Gangs, Economic Woes Cause Renewed Rise in Crime

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Gangs, Economic Woes Cause Renewed Rise in Crime

Mixed Messages 10 Years After The Riots

By DAVID GREENBERG

Staff Reporter

After a sharp decline during the economic good times of the mid- to late 1990s, crime in South Los Angeles has been edging up.

“(Rising crime) discourages patrons from coming in and it discourages new business from investing in the area,” said Joyce Perkins, chairwoman of the Economic Development Council of the Eight District Empowerment Congress, which consists of four neighborhood groups. “These are not thriving areas. They are people seeking to maintain and increase the momentum that they have gained to this point.”

Crime rates remain well below the peak years of the early 1990s. But in LAPD’s South and Central bureaus which cover the Southwest, 77th Street, Southeast and Newton districts of South Central Los Angeles there are unmistakable signs of an uptick in violent activity, much of it gang-related.

In one five-day stretch last month, 13 people were shot to death in the area in 11 unrelated incidents.

Murders in the South and Central bureaus increased in each of the last four years, to 255 last year, from a decade-low 161 in 1998, while aggravated assaults jumped to 10,312 in 2000 (the latest statistics available) from a decade low of 9,363 in 1998. Robberies increased to 5,119 last year from 4,373 in 1999 and 11,847 in 1991.

Still battling gangs

Gangs are still a large part of the problem, according to police, but their faces have changed. With South L.A. becoming more racially integrated, law enforcement authorities have been faced in recent years with the more daunting task of dealing with interracial tensions among gangs, particularly blacks and Latinos.

The gang-related contribution to the homicide rate, for instance, totaled 162 killings last year, up from 48 in 1998 and 80 in 1993. Overall gang-related felony crimes during the first two months of this year jumped 48 percent, to 545, from the like period a year ago.

“Certainly from driving around, we’ve seen a change in demographics,” said Lt. Edmund Wilson, who heads the South Bureau’s Special Enforcement Unit, which tracks gangs and career criminals. “Many of the areas that were predominantly black are now 50 percent Hispanic. We see some crimes that are clearly related to race. They are a very visible presence in the form of graffiti. It negatively impacts the way people think (about the area).”

There are 55,000 gang members in the greater L.A. area, roughly a third of which are in South L.A., Wilson said. This is especially frustrating for business and community leaders who must fend off the stereotype that all of South Central is poor and crime-ridden an image they say that hasn’t much changed despite economic improvements over the last decade.

In response, residents of the area’s more affluent communities Leimert Park, Ladera Heights, Baldwin Hills and View Park try to distance themselves from South Central by using their neighborhood names.

“Even in areas that do have low crime, if they are in South Central, they are all painted with the same brush,” said Perkins. “There is this negative connotation that we are trying to overcome. The perception has the same negative effect as the actual crime.”

A mere gang presence, even if no crime is committed, can dissuade consumers from shopping in those areas, Wilson said.

Police are encouraging more residents to establish watch groups and to monitor their neighborhoods in an effort to help law enforcement officials track gang activity. They also are calling on parents, schools and clergy to get involved in anti-gang programs, which they said are effective when large numbers make their voices heard.

“During the summer, for example, we know we have an increase in gang crimes and crimes in the parks,” said Wilson. “We also have the Crenshaw Cruisers, where young people will congregate along Crenshaw Boulevard, generally on Sunday evenings. Where you have young people, you’ll have gang members.”

Shrinking force

But counteracting the rise in crime will be difficult. LAPD’s South Bureau’s force of 1,400 officers is 400 fewer than in 1992. The falloff reflects a department-wide shortage of 1,100 officers stemming from recruitment problems and a steady number of those leaving the force. Not helping matters are the department’s widely reported morale problems and the uncertain future of Chief Bernard Parks.

Police for the last year have also been focusing their investigations on gang leadership.

“Leadership is based on confidence,” said Wilson. “In the future, we’ll be able to destroy that confidence because we’ll able to arrest those gang members and put them in jail and to successfully prosecute them. It takes away the cohesiveness of the individual groups in the short term. Gang members will be constantly concerned about going to jail.”

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