Over-inclusive gang enforcement and urban resistance: a comparison between two cities.

• Author: Duran, Robert

THE ONGOING WAR AGAINST GANGS HAS UNLEASHED AN UNRELENTING ATTACK against large numbers of Latinos and African Americans in the post-Civil Rights era (Jackson and Rudman, 1993; Klein, 2004; McCorkle and Miethe, 2002; Tovares, 2002). Police departments believe Latinos and African Americans account for the majority of gang members in the United States (Egley, 2002). To many researchers, the successes of the Civil Rights era have eroded (Delgado and Stefancic, 2001; Harris and Curtis, 1998; Massey and Denton, 1993; Spann, 1993). Latinos and African Americans, particularly those living in inner-city neighborhoods, have been stopped, questioned, and processed into a criminal justice system that will later send them into juvenile corrections, probation, prison, parole, and limited legitimate life opportunities.

Policing in the United States has received various criticisms from African Americans and Latino communities. Bass (2001) traces the function of policing to slave patrols, which enforced Black Codes that ensured the subordination of the Black population. Bass argues that contemporary Black Codes have transitioned into "quality of life" and "zero tolerance" policing (Fagan and Davies, 2000; Heymann, 2000), which have increased the harassment of poor African Americans (Browning et al., 1994; Fine et al., 2003; Jacobs and O'Brien, 1998; Mastrofski et al., 2002; Meehan and Ponder, 2002; Weitzer, 1999, 2000). Regarding Mexicans (the largest percentage of Latinos), Rosenbaum (1981: 7) argues that "the history of Mexicano-Americano coexistence in the southwestern United States is a history of the confrontation between cultures." Thus, violent and criminal labels have legitimized law enforcement targeting of Mexican Americans in the past and present (Escobar, 1999; Martinez, 2002; Tovares, 2002). For Mexican Americans, the experience of "aggressive policing" began in 1835 with the Texas Rangers (Samora et al., 1979; Rosenbaum, 1981) and has continued to be a part of life in the Southwest (Escobar, 1999; Holmes, 2000; Jackson, 1989; Kane, 2002; Mirande, 1987; Morales, 1972; Smith and Holmes, 2003).

Most research has focused on the problems of unequal police enforcement, but few scholars have looked at how oppressed people respond to this negative treatment. Rosenbaum's historical research (198l) on the protest and violent resistance of Mexicano residents in the United States from 1846 to 1916 in the Southwest offered three types of resistance: withdrawal, accommodation, and violence. The responses of urban Chicanos in the 1960s and early 1970s included challenging legal repression in the form of nonviolent protest, along with militant action that occasionally involved violence (Haney-Lopez, 2003; Munoz, 1989; Vigil, 1999).

The demise of the Civil Rights-era approach of directly challenging discrimination and inequality coincided with the post-1980s rise within the criminal justice system of increasingly aggressive policing, mounting criminal records, and mass incarceration (Bass, 2001; Human Rights Watch, 1998; Mirande, 1987). Suppression and intelligence gathering actions by police gang units are critically important for understanding post-Civil Rights social control and resistance by people of color. In this article, I first provide an overview of newly incorporated (post-1990s) gang units in two cities (Denver, Colorado, and Ogden, Utah). Then I describe how people of Mexican descent living in urban barrios respond to dominant group actions that criminalize innocent behavior. Finally, I explore how street activists react to gang units and aggressive policing.

Methods

Few scholarly studies can offer an insider view into the social world of racial and ethnic gangs. The research reported here is part of a larger, systematic ethnographic study of Mexican American gang life in two barrio communities (Denver and Ogden). It was conducted for five years (2001 to 2006) and, informally, throughout 14 years of my life (1992 to 2006). My goal with this research method was to capture the gang social world in these two cities with thick description (Geertz, 1973), while maintaining longitudinal insight to move past the multiple fronts presented by gang members, media, and the police (Douglas, 1976). A significant part of conducting ethnographic research includes the biography and background of the researcher, because he or she is the research tool (Adler and Adler, 1987; Lofland and Lofland, 1995). I was a gang member growing up in Ogden, Utah, and I later used my status as an ex-gang member to remain located inside this social world so as to begin gathering data. Intellectually, I sought to discover why the chances for joining gangs, committing crime, and going to penitentiary were prevalent in my neighborhood, but not the white suburbs.

To gather research data on gangs in Denver, where I was never a gang member, I became involved with various groups that were focused on gang prevention, high school reform, police observation, and community empowerment. A significant part of my research on gang experiences and perceptions in Denver came from a group called Area Support for All People (ASAP). (1) Current and ex-gang members helped to start this group in 1991 with the goal of decreasing the escalating violence (ASAP pamphlet, field notes, and interviews). A group of five to 15 gang members and adult mentors met once a week for three hours. The group included youth from around the city ranging in age from 13 to 18 years. I attended this group regularly for two and one-half years (December 2000 to September 2003), until I reached saturation of the data.

In the fall of 2001, I began to conduct semi-structured interviews to capture the perspectives of members and associates on gang culture. I made little use of snowball sampling (Biernacki and Waldorf, 1981), and instead followed what I call "judgment sampling." For this, I individually selected each person for an interview based on their inside knowledge relating to gangs. I used my extensive knowledge of people in the communities acquired through my participant observation (Bernard, 1988; Pelto and Pertti, 1979), my inside knowledge of gangs, and the aid of my 10 "key partners" (six in Denver and four in Ogden). I tape-recorded and transcribed 32 gang member/associate interviews. Overall, I engaged in non-taped interviews with 90 additional gang-involved members and associates regarding gangs in both cities (for a total of 122 gang-involved or associated individuals). Due to the pejorative connotations of informants, I found this term better reflected my working collaboration with people who knew gangs from actual experience. All respondents were associated with Mexican-American or Mexican gangs.

During my research, I interviewed seven gang officers in both states. Six of these interviews were conducted inside police facilities and one was conducted over the telephone. I regularly requested the police departments' official statistics relating to gangs. For a year and one-half, I worked in youth corrections and for one year in law enforcement, where I was allowed to attend sessions for law enforcement only that outlined police gang tactics and intelligence gathering.

To remain objective about how police interact with possible gang members, I worked with a group of residents that used camcorders to record such interactions. Two or more people from this group--which I call People Observing the Police (POP)--teamed up. If possible, after a police stop ended we talked with police ofricers and the person(s) of interest. Over a three-year period, I observed some 200 police stops, 47 of which included gang units, in all areas of these two cities. The areas with the most police activity had higher concentrations of people of color. Every gang stop that I observed involved Asians, African Americans, or Latinos. I used this information to compare and contrast the claims of Mexican-American gang members and associates with those of police officers and the media.

According to the United States Census (1940 to 2000), in Denver, Colorado, and Ogden, Utah, the Latino population is growing and the non-Hispanic white segment is decreasing. Both cities have historical neighborhoods that are primarily Latino (50% or more), are located near industrial places of employment, and are known as barrios segregated from other areas of the city (Camarillo, 1979; Garcia, 1981; Romo, 1983). Before westward expansion, the geographical areas in which these cities are located were part of Mexico (Acuna, 2000); most Latinos living there now were born in the United States (United States Census, 2000).

Designing Control

Suppression tactics, in the form of intelligence gathering and aggressive policing, constitute the core of the Denver and Ogden Gang Units. Within this no-tolerance framework, officers believe that they are dealing not with an average group of individuals, but rather with organized criminals or domestic terrorists that society has targeted for elimination. Under pressure to produce results, gang officers may feel freer to operate beyond the bounds of normal constraints. The more vulnerable the population, the more easily these units can operate.

Denver Gang Enforcement

Among the multiple agencies organized to control people considered gang members in Denver are a Gang Unit, a District Attorney Gang Unit, and the Metro Gang Task Force, with additional restrictions to probation and parole owing to a gang label. People were identified as gang members if they met two of six requirements: admission of gang membership, a reliable informant, tattoos or clothes considered to be gang related, or gang writing or symbols on personal property. These people were placed on the Denver Police Department gang list for five years. This noncriminal intelligence file could be used for future identification and prosecution.

Denver gangs date back to the early 1940s. Only in 1993, however, when the media...