Youth, Crime, Police Reform and Self-Organizing of the Community

By Lucrecia Bermudez

My liberal opponents are offering no solutions other than throwing some money to some non-profits, making lots of noise and offering little in the form of self-organization of the working families in the District to end the cycle of gang violence. This is so because they have never walked the streets and talked to young people as I have. Thus they have not heard ideas from the youth as to what the solutions are.

These are some ideas I'm putting forward to start a real, structural solution for the problem:

1. Youth First: City Hall and the Board of Supervisors must firmly insist that all available City jobs will be first offered to young people in our neighborhoods. No if or buts, Youth First!

2. Every dollar invested by the City in public works, through contracts with local or outside businesses, should include a mandatory clause to provide jobs for local residents, putting, once again, Youth First!

3. City Hall and the Board of Supervisors must prioritize gang prevention programs like the old "Calles" program in the Mission to divert youngsters to non-gang related activities during weekends.

4. City Hall and the Board of Supervisors should immediately work on a massive sports and arts/crafts program by building sports and arts/crafts facilities in our District and by subsidizing youth to get involved in these programs as a job as well as an alternative experience to gang membership. No money, says Newsom and Ammiano? Well, let's do two things: a progressive taxation on big corporations and the creation of a Municipal bank to produce a new revenue stream for the General Fund.

5. Summer and Youth Programs should stop being a handout of pennies. Jobs should be sustainable jobs for a period no less than six months with pay at union levels. Should I say again that one of the reasons for the existence of gangs is the lack of jobs?

6. City Hall and the Board of Supervisors should remove all the barriers (fees, citizenship or residency requirements, etc) for High School students to attend City College and SF State University. This should be accomppnied by a living wage for all youth who are engaged in full time studies at these venues. I should repeat this: one of the reasons for the flourishing gang activity is the lack of access to educational opportunities.

7. Self-organizing of the communities, particularly communities of color, to administer these proposed programs and outreach to young people in our District. Residents of the District know our streets and our youth better than a few 9 to 5 social workers or cops who are coming from outside the District to do a job without enthusiasm.

8. Cops should be required to live in the District while serving here, should be trained in alternative non-lethal methods of law enforcement and should receive intensive training in Civil Rights and ethnic/gender/national equality. As long as they are perceived as an "occupying army" in our neighborhoods, they will engender more violence than prevention of violence.

9. Shift our funding priorities. Every dollar invested in preventing crime with the above proposed measures and others will save the City 10 dollars in law enforcement and prosecution.

A big chunk of our crime caseload is defined by the lack of opportunity for our youth to develop, progress and sustain themselves. Youth with full access to sustainable and dignified jobs, education, sports and arts programs will be too busy and successful to opt for a gang lifestyle. All the methods tried so far have failed. Let's think out of the box on this one.

Lucrecia Bermudez