In a continuation of the racist police attacks on the African American and Latino communities, the so-called war on gangs in Los Angeles has added new weapons to its arsenal.
The Los Angeles Police Department has been conducting sweeps, putting young men in jail and charging them with
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According to the March 29 edition of the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office has been ramping up these charges in order to increase jail time for those arrested.
This policy also puts bail out of reach for many, according to L.A. defense attorneys.
Chief deputy public defender for L.A. County, Robert Kalunian, said that defense attorneys are now witnessing many targeted, aggressive prosecutions for relatively minor crimes, such as vandalism and petty theft, because the suspect is an alleged gang member.
According to ACLU attorney, Peter Bibring, young people from other communities would get probation or time served for the very same crimes.
Since January 2007, when L.A. police chief William J. Bratton announced a crackdown on gangs, more than 800 arrests have been made. A large percentage have been for probation violations, drug possession, curfew violation and vandalism—all misdemeanors and nonviolent crimes.
Local, federal police cooperate
New federal laws allow longer jail and prison sentences for nonviolent crimes if such crimes “are committed to benefit a gang.” Who is deemed a “gang member” and what acts “benefit” a gang is left up to racist cops.
According to Kalunian, L.A. cops are compiling a gang database. Young people dressed in baggy pants and seen talking to an alleged gang member has their name put into this database.
For example, Reyes Hochman, an 18-year-old was merely dressed in baggy pants and waiting at a bus stop with a friend when confronted by police and asked if they were on probation, according to James Pinchak, a defense attorney representing, Hochman was arrested as a “gang member” and charged accordingly.
Now Hochman and thousands of young people like him are in the gang database. And because local cops are working with the FBI, the names on the database are accessible to every local law enforcement agency and the FBI. This database alone, therefore, makes thousands of Black and Latino youth vulnerable to arrest or police harassment wherever they go in the United States.
Targeting immigrants
According to the L.A. Times, data on suspects also is shared with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency as part of a nationwide effort to deport undocumented immigrants. This is another new, repressive policy.
Undocumented people suspected of being gang members now face quicker deportation after arrest for even the most minor violations, such as loitering or graffiti vandalism. (L.A. Times, April 5)
Los Angeles city and county attorneys now ask about the immigration status of individuals they arrest. This was not done previously. And people whose criminal records show that they are undocumented get turned over to federal authorities immediately.
New protocols within the police department are being developed to make sharing the relevant data on immigration status easier and quicker, and L.A. city attorney Rocky Delgadillo has assigned three prosecutors to the U.S. Attorney’s office to help prosecute “gang members” for immigration violations.
Moreover, ICE announced that it has assigned a supervisor plus nine new agents to one specific area of Los Angeles to target suspected gang members who are undocumented. ICE now has 70 agents in Southern California targeting undocumented immigrants, compared with 9 just a few years ago.
This alliance between local law enforcement and ICE is part of the increasing attacks nationwide on undocumented workers and their families. Local law enforcement agencies in the past had refrained from inquiring about the immigration status of crime victims or suspects. This is changing rapidly.
What is taking place in L.A. is undoubtedly happening in cities across the nation. It is one more step in the capitalists’ efforts to terrorize immigrant communities.
U.S. justice system is criminal
The so-called war on gangs is a capitalist war against oppressed communities. It continues the legacy of slavery and criminalizes whole sectors of the U.S. working class.
Black and Latino young people are deemed by the capitalists to be fit for exploitation and imprisonment.
Prison is part of the repressive apparatus of the capitalist state. It serves the purpose of social and political control over oppressed, working-class people.
Prisoners lose their individual rights not only while behind bars, but often long after. For example, many states take away the right to vote for anyone convicted of a felony, and most employers require job applicants to state whether or not they have ever been convicted of a crime.
Prison ensures a source of cheap labor for the capitalists. More and more, prisoners are forced to work for pennies an hour for private contractors to produce commodities and services for the “free” capitalist market.
The United States is the world’s foremost example of a nation state that deals with its social, economic and cultural problems by mass incarceration. Prisons are the logical outcome of the country’s foundation on the genocide of Native Americans, the enslavement of Africans and the exploitation of hundreds of millions of workers worldwide.
The new “war on gangs” feeds into this racist machine. Revolutionaries can join with workers and oppressed people to combat the capitalist and all of their repressive, anti-worker tactics.
