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Episode #2103
Gang Control
Brown: Is this art, graffiti, or are these symbols of domestic terror? Find out what you need to know about gangs in your community no matter where you live next, on Black Issues Forum.
Voiceover: Funding for this program is made possible in part by UNC-TV members.
Brown: Hello and welcome to Black Issues Forum. I'm Natalie Bullock Brown. According to a report by the governor's commission on crime, the number of gangs in a 1999 survey was listed as 332, with over 5,000 identified gang members. In a 2004 survey, there were 387 gangs and more than 8,500 gang members. Do these numbers reflect the gang problem in North Carolina? If so, what can be done about it? Well, here to help us discuss steps we all can take to deal with the growing gang population is our panel of guests. First, we have with us Bill Thomas, director of teen programs for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Wake County. Thomas is also a member of the Wake County Partnership for Gang Prevention. We also have with us Otis Lyons, a former gang leader who is now the founder of Campaign for Change, an anti-drug, anti-gang production. He's also a member of the local organization, Men of Vision. We'd also like to welcome Geraldine Blackstone Ramos [ph], a concerned parent working with the Lost Generation Task Force, which is a group devoted to trying to pull kids out of gangs. Welcome, all of you, to Black Issues Forum.
All: Thank you.
Brown: I'd like to start out first by just confirming or explaining what the problem is, or what's causing the gang population to grow the way it is, especially in Durham. Otis, I'll start with you.
Lyons: Well, I don't think it's just one issue, but I think two of the main key components is economics, of course, and diverse impoverished environments. And the other one is basically probably no family structure. A lot of these kids is acting out because they don't have family structure, so they'll easily be lured into gangs.
Brown: And Bill Thomas, from what you've experienced with your work with the Gang Prevention Partnership and the other organizations that you work with, is it one type of child that's attracted to a gang, is it one type of socioeconomic background? Or can anyone, any child, be susceptible to being lured into a gang?
Thomas: Any child, in my opinion, can be brought into the gang. It can be from a home that's 30,000 to a home where parents make 90 to $100,000. But the parents are working and not involved in their child's life, so part of the problem is parents are not responsible for their children and children are running amok and doing things that they're not supposed to be doing.
Brown: And Geraldine, you're a concerned parent, so what would you say parents need to do, really be aware of, in order to keep their kids from becoming parts of gangs.
Ramos: Well, I think one of the things that parents have to be aware of is, first of all, that my child is not exempt. Many times, many parents-and I mean parents who are coming from-who are very good parents-but they-ever heard the expression "Everybody thinks their kitten is the merriest"? And I find that to be true with a lot of parents because they trust their children. I think that peer pressure is one of the main catalysts for children becoming involved, particularly children from middle class homes, because when they get around their peers and if their peers are involved, then they're-excuse my expression, but they're going to catch hell in a public setting, in a community, if they're not a part. I think that's one of the things that they have to be willing to understand, is that my child is not exempt.
Brown: Otis, as a former gang member, would you-well, tell us about what attracted you to the gangs and what did you see keeping your friends, your fellow gang members in the gang?
Lyons: Like I said before, I think that it starts way before the kid get in the gangs. Me, being a former leader myself, if you were raised up and you were never taught right from wrong and you don't have a mother or a father in the home, which I did not, the people that you look up to are the people that's on the block. The people in your community that's hustling and making money. So my icons and my heroes were drug dealers and pushers. When I was hungry, they fed me. When I needed clothes for school, those were the guys who bought me clothes for school. So ultimately I looked up to them, I wanted to be like them, and with the same mentality, that's what I ended up being, a gang member just like them.
Brown: What do you tell kids now?
Lyons: What I try to tell kids, I try to be the voice for the kids. Everyone else is basically just trying to understand them, and I feel like I understand them the most because I was one that was involved. I try to be the voice for the kids, it's more than-like I said, they're not just in gangs because that's what they want to be and want to do, it's what else do you have to offer them? You just can't put concrete down on the side of an apartment complex and think basketball will save these kids. You've got to be hands-on with these kids. You've got to take these kids on field trips. Let these kids see Vegas, let these kids see other parts of the life. That's what helped me make that transition. I started seeing other parts of the world. Some of these kids ain't with no fathers on their block. They don't know no father in what they see.
Brown: It sounds like resources are required for this sort of exposure to something beyond the environment that the kids are growing up in that's causing them to want to emulate gang members in their community or just guys in their community that are doing things, providing things for them that perhaps they're not getting at home. Bill Thomas, would you say that's true? That resources are really the issue?
Thomas: Yes, ma'am, resources are the issue. We were just talking earlier about growing up in Philadelphia and being able to come home from school and walk over the parks and recs or the Boys and Girls Club. And the clubs and the parks and recs facilities were open all the time, but there wasn't a large cost. You might have to pay for your uniform or such, but the mentors were there, you could afford it, and if you couldn't there were scholarships. And they were there and they were open for us at all hours of the day and even on the weekends. When you look out there now, the community center is closed on Friday and doesn't open back up until Monday, they close at 6:00. Well, mom doesn't get home until seven or 8:00, so what does the kid do? So I think the resources and the communities have to be placed there. If I'm a gang member and I'm making $200 a day, and you want me to get out of the gang, what resources are you going to give me? I'm making $200 a day. You're telling me to leave my gang? Give me a job, give me something so that I can show my family and my friends that I'm making it, because I'm making it right now in this gang, no matter how rough it is.
Brown: Well, Geraldine, what else can parents, the school, communities do to just reach out to kids who feel like gangs are their only choice?
Ramos: Well, I think that one thing there has to be, as I said before, I think there has to be a link from community-based organizations, the schools, into the community. Number one, parents do not often have the skills and the knowledge to really help do the things that they need to do for their children. And there are no resources available to parents.
Brown: Like what kind of resources?
Ramos: Like parenting resources, parent training. And even so, many times we have a program and we'll say, okay, this program is available. But how are you outreaching to the families? There are plenty of programs, I might add, but the problem is the outreach to the families. I think one of the most important things that we can do right now, particularly-this is my philosophy, I knock on doors. Because one, you post stuff on the internet, I mean, I have internet, but when I'm on the internet, I'm looking for one particular thing. And what about those families who don't have internet? What about families who don't read the newspaper? What about families who don't have transportation? How do they access those resources?
The other thing is that I think there's a serious lack of communication and understanding as it relates to-when it transitions over into the schools. I think that if children come from one particular neighborhood, then all of them are seen as gang members. There is always that fear. So one of the things that I tell parents is that you have to be involved in your children's lives. You have to seek out information. You have to be involved in that school system. And you cannot go into the school, even though-because of that lack of communication there's a lot of conflict between parents and educators-but one of the things that I say to parent is, as soon as your children, they have your children probably 50 to 60% of the time that you do. So one of the things that you have to do is you have to be able to foster those helping relationships within the school system and the parents to be able to provide that kids need. Because really that's where we're going to have to do, is within that school system. Within the community. You could go in to most communities and there's 700 churches in the community. I know there are in mine. We did a count. There's 900 churches in the community.
Brown: Well, let me just hop in for a moment. I want to get back to you, Otis, but Bill, I wanted to just ask you-there was something that Geraldine said earlier about parents thinking their kids are exempt. And if they think that about boys, what do they think about girls, and what's the reality as far as involvement in gangs.
Thomas: Working with the teenagers and the high schoolers, girls are very violent right now. Girls are in the gangs, they're a danger, with girls joining gangs because they get "sexed in," and when you're getting sexed in, if that's the role they choose, if that's the role that the O.G. [ph] chooses for them, there might be 30 members in this gang. And they may have to go through all 30 members.
Brown: What do you mean by being "sexed in"?
Thomas: They're having sex with the higher-ups and on down, so if there's 30 members in the gang, she's the last one. All 30 members of the gang would have sex with her, protected or unprotected, it's their choice, and then welcome her to the gang. Or they can beat her and there's other ways. But right now a lot of females are going through this and the problems are STDs, pregnancy, things like that. Violence, girls are out there shooting just like the boys are, and they look real pretty in their makeup and stuff like that, but they can be dangerous. Probably more so than the males.
Brown: Well, we've been talking about concerns over gang presence and violence in North Carolina communities. Now, what can you do to protect your family and yourself? We'll welcome another guest from the Durham County Sheriff's Department in just a moment. But first, a detective with the Durham County Sheriff's office, which has a unit dedicated to monitoring and controlling gangs in Durham, has published a book for parents, teachers and others to help educate them on how to recognize gang symbols and protect their children and themselves. He's busy traveling wherever he can to spread the word on gangs and head off gang activity. Here's more.
Dodson: Basically, we'll teach you to identify certain things that you normally wouldn't see as a teacher and as a parent. If a kid brought this home, would you notice anything about it?
Brown: Detective Keith Dodson has worked at the Durham County Sheriff's office for the last six years. With over 700 hours of gang-related training and teaching under his belt, he's decided to pour that knowledge and experience into the pages of a small paperback book.
Dodson: We talked about the proactive not reactive, and try to get a jump on the gang activity. Gangs have been around forever, they just have a name now. People have been killing each other for years and robbing and everything. They just have a name that people associate with it now. But now if we can get what they associate with the signs and symbols, such as graffiti, such as hand signs, the language, the lingo, how they talk, then maybe we can get ahead of it.
If I get down here I got some pitchforks, which is a gang symbol, they use it as hand signs.
Brown: The title of his book is The Gang P-L-A-G-U-E that T-A-R-G-E-T-S Your Community. So named to bring attention to two programs Detective Dodson wrote and developed for the Durham County Sheriff's office. PLAG is a program for parents.
Dodson: Parents Learning About Gangs is an education, just the fact that gangs are a plague in our community.
Brown: The TARGETS program is for teachers.
Dodson: That's our national award-winning program with the Sheriff's offices. Teachers Against Relentless Gangs involved in schools, so teachers can target the individual in the school system.
Brown: Dodson says he believes modern-day discipline may be a part of the gang problem.
Dodson: Now, kids today don't have the discipline that they had back then, and the discipline is received from the gang, just like a family.
Brown: This teacher says gangs could be an indication of something else. He plans to use Dodson's lecture and book as a tool in his teaching.
Petrie: I teach art, and oftentimes gangs express themselves with art, color and stuff, and we're told as teachers that we have to pay attention. The way that I see it, the reason why gangs are here is that it's giving them some sort of support that maybe they're not getting in the home, but it will help me to identify, maybe I need to talk to this student a little bit more.
Brown: While some adults are well aware of the need for greater awareness of gangs, for some others, Detective Dodson's book is a wake-up call.
Davidson: I'm out of the loop. I really rely on the judgment, experience of the author we heard today. I mean, it just shocked me to think that you have to have deputies with bullet proof vests and guns and so forth to control high schools. I mean, I guess that's what it's come to, hasn't it?
Brown: I'd like to welcome to our panel Detective Elliott Hoskins, who not only works with the Durham County Sheriff's office and the gang intelligence unit, but is also Detective Dodson's partner in crime fighting. Welcome to Black Issues Forum. So let's get back to our conversation. Otis, I was going to ask you, on the heels of what Bill was telling us, Bill Thomas was telling us, about girls being involved in gangs. What would be the attraction? Is it the same lure as it is for boys?
Lyons: Well, I facilitated some round tables with the youth that was involved in gangs and they've had some girls that was representing gangs like Bloods and Crips. One of the young ladies sparked my notion that she was like, well, I'm in a gang, a rep gang, but you don't know my history. I had the worst life ever. And I couldn't imagine a young lady saying that. To look at her, she was nice-looking, well-spoken, and she just told me her life history, and she just had a lot of hatred in her heart. She had been child molested, she had been raped, and a lot of other accusations that she claimed about things that was happening with her even that day. When I heard all that, you know, some of these kids just been abused mentally, physically, so they acting out violently, and that's what's going on.
Brown: Geraldine, would you say that in general, children who end up being in gangs are doing so because it's a cry for help?
Ramos: Many of them, many of them it is a cry for help. What generally happens is that through exclusion, through physical, through verbal abuse, through the different things that's going through neglect, through whatever, many times these kids become desensitized, and when they become desensitized, it's just like not having any feelings. When you talk about why the girls are involved-a young girl in this day and time, if she is going to be attracted to a male, nine times out of 10, that male is going to be from the streets. Good girls don't like good boys. It's always the thugs that they like. So if they're going to be attracted to somebody, it's going to be these young men. So this is one of the reasons why you find so many girls that transition into gang members too. It's because the guys that they really like are also part of the gang member-gang, you know, are part of gangs. So in order for them to be loved or accepted by them, then they have to do it also, become also a part of the gang.
Brown: Elliott, before you joined us, Geraldine was sharing that parents need resources to help them actually be parents, that they need to learn how to-they need parenting skills. Is there anything that the Durham County sheriff's office is doing about that, or is there anything that can be done, something that can be provided for parents.
Hoskins: I think one of the things is that we have to look outside of what law enforcement's doing. Law enforcement is an extension of what can help; it's not the only resource for change. What has to happen is you have to look at some of these outside resources, as Geraldine said. We're finding a lot of good programs, a lot of good things people are doing outside of law enforcement within the program or within the community that can actually help kids, and so we have to tap those kids into some areas where things are happening, where changes are happening. And where there's a program that can benefit them.
Brown: How do you-another thing that Geraldine said was that there's not enough outreach. There may be programs that are available but the programs are not really reaching the people that need the programs the most. So how do you get to them?
Hoskins: I don't think there's one particular way to do it. You got to try different things. Access television, public television, public broadcasting. Same things with kids home from school. Do community town hall meetings. You're going to have to be kind of creative in making contact with these parents, because again, one way won't do it. Every parent doesn't have a computer, every parent doesn't have a car. Some parents work two and three jobs, so you're going to have to try to make it feasible for those parents to come to your program or make contact with them. If you don't do it, then that's a kid that we're going to lose.
Brown: Otis, we're talking mainly about Durham, but this isn't just a Durham problem. I mean, there's probably in Cary, Apex, Raleigh, all over. Is that true?
Lyons: This is absolutely true. The round table that I facilitated had kids from all over the area in North Carolina. We got kids from Greenville, actually Apex, Cary, and we found out it was just a major problem everywhere and a lot of kids was concerned about the peer pressure and I wanted to make sure-it does, the peer pressure does play a major role.
Brown: No matter where you come from.
Lyons: No matter where you come from.
Brown: Geraldine, what-as a parent-I have a young son, he's two and a half years old, but my concern, I'm already thinking about the things that I'm hearing on the news and things that I just believe I'm going to have to deal with as he gets older. What would you say for parents of young children? Parents who may not be dealing with this right now but who have kids that are about to be school age or are school age, may be in high school now. What can they do right now?
Ramos: Right now I think that what the parents need to do is to really know where their children are. Spend time with your children. I know many times we work the three jobs so that we can give children things.
Brown: And that's really not that important.
Ramos: That is not that important because really, as the children get older, they won't remember the things, they will remember the time that you spent in the park with them, they may remember mom, you did this, and mom, you remember that dress you had on when we went wherever? But they won't remember the things. What is happening now is that we are creating these monsters by teaching them to be very materialistic. Particularly males. We give them the high dollar this and the high dollar that, when they can't afford to get it, what do you think they're going to do? Right now, children don't even want to go to school because they don't have all the latest gear. That's the first thing I'd say to any mom, is stop creating those monsters by making them materialistic. The other thing is, be able to conversate with your children. You know, talk with them, listen. More important than talking to them is listening to them. The other thing is, when our boys get up in size, we, as a culture, we tend to believe that our boys will be okay. Those boys need the same thing that girls need. They need love, they need hugs, they need kisses.
Ramos: That is a basic need for any person, whether they be male or female. Those are things that I would say to parents, you know, don't just-as the kids say, don't just dis your child. Don't let the materialism-get so caught up into the material world and providing them with the house here that you really can't afford, that you got to go out and work two or three jobs and you're not home with your child, you don't know what he's doing, because as I said before, there are not programs in the community that take care of these kids, particularly when they get 12, 13 years of age. Childcare is no longer available in the afternoon.
Brown: Elliott, what are the police doing, and what can the police do, and talk a little bit about clothing and how sometimes kids who are, I guess trying to emulate gang-well, gang gear, are mistaken for gang members. What sort of clothing are kids wearing that would indicate that they are, in fact, in a gang?
Hoskins: I think the first thing we must be aware of is that law enforcement will not solve our entire problem. There has to be a community awareness. There's an African proverb that says it takes a village to raise a child. If that's true, then we need to broaden the boundaries of our villages and include everyone into the villages, everyone has to be responsible for these kids, not just law enforcement.
The other thing about clothing-you must understand that clothing, especially gang leader clothing, is also a part of gang culture and rap culture. And so a lot of kids wear clothes that they see other rappers wear on television, and these types of clothes are things that other kids want to wear. They want to wear it themselves as well. So you can't just say because a kid wears baggy pants or a big white T-shirt or Tims [ph] that that kid-
Brown: Tims are?
Hoskins: Tims are like boots.
Brown: Timberlands?
Hoskins: Yeah, Timberland boots. So you can't say because they wear these types of clothing that these kids are gang members because it's a part of their culture as well. So you're going to have to look at each child individually and see what that child is doing. What we do in law enforcement is, when we see kids that are wearing the types of clothing that we may think that's associated with gang activity, we begin to do an interview with them, we'll talk to them, find out what they're doing. If they have any markings, any tattoos, if they have a rag or a flag which symbolizes a gang that they're part of. It's more than just a typical type of clothing, it's everything holistically to prove that this kid's in a gang.
Brown: Otis, I'm going to give you the final word. Tell any children that are watching out there, any kids, what they need to do to try and avoid becoming part of a gang.
Lyons: I think the first part is most important. Just be yourselves. Be strong enough to say, I don't want to be a part of this gang. A lot of these kids don't want to be a part of the gang, like Elliott said, he get calls all the time. I meet so many kids don't want to be a part of the gang, but I tell them, you just got to be a strong individual. And be classified as that nerd or that do-gooder or whatever. A lot of kids think-they got this vision that if you're doing good, and you making grades in school, you're whack, you're not cool. And that's what I try to represent. You can have the gear on, but just be positive and have a good heart, and that's what I try to represent to the kids.
Brown: Thank you very much. I'd like to thank all of our guests today for an informative and eye-opening discussion. If you'd like a transcript of today's show, visit us online at www.unctv.org/bif. And when you visit, be sure to give us your comments and program suggestions. You can also call us on the BIF line at 919-549-7167. Be sure to watch us each Sunday afternoon at 4:30. For Black Issues Forum,I'm Natalie Bullock Brown reminding you to be encouraged no matter what. Have a good one.
Voiceover: Funding for this program is made possible in part by UNC-TV members.
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