[Ed. note: We were impressed to read this recent VoiceWaves story by Alyson Bryant which looks into how gang injunctions might negatively affect those who end up on the lists and are attempting to break free from gang life. Gang injunctions are usually seen as a good thing both for public safety and the quality of life in communities in which they are enacted, but Bryant’s research and interviews with current and former gang members provides a different perspective on the controversial solution to the city’s gang problem.]
By VoiceWaves Youth Reporter Alyson Bryant | Anytime after 10PM, 18-year old Mike gets a little scared to be in his neighborhood. Not because he might get robbed or anything like that, but he doesn’t want get stop by the police on his way home.
“It’s hard living in Westside Long Beach,” Mike said with a little smile, but it wasn’t a laughing matter. Mike, who is a young black man attending Long Beach Community College, lives in a gang injuction zone.
A gang injunction is a court-issued restraining order against a gang or group of named persons. It is a geographically-based “safety zone” that can place a person named on the list in a criminal court, even if their infraction is civil. It restricts restricts freedom of association without affording alleged gang members due process rights.
Long Beach has been enforcing injunctions since 1992, but have recently been more aggressively enforced. From 2009 to 2011, arrests have jumped from 35 to 180—five times as much in two years, according to PoliceMag.com. As of September 2012, 188 arrests have been made for violation of the city’s gang injunctions.
The newest gang injunction was implemented in 2010, covering over 7 miles in North Long Beach, from 72 Street to Del Amo Boulevard and from the Long Beach freeway to the Lakewood border.
While getting exact numbers of youth arrests from the Long Beach Police Department has proved difficult, many agree that gang injunctions disproportionately affect youth.
Ana Muniz, who has partnered with the Youth Justice Coalition in Inglewood to examine the effects of gang injunctions in LA neighborhoods, believes injunctions limits opportunities for youth in that community and makes the scope of thier world really narrow, as it could be hard to talk to the people you grow up with.