Los Angeles – Anti-gang legislation and police crackdowns are failing so badly that they are strengthening the criminal organizations and making U.S. cities more dangerous, according to a report being released today.
Mass arrests, stiff prison sentences often served with other gang members and other strategies that focus on law enforcement rather than intervention actually strengthen gang ties and further marginalize angry young men, according to the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington research group that advocates alternatives to incarceration.
“Gang Wars: The Failure of Enforcement Tactics and the Need for Effective Public Safety Strategies” is based on interviews and analysis of hundreds of pages of published statistics and reports.
Wes McBride, executive director of the California Gang Investigators Association, dismissed the findings, which he said was written by “thug-huggers.” The association is a professional organization for police officers.
“Are they saying we can’t put a thief in jail, we can’t put a murderer in jail … ?” McBride said. “It’s obviously a think-tank report, and they didn’t leave their ivory tower and spend any time on the streets.”
Additional nation/world news briefs:
SALT LAKE CITY
Court kills “absurd” sex case of girl, 13
Calling it “absurd,” the Utah Supreme Court dismissed a case against a 13-year-old girl who was found guilty of sex abuse in Juvenile Court after having consensual sex with a 12-year-old boy and becoming pregnant.
The court said authorities had no power to prosecute the youngsters as victims and perpetrators of the same “reckless” act.
In 2004, the Weber County girl pleaded guilty to the adult equivalent of a second-degree felony with a pledge that she would appeal. Judge J. Mark Andrus ordered her to obey her parents, write an essay about the effect of her actions on her newborn, provide a DNA sample and pay a $75 DNA-processing fee.
While the punishment was “relatively light,” the court said, “No amount of judicial lenity to compensate for the absurd application of the law changes the fact that the application of the law was absurd to begin with.”
LOS ANGELES
Noriega will be sent to French prison
Former Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega will be extradited to France to serve a 10-year money-laundering sentence upon his release from federal jail in Florida this fall, according to U.S. Justice Department papers filed in court Tuesday.
France convicted and sentenced Noriega in absentia in 1999. He was charged with unlawfully depositing millions in drug money in several French bank accounts and laundering the cash partly by purchasing three Paris apartments.
In the decision to send Noriega, 69, to France, the United States turned down Panama’s request that he be returned to face murder charges in connection with his alleged oppression of political opponents, according to Foreign Minister Samuel Lewis.
Noriega was convicted by a U.S. District Court jury in Miami in 1992 on eight drug and racketeering counts. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison. After more than 17 years in U.S. custody, he will be released early in September with time off for good behavior.
HONG KONG
Games force players to take a break
The Chinese government has launched a campaign to limit the number of hours kids spend online playing games.
Under new rules that took effect Monday, Chinese Internet gaming companies must install a program that requires users to enter their ID card numbers. After three hours, players younger than 18 are prompted to stop and “do suitable physical exercise.” If they continue, the software slashes by half any points earned in the game. All points are wiped out if players stay on more than five hours.
The program is part of a government campaign to combat Internet gaming addiction, “clean up the Internet environment” and “promote civilized Internet use.”
