideology of street gangs? Or should we lock them up (which is a response to action instead of protection against action) and put our youth closer to the hardened prison gangs?
Obviously, it is not a dichotomy. We ought to do a degree of both. But, in light of your criticism of the youth programs, which way is better? And is there a 'best'?
We need numbers. 60 percent is meaningless. If there was one incident last year, and two this year, that's a 100 percent increase. These "scientific turtles" have a funny way of throwing around the word science while clearly having no idea what it means to study data.
SOrry folks - the turtles had to take a haitus during the holidays. Turtles have jobs and families. Thank you for your comments. Anonymous? We agree the 60 percent figure is meaningless but it came from the city police not from us. The city has a funny way of throwing around sketchy data is what I am sure you meant. We are just passing to you what was said at the council meeting.
Who wrote that letter, Marty Bloom or Ricky Henderson? She refers to herself in the third person like four times!
MC Confrontation thinks the turtles are spot on in their assessment of what the local electeds are doing in response to the INCREASED number of gang members over the past year. Adding more junior high flag football teams is not going to keep a 14 year old gang banger from stabbing a 15 year old gang banger, because you can’t force the gang bangers into playing flag football. Just like you can’t force their parents to learn English and stop having babies after kid #9, you can’t force a kid to attend an after school craft class at the YMCA. While the PD may be doing a great job, they need more resources, more officers, more patrols and more intelligence if we are going to stop the violence.
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