[left: Gang sentenced to 682 years behind bars in Johannesburg, CA; right top: Hidden Valley Kings gang members sentenced between 25-30 years in Charlotte, SC; right bottom: gang’s leaders received between 10 and 24 years in prison in Charlotte, SC]
Gang enhancement laws differ from state to state, however they require that a person who’s committed a crime that was found to also be involved in ‘gang activity’ have a number of mandatory years added to their sentence. The definitions of one’s gang involvement can be completely arbitrary and could range from the neighborhood a person was from, a person they were seen with on an occasion, their name or the tattoo markings on their bodies. Gang enhancement laws are racist and target people of color and people in poverty.
National Prison Strike Demand 6 calls for, “An immediate end to racist gang enhancement laws targeting Black and brown humans.”
Crime redefines as society evolves
There are many crimes that have been up for discussion and changed in their status over the years. While the change in status for certain behaviors has evolved, the treatment of individuals who suffer from the consequences of engaging in those behaviors has not. For example, the War on Drugs which criminalized the possession of substances like crack and marijuana was once seen as an anti-terrorist movement targeting big drug lords and saving communities from the threat of being overtaken by drug addiction. Sadly after hundreds of thousands of black and brown people were incarcerated at rates much higher than that of their white counterparts using similar drugs, we came to find that the War on Drugs was just a war on people of color. This idea is now mainstream as War on Drugs has substantially subsided. Unfortunately, the consequences that individuals who were incarcerated as a result of this war continues to follow them. Some are still incarcerated while others suffer from the lack of privileges that are stripped from ex-convicts. All who are arrested suffer from the emotional and mental trauma that incarceration has caused on themselves and their families. Many of them missed out on decades of their lives while others are still hoping to regain their lives, find employment and obtain education. The War on Drugs is a modern example of how the definition of crime has changed with the views of society as drug use has become more mainstream and addiction has now been reassigned from a criminal behavior to a mental health behavior.
Another activity that was once seen as a crime and has now evolved from such label is the act of abortion in the United States. There was once a time not too long ago where the act of terminating a pregnancy was seen as the equivalent of murder, this is still the ideology of some people. However, the mainstream views of abortion have substantially changed with the help of the courts and women who’ve shared their experiences. When society listened to those who were most effected by abortion restricting laws, it was an essential element in helping everyone understand the purposes behind why a woman would make the decision to abort a pregnancy and the consequences of being forced into motherhood. Instead of women being labeled as murderers now the mainstream view for those who decide to have an abortion is that the woman is making a responsible choice for her mental and emotional health at that season of her life. Now instead of many women being forced to have a child that they’re unprepared for they are respected and even encouraged to make an educated decision about what to do with their bodies.
In both the case of drug use an abortion we have seen the mainstream view on what criminal behavior is change to a mental health issue. This will continue to happen as we think critically about why certain groups of people engage in specific behaviors. It’s up to us to redefine the term ‘crime’. Crime has become an overarching term for undesired behaviors that haven’t yet been given a diagnosis and assigned an effective treatment or identified to a specific cause. When we don’t know why someone has done something or what to do about the person has done then we call it a crime and we label them a criminal. All crimanal behaviors are related to mental and emotional health whose sources need to be treated, not neglected in order to correct the behavior by healing the individual.
The Terms ‘Criminal’, “Thug” and “Gang” are de-humanizing labels
When I hear the term Thug I immediately think of a mean mugging big black man with a grill in his mouth and tattoos all over his body while wearing saggy pants, a wife beater and Timberland boots. This is an image that has been drilled into my mind repeatedly through television shows and music videos. In these shows and videos many of the men with the ‘thug’ look engage in criminal behavior. When men with this look are traveling in groups they’re called a gang and viewed as violent and dangerous even before having done anything threatening or aggressive.
I’ve said this in many interviews because I feel like many people fail to understand how the term ‘criminal’ has been used to dehumanize whole segments of our community. I found that in a lot of cases when people dismiss human and civil rights violations on people it’s because those people have been given a label that paints a picture of their being less deserving to have their rights protected. We must be clear and fully understand that every single person deserves to have their rights protected. Human rights are unalienable natural rights that weren’t given by humans but by the Creator and because they weren’t given by humans they can’t be taken away by humans.
In the same way that the term slave dehumanized whole segments of the United States population the term criminal is being used in the exact same way. The evolutionary thread between both labels is literally outlined in the 13th amendment. During the chattel slave era it was okay for a slave to be forced to live in inhumane conditions, served inedible food, restricted from education, separated from family members and neglected emotionally in cases of abuse. It raised no eyebrows when slave man, women or child suffered from routine abusive treatment on a day-to-day basis. This is the exact same conditions that prisoners live in today and in both cases this is because we allow the label on these people to dismiss the rights of these people. It’s time that we be intentional about stripping away whatever labels allow us to dismiss an individual’s human rights whether that be the label of a homosexual, a transsexual, an immigrant, an illegal immigrant, a prostitute, a thug, an offender, ex-offender, convict, parolee or criminal. It’s essential that we value all individuals within our society regardless of their status because statuses change and labels fade.
Crime Targets Certain Communities More than Others
Because criminal activity is learned behavior through the environment that one is raised in and the behaviors that one is surrounded by, it is unmistakably obvious that certain communities are surrounded by violence while others are able to filter violence out of their communities more effectively. In some communities we see police officers as ‘community servants’ while another is they are a dangerous threat. This is simply due to the fact that in communities where officers come to serve ice cream cones, help be security at birthday parties and give show-and-tell talks at schools; the people in those areas are able to see officers in a more positive light. In other communities where the only time you see an officer is when they’re shouting at you to put your hands up, slamming your friend down onto the ground, or putting your brother and handcuffs; you quickly learn that officers aren’t there to serve you but are an antagonist force.
We can plainly see which communities have access to resources that would enable them to be financial stable. In areas where the residents are also the owners of the business is in that region then you see more economic stability. This is because the money coming out of the community is also going back in at a more equal rate. However, contrastingly in impoverished communities where the owners of the businesses located in those areas are not residents in that community, the money flow constantly going out. The money going out of the community continues to go out of the community, leaving little to nothing to build or improve residents conditions of living reducing the region’s economic stability. That community’s community’s schools, hospitals, parks and other resources become weaker and weaker over time making it a less healthy and more dangerous place where theft and violence are more prevalent and positive police presence becomes non-existent as police response to the events happening in impoverished communities is overwhelmingly more negative than positive.
My basic response to those who are programed to say, “If you don’t want to do the time and don’t do the crime” is let’s provide impoverished communities where the majority of inmates come from with the resources needed to equip the young people there with the emotional and mental stability to make positive choices. During an interview Brooke, an IWOC rep out of Oakland, CA mentioned that if prisoners were given the jobs on the outside that their forced to do for cents on the inside before they went to prison then they would have never ended up incarcerated. That’s because they would have had the economic stability to provide for themselves, pour back into their communities making them safer places and have the capacity to make sound choices. It’s difficult for young person that’s hungry and neglected by overworked parents that are too busy and ill-equipped in schools that are heavily underfunded to make choices focused on their future when all they’re trying to do is survive in the moment. A famous poem written by Joshua T. Dickerson, Cuz I Ain’t Got A Pencil, illustrates this reality perfectly. The vast majority of our criminal population could have been dramatically reduced if we thought holistically about the labels that we put on people and analyzed what influences the behaviors that people engage in.
The racist gang enhancements referenced in demand 6 are dependent on the use of labels like criminal, thug and gang. When we refuse to label the men in our community with these terms then the enhancement of gangs becomes less relevant and ineffective. It’s sad that one going to prison is forced to identify with violence as a form of insurance in a violent and unstable environment. This only proliferates violence and hostility. When we allow state officials to label are men and women with these terms then they’re able to create narratives to justify the use of state force that targets lack and brown people and dehumanizing situations like abusively low wages, the lack of nutritious food, lack of Medical Care, lack of adequate mental health treatment and the lack of rehabilitative programs. We need to change our language and refuse these labels as we request our demands.
