Quote of note:

Around that time, conservatives such as William Bennett and James Q. Wilson began attaching the label of "super-predator" to all the Tookie wannabes. Their notion seemed to be that a fixed percentage of kids were natural-born killers who just couldn't be helped by better schools or jobs — a neo-Darwinian philosophy that fit neatly with the de-industrialization and budget cuts that swept across inner cities like chain saws through old-growth forests.

The super-predator thesis justified the most massive prison expansion in American history, with its epicenter in California, where there were about 150,000 inmates in any given year, two-thirds of them reputed gang members. Prosecutors and politicians pursued the vertical model of the 1920s, going after the alleged godfathers, but in fact the new gangs were replenishing themselves from the outcast underclass. Last year in Los Angeles, there were 93,000 youths between 18 and 24 who were out of school and out of work. Statewide, the number was 638,000.

The myth of the super-predator
By Tom Hayden
December 14, 2005

THE EXECUTION of Stanley Tookie Williams cannot be allowed to drown out his message: We need to find alternatives to the "embedded sense of self-hate" that propels so many inner-city youth to lash out in killing sprees.

Yet history shows that Los Angeles may not be prepared to listen. In the wake of the 1992 Crips-Bloods truce, which Williams promoted from death row, gang violence in L.A. declined by half. Five years later, The Times reported that "police and residents of Watts confirm that gang-on-gang slayings over emotional issues of turf boundaries or gang clothing have virtually disappeared."

But there was no peace dividend, and the truce eventually dwindled, though it never completely died. The plan to privatize urban reconstruction after the 1992 riots — the Rebuild LA initiative that promised $6 billion in private investment to create 74,000 new jobs in five years in the riot zone — was a sham that closed down a few years later. The riot zone lost 50,000 jobs in that decade. In the vacuum, youthful rage exploded again in gang warfare.

Around that time, conservatives such as William Bennett and James Q. Wilson began attaching the label of "super-predator" to all the Tookie wannabes. Their notion seemed to be that a fixed percentage of kids were natural-born killers who just couldn't be helped by better schools or jobs — a neo-Darwinian philosophy that fit neatly with the de-industrialization and budget cuts that swept across inner cities like chain saws through old-growth forests.

The super-predator thesis justified the most massive prison expansion in American history, with its epicenter in California, where there were about 150,000 inmates in any given year, two-thirds of them reputed gang members. Prosecutors and politicians pursued the vertical model of the 1920s, going after the alleged godfathers, but in fact the new gangs were replenishing themselves from the outcast underclass. Last year in Los Angeles, there were 93,000 youths between 18 and 24 who were out of school and out of work. Statewide, the number was 638,000.

How is the city of L.A. addressing the gang problem? The city budget reveals that the priority is to suppress and incarcerate, not to turn troubled lives around. Fifty-five million dollars go to LAPD gang suppression efforts, a token $12 million to prevention programs for little kids, and a bare $2 million for intervention programs meant to channel teenagers away from violent paths.