Since Senator Boxer is proposing legislation that would make street gang activity a federal offence, I feel obligated to highlight exactly who this proposed legislation targets and at the same time show how her proposals are a continuation of WASP [White Anglo Saxon Protestant] society's racist and classist unapologetic history.
In the age of Three Strikes and trialing ever younger children as adults, the general public has been misled to believe that longer sentences at ever younger ages both curbs the rate of crime and stands as a deterrent to future would-be "criminals." This entire concept is a mirage skillfully displayed by politicians and law enforcement to deflect and divert social material contradictions (issues). Politicians and law enforcement are experts at keeping the focus on the symptoms of society, yet all the while exacerbating and profiting off the disease.
Here in California the vast majority of street gang members who commit street gang (property-reactionary) activity are Mexican and Black youth. What Sen. Boxer is avoiding in the advocacy of her proposals is that street gang (property-reactionary) activity is not the result of a free willed frame of mind but due to specific material conditions. Most crime is the direct consequence of poverty, unemployment, non-education, mental illness, substance abuse, discrimination, marginalization, and outright oppression. Historically in the U.S. prosecuted crimes is blatantly determined by class and race.
Instead of curing the social contradictions (issues) that give rise to street gang (property-reactionary) activity and for once actually helping these "at risk" youth. It is no surprise that Sen. Boxer, a prominent member of WASP society, would propose legislation that would further exacerbate the exact conditions crime results from. Uncle $am has always used a bludgeoning hand when dealing with children of color. See African children under chattel slavery, also First Nations children under the reservation military complex.
If one thinks this comparison reaches a bit too far, I'd ask that person to show this author in all of U.S. history where a law, policy, etc. was created specifically for white youth with the same destructive effects as the comparisons mentioned. Senator Boxer is aware that the implementation and enforcement of her proposed legislation intends to discard specific segments of Mexican and Black youth into the criminal justice system. She is aware that once these youth are in state and federal prison, they are 8 times more likely to commit suicide, 5 times more likely to be raped and 3 times more likely to be beaten by staff.(1) Furthermore, Senator Boxer is well aware that California has the highest recidivist rate in the U.S., knowing a system is flawed and proposing to extend that system makes her true intentions suspect.
Though one cannot concretely weigh sincerity or intentions, one can however weigh the political and economic benefit of past, present and future impoverished, marginalized and oppressed Mexican and black youth. The truth is WASP society has always repressed non-conformist children of color. After the success of the anti-segregation movements in the 60’s and 70’s, WASP society turned to the criminal justice system as their primary means to keep people of color marginalized via the Rockefeller laws, mandatory sentences, etc. Senator Boxer knows that the youth she intends to discard in the criminal justice system will in effect become commodities, which in most cases sold to rural white communities as a source of jobs. This explains why the U.S. (pop. 300 million approx.) has 5 times the number of incarcerated youth as India (pop. 1 billion approx.) and a half a million more people incarcerated as China (pop. 1 billion approx.)(2)
Let's examine for a moment the idea that longer state and federal prison sentences curb juvenile property-reactionary activity and stands as a deterrent to would-be committers of property-reactionary activity. The first concept presumes that the "juvenile delinquent" population is stagnant and by arresting enough youth for longer durations, one can effectively curb crime. As I've outlined above, most crime is a result of material conditions in which youth are raised in a continuum. And since prosecuted crime is determined on race and class, the idea that one can curb property-reactionary activity without dealing with the material conditions, race and class issues, is a complete fallacy.
The deterrent concept is equally flawed. Youth have no more long term understanding of cause and effect than a specific crime instantly transforms a child into an adult. Imperialism's own pseudo science of psychology says children's impulse control center is not fully developed until they are in their late teens to early 20s. Moreover, the hypocrisy is such, a 14 year old with an 11 year old mentality is considered "fit" to stand trial as an adult, but a grown man with an 11 year old mentality is considered "unfit" to stand trial.
We must see through proposals like Sen. Boxer's and recognize which "communities" such laws are a detriment to and exactly which "communities" stand to benefit. It's helpful to place this understanding in the context of imperialism and how it is perpetuated in part by having urban communities heavily policed via laws. This marginalizes Mexican and black youth and ensures their endless flow into the criminal justice system, subsequently maintaining WASP society’s political and economic supremacy.
Knowing the fate WASP society had for us in the past and the fate they continue to have for us, it is imperative that we abandon this U.S. imperialist dependency and see Mexican and Black property-reactionary activity strictly as a Mexican and Black issue to be resolved exclusively by Mexicans and Blacks.
- a California prisoner, August 2005
Notes:
1. Coalition of Prisoners’ Rights
2. Atlantic Monthly, Dec. 1998