In the wake of the national publicity that accompanied the beating death of Chicago Public Schools student Derrion Albert, the issue of teen violence has come to the fore.
Violence toward students in the Chicago Public Schools is, however, neither new nor rare. Between September 2007 and December 2008, more than 500 Chicago Public school students were shot. Doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations, I’m guessing about 1 in 100 African-American male high school students gets shot each year in Chicago. Among the kids who have dropped out, no doubt the rate is much higher.
Back when he ran the Chicago Public Schools, current Secretary of Education Arne Duncan argued repeatedly and passionately that something needed to be done on this issue, but — and there is a lesson here — he couldn’t attract even a fraction of the attention generated by a YouTube video.
Now there appears to be the political will to try to address the problem, and I might be afforded the opportunity to play some small role in the process.
But how do we reduce the violence? The political reality is that any strategy has to reduce violence quickly. While early intervention into the lives of young children might lower future violence, more is needed in this setting. Shootings need to be reduced now.
I had a number of ideas, but after spending some time talking with a group of Black Soul gang members with the help of one of my heroes, Arloa Sutter, I’m not convinced that any of my approaches can work. The best quote of the day went to one of the older gang members: “If Li’l Wayne would rap the times table, that’s what they’d be doing.” By that he meant that the young kids follow whatever lead the hip-hop stars set. I don’t actually completely believe it, but I like the quote.
Thus, I turn to you, the blog readers. Assuming that you had access to some resources, what approach would you take to try to address this problem? Dare to be creative. Most of the obvious things have already been tried and largely failed. We desperately need fresh ideas.
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I tend to agree with David (#2) that it does seem like lots of people having guns makes it more likely that lots of people will get shot. It seems like if you want to make a coherent argument for the right to the former (as many Americans do), you should be able to explain why it outweighs the latter.
Although the counter argument is always to bring up countries (Switzerland seems to be a favorite) where there are lots of guns but little gun violence.
I have so little insight into the motivations of, or contingencies operating on, a Chicago highschool kid who shoots someone, but I do know you can’t shoot someone without a gun.
This may be a solution to the problem. Empower the kids by paying them to NOT shoot their fellow students. You have had 508 shooting in 16 months. If you paid the assailants and victims $100 each to settle their disputes in a teen run court, the direct payout for the program would be $101,600. Even if the amount of suits brought before the court were double (due to teens “gaming” the system), the cost savings would be much more than the health care costs that would be saved from reducing the violence. You can run the health care cost savings based on the actual costs of providing health care to the 508 victims.
The program would be like Judge Judy’s court for teen violence and disputes. The teens however would run the court like the Montgomery County, MD Teen Court. The money to run this program can come from a number of sources. Insurance companies that will save money on healthcare cost, the justice department can give money to teach kids how to settle their disputes in court and not break the law, and money could also come from entertainers who should get behind this issue. Reducing teen violence by giving them a reason, cash in-hand, to seek justice in their own run teen court works. It is an education process for all involved.
Will this stop all the violence – NO. But if your pay them, they may finally have an bigger incentive to NOT shoot fellow students.
It doesn’t necessarily take creativity – it just requires a lot more work than we’re willing to do. Gun violence isn’t an isolated problem. It’s endemic to a whole host of issues revolving around the poverty and segration of low-income black and brown people in this country. Until those larger issues are truly addressed, the run-off issues such as guns and gang violence will remail. (But, for the record, Derrion’s death was not gang-related).
I blame the culture more than I blame the guns. There are plenty of guns in states like Montana and Idaho, but far, far less gun crime than we see in Chicago.
I suspect that they get their ammuniton from the same people they get their drugs from.
And no, you cannot distrupt that supply chain, especially considering that there is no practical way of making firearm and ammunition possession expensive enough to reduce it.
A way to reduce the violence would be by decriminalizing drugs, and a more agressive educational system that will give teachers better tools for rewarding and punishing students.
Give the gangs purpose. Gangs run on what now? Crack rock?
As evidenced in your first book, these are not stupid people.
What is the difference between a three gangs and three small IT businesses? Or should I say, “How are IT businesses and Gangs alike?”.
They are competitive. They are each trying to make money. They are “organizations”. Or they are organized. Some gangs are more organized than some of my business clients.
They are organized, they are competitive, and they wish to make money. They have a product. Crack rock. Do they have any other lines of business? Guns, etc.
What if we could find another line of business that would require approximately the same amount of work?
How about micro-loan broker? A micro-loan broker could lend money to people in the area who trying to start businesses. These loans could pay for education, workshops, etc. The broker (gang member) would get paid a commission based on how many deals they could broker.
Using government resources initially, it could eventually balloon into a full-fledged private business.
Now you have created a vacuum and the other gang(s) have increased their market share of crack rock slingin’. However, the next gang is approached with the same idea.
Or a different idea. Make the community more diverse.
Changing behavior is difficult. But if it is done in a subtle manner, it may work.
How can we incentivize these gang leaders to put down their weapons? Show them a better way.
What about home improvement projects? For years we’ve seen HGTV and TLC showing us these grand homes with these amazing upgrades.
What if you went to a gang stronghold, or gang leader’s house and said, “We’re gonna put granite in this kitchen, expand it and make it a little bit easier for you to sit down and talk to your homies. But only if you do most of the work. Ok. That’s done, what about your bathroom? That place is disgusting. What do you think about helping Tyrone’s Mom out. She makes good food. Let’s do her kitchen”.
Pay them. Get them to own it.
What is better than possibly getting shot and making money? Not possibly getting shot and making money.
It is obvious that most gang members are extremely risk tolerant. Watching your friends get beaten up and killed in front of you and continuing in the “game” has made them so.
So, make it risky, but just a little bit less risky. These gang members are in the lower right quadrant (high risk, average return). Let’s dial back the risk and increase the return.
Have you considered paying Lil’ Wayne to rap the times tables?
School Vouchers – You have all these inner-city kids trapped in the large public school monopoly systems. They’re too poor to move to favorable districts or attend private schools. They are trapped in these terrible communities with awful educational systems… poor education increases the people’s need of crime as a source of sustenance and decreases the ability of people to escape poverty.
What they need is competition in the market for education. Competition will create better schools – as the education gets better, students have a private incentive to not shoot each other up/get arrested.