A big whiteboard filled end-to-end with a relationship diagram
dominates the office of Al DeVos, the county gang prevention
coordinator. It displays the complexity of programs his office is
running or mentoring as part of the county’s effort to deal with
gangs and choke off their sources of new recruits.
A big whiteboard filled end-to-end with a relationship diagram dominates the office of Al DeVos, the county gang prevention coordinator. It displays the complexity of programs his office is running or mentoring as part of the county’s effort to deal with gangs and choke off their sources of new recruits. But you don’t care about any of that; all you care about is getting the gang-related violence and antisocial behavior under control today.
A relationship diagram is a jumble of ovals connected with lines that map links and influences between entities and actions. As with everything that policy-wonks have beaten to death, gang prevention has its own best-practice structure, keys, and code language fully peppered with mystery acronyms and paper, paper, paper. But you don’t care about any of that; all you care about is getting the gang-related violence and antisocial behavior under control today.
There is very little constituency for social infrastructure. When capital projects are finished, you can point at a bridge or a courthouse and say, “We built that, come see it and use it and visit your money.” When gang prevention works, all you can do is point at emptiness – a negative, almost impossible thing to measure. When it does not work, the public is stirred, if only for a minute. But you don’t care about any of that; all you care about is getting the gang-related violence and antisocial behavior under control today.
The problem, as I see it, is that DeVos is building a house from scratch; however, those who are watching the project want to move in and enjoy the comforts while it’s still under construction. Al has been at it for 20 months, trying to make up for many years of neglect – a program that was a place for politicians to get their names on a letterhead. He’s brought more than $700,000 in grant money to the system and he’s the focal point for ideas, enthusiasm, implementation, goals, and measurement. But you don’t care about any of that; all you care about is getting the gang-related violence and antisocial behavior under control today.
If law enforcement and jail time could effectively suppress gangs, they would have been gone long ago. It has to be about prevention. Prisons are overflowing and the cost of incarceration is more than $48,000 per year per inmate, merely locking them up means that another gang-banger – older and more institutionalized – must be spit out to the street to make room. But you don’t care about any of that; all you care about is getting the gang-related violence and antisocial behavior under control today.
If you’re in the high-risk community socially or physically, you know who is packing, who’s out at 2 a.m., the trouble spots and troublemakers, who’s being recruited and who’s connected – you know almost everything, but you remain silent, perhaps out of fear perhaps or a twisted sense of a loyalty. Programs take time; it takes a generation to change a generation. You have the capability to make a difference right now by telling the police, by warning the parents, by cracking down on unruly kids – your own and your neighbors. But you don’t care about any of that until they kill your kid, your parent, your brother, your sister, your friend. Then you’ll stand in line and sign a card or carry a candle and say how terrible it is. It’s too late then, almost all the plans and all the efforts are useless without you. Perhaps you should care about that.
Note: Although I interviewed Al DeVos about the current plans and programs of the Gang Prevention Advisory Committee and his office, the opinions and conclusions expressed in this article are entirely my own.   Â
Marty Richman is a Hollister resident.
