I’ve been reading and listening and thinking about the proposed new gang injunctions and the fate of the existing one. I’ve also been thinking about the fates of the proponents and opponents of said injunctions, City Attorney John Russo, OPD Chief Batts, and local legal beagles and civil rights attorneys, Siegel, particularly the younger Siegel, Michael, someone whose courage and heart I’ve long admired.

 John Russo was my council member before becoming the City Attorney. He fought against the loitering ordinance because of its pre-emptive and racial profiling components.

I always thought gang injunctions were some of the weird and slightly scary things that happened in LA, a weird and somehow scary place with all those manic freeways and seedy strip malls (even the term is seedy).

Now they’ve come to Oakland and the injunctions as well as the gangs seem to be tearing our political community apart. Today (Feb. 16^th)a judge will decide whose career might be promoted and whose might be downgraded a notch by granting or not granting Oakland’s City Attorney a new and broader gang injunction covering the entire Fruitvale district.

The fledgling lives of young men who grew up in devastated neighborhoods in struggling or non-functioning or non-existent families who turned to gangs for a sense of safety and acceptance finding instead violence and intimidation will be the most affected.

Russo or the younger Siegel could also be affected. It could cast a small shadow over the brand new administration of Mayor Jean Quan or the established career of Dan Siegel and throw the City Council into yet another lose/lose confrontation.

Why have Oakland’s politicos decided to go down this road? Is it a passion for justice, a passion for crime fighting, or a passion for one’s own career? Is this struggle between Oakland’s best and brightest even necessary?

For observers it may be titillating to watch the twists and turns in alliances and  political careers or to cast each side in some type of morality play while we run a sort of American Idol panel to decides who wins.

But are gang injunctions that useful or the real answer to crime and intimidation in neighborhoods where families struggle to survive intact much less develop socially and economically successful lives?

Just for arguments sake, let’s look at the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The 4^th Amendment has something to say about pre-emptive arrest or pre-emptive restrictions on private life. Here is the language of that amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I know, some judges have okayed these injunctions in the past. As a former teacher of Government and Economics (laid off when Oakland closed its adult school), I spent a lot of time explaining the freedoms “guaranteed” by the Bill of Rights and other amendments to my students while describing the need to continue to defend them. My students spent a lot of time telling me how none of these rights were allotted to them on the streets of Oakland.

So here’s the first problem- this law/ordinance comes close to (or indeed does) violate due process procedures. Although Russo has worked hard to restrict the use of these injunctions against a general class of people by reducing them to persons that his office believes do pose dangers to their community, that doesn’t mean the injunctions don’t violate the Constitution.

Rather than think of how many ways we can get around the Constitution, I believe that we should look again. Choosing to cross that line, as a community that cares about progressive values and our heritage of struggle against government intrusion, should be the catalyst for a serious discussion.

What we also know is that Oakland is a city suffering from real violence, bad players, and dysfunction. Gangs have developed and taken hold with some youth and young adults, infecting whole families and neighborhoods.

However, lots of violence in Oakland does not come from gangs. It is an organic outgrowth of decades of underserved, preyed upon communities where little to no opportunities meet with zealous law enforcement which often targets those communities.

We also know that Oakland is an underfunded city with limited resources to spend on ameliorating these conditions. It seems that enforcement of the gang injunctions is a pricey venture that may deliver few results.

If the City can find the money to spend to fight for and enforce these injunctions, even given the limited resources that law enforcement already has, it can spend the same monies to institute community policing as first envisioned by the City’s 1995 ordinance.

Community policing requires less funds for automobiles, lawyers, and even highly paid senior officers. If police officers were out walking and talking to neighbors on a regular beat, were able to attend community events and work closely with county case managers and city planners (enforcing the laws on nuisance businesses such as liquor stores), we might have a police department that could prevent crime, even violent crime, by keeping tabs on problem areas or people or corners.

They might also know who was looking for vengeance and why or which group was feeling disrespected or why before it escalated to violence. They might know who in the community to tap into for intervention. We do some of that now through Measure Y/BB but in limited doses.

I’m not claiming that community policing as originally conceived is inexpensive or would bring us utopia, but it is probably a more useful solution, a solution more able to bring our community together to tackle crime and its causes than all this arguing over gang injunctions ever will.

Is the whole fight over gang injunctions is setting us up to spend money for little relief while dividing us as a community, a community that mostly believes in individual rights and the common good?

Let’s go back to a solution we never fully implemented and try coming together for a safer community that as Mayor Quan said, “wraps its arms around our youth.” Let’s really implement community policing. We have a model that we have never fully implemented. It’s time for law enforcement and social justice organizations to work together for a safety solution that is sustainable.

pamela, thanks for the thoughtful comment.

A few responses to Eric's article and Pamela's comments:

Regarding Oakland Education Associations resolution against the injunctions: First, Mike Siegel is a former teacher with strong allies in OEA, and his father is a former OUSD board member with even stronger allies.  Second, the board did not ask for comment from the City Attorney's office, or even invite a representative to speak at that vote.  The vote is therefore quite obviously a political favor, and was taken without any due process or fair consideration. It should be regarded as irrelevant.

Regarding the cost of the injunction: first, what is the cost of an ongoing organized drug crime investigation?  Does the injunction bring down that cost?  What is the cost of a drive-by shooting?  Did you know that even a non-lethal gunshot wound can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars?  What is the cost of rehabilitating a teen gang member who's been recruited on a street corner by an adult gang member?  What is the cost if that teen can't be rehabilitated?  Is it reasonable to expect that by removing adult gang members from corners, they'll be less able to recruit younsters?  A lot of questions about comparitive cost need to be answered, and Eric isn't asking them.

Another point about comparitive cost: between OUSD, Alameda County, Measure Y, and Kids First, Oakland has some of the largest mandated funding for youth and youth violence prevention in the country.  We already have lots of money going to do exactly the things that opponents of the gang injunction want to spend the cost of the gang injunction on.  I say we should be doing both. So does John Russo, repeatedly, and his detractors ignore that and keep saying he's all about law enforcement and unconcerned about kids.  It's bull. 

I also say that if you're going to attack bad spending, the gang injunction shouldn't be the place to start.  Jean Quan's PayGo bought solar powered trash compacters to put in front of a business in district 4.  That's frivilous spending.  A gang injunction in a city with a gang problem? Not frivilous.

Lastly, Pamela: It is constitutional. It's been challenged and found constitutional. Civil restraining orders have also been challenged and found constitutional.  It doesn't become unconstitutional because detractors say it's unconstitutional. It becomes unconstitutional if a high court rules it unconstitutional. That has never happened, so it remains constitutional. Capiche?

PS: Using a child to hold a sign to protest something that the child is incapable of understanding?  Shameful, unethical, inexcusable, and exploitive. 

max, max, max... up to your old tricks i see. since you took shots at me, i'll respond, succinctly. first of all, i reported on the numbers which are available. Oaklanders have a right to know what the city attorney's office has spent pursuing gang injunctions, don't you agree? Also, the questions you pose don't have easily-obtainable data, and i'm a reporter, not a sociologist, which means if someone else wants to do all that research, then i'll report that. second, how do you know what children are capable of understanding? i merely took a picture, which obviously provoked a strong visceral reaction from you. Exploitative? Hardly. I would say the picture was thought-provoking, if anything. of course, i have no control over which thoughts it provokes.

max, i just reread your rant. i've said this before, but i'll say it again: i'm not completely at peace with the racist implications of your comments -- or rather the fact that you seem to be oblivious to those implications.

speaking of cost, the only real issue here is: are gang injunctions an effective measure of reducing crime, or are they an expensive political tool which don't do anything the police can't already do?

The fact is, violent crime is up in North Oakland since the injunctions were announced. And data indicates that any reduction in crime in that safety zone has come at the expense of South Berkeley, which has had its crime rates go up since the injunction went into effect.So you're not reducing crime, just moving it from one place to another, because gang injunctions dont address the root causes of crime -- as Keith Carson told me, "they're a band-aid."

In the Fruitvale, many of the individuals named--almost half, in fact-- have had clean records for more than two years--which would qualify them for the opt-out option to remove them from the injunction.

So its debatable whether they should have even been named in the first place.

Furthermore, the one defendant who testified yesterday has exactly one felony conviction, for... possession of marijuana. If he had a medical card, that wouldn't have even been a crime.also, it's not uncommon to find guns in  medical marijuana dispensaries, just like its not uncommon for liquor store owners, or any other business with large cash transactions, to carry guns.

If the alleged gang members opened up a legal dispensary and served the same clientele--with prop. 215 notes, of course--then they are considered healthcare providers, not public nuisances.

So, does the difference between being stigmatized and persecuted as a gang member and being a productive citizen come down to who has a doctor's note to legally smoke pot?

Or does it have to do with environment? "Oaksterdam" is not a majority-Latino neighborhood.

Whether you want to recognize it or not, there are gentrification implications in targeting both Fruitvale and North Oakland, especially considering that the vast majority of violent crime happens in Deep East Oakland--so it would make sense to direct resources there, if i were OPD or the City Attorney's office, and i was more interested in reducing crime than advancing my political career.

but then again, you yourself are like the poster boy for gentrification. So it doesnt surprise me that these issues go completely over your head, because you like to pretend they don't exist.

it also doesnt suprise me that you would throw out a smokescreen--i.e. the cost of treating gunshot wounds--without addressing the larger, real, question of whether gang injunctions are effective at reducing crime in the first place.

If not, they're a waste of money, point-blank.

You might want to read Ali Winston's recent interview with UC Berkeley criminology professor Barry Krisberg, which sort of cuts to the chase and outlines the context of these issues and their broader social and cultural implications.

one other thing regarding the constitutionality of gang injunctions. the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of an injunction in a 4-block area. The proposed Fruitvale safety zone covers 450 blocks, or more than 100 times what the court upheld.

therefore, given the number of people not directly named in the injunctions who would be subject to possible civil rights violations on an ongoing basis, i would say the constitutionality of targeting an exponentially-greater area than what the high court has allowed is certainly questionable.

PS max, your comments would probably be much more welcomed on Glenn Beck or Bill O'reilly's website, where no one is ever concerned about violating the constitutional rights of people of color.