SUBURBAN
GANGS
On the Rise And
How to Stop Them From
Forming
By Dan Korem
(Author of Suburban
Gangs-The Affluent Rebels)
First Published Dallas
Morning News, January 14, 1996
[Editorial Note: The following overview of the
suburban gang trend was first printed
in the Dallas Morning News on
January 14, 1996 and then syndicated
on the Knight-Ridder syndicate. Some points of
consideration:
1) The use of the word "terrorism" was selected
carefully as it was the opinion of the author that
new gang variants would eventually engage in random
acts of terrorism.
2) The Straight Edge
youth subculture
itself is not a gang and actually
embraces non-violent themes, sexual
abstinence and resistance to drugs
and alcohol. Nor do most Straight
Edge youths embrace neo-Nazi/skinhead
ideologies. The Salt Lake Gang noted
in the article below simply took on
the Straight Edge facade as do other
gang variants take on other facades
as noted in Chapter 11 of SUBURBAN
GANGS--THE AFFLUENT REBELS.]
For the first time in US
history, kids from affluent homes are
forming their own deadly gangs in
suburbs and upscale communities in
growing numbers. This same terrifying
trend is presenting itself straight
across Europe from England to
Switzerland to Hungary. In the late
1980s I watched gangs unnervingly
form in my own Dallas suburb as well
as countless other prosperous
communities across the US. Many
assumed that urban gangs were
expanding, but the facts were that
most affluent youths were forming
their own gangs without inner-city
gang influence. As a father, this
prompted frank discussions with our
own three kids. My response as an
independent investigative journalist
was to find out who these new gangs
were and how to stop them from
forming. In 1992, we experienced our
first drive-by shooting at our local
high school where 93% of the students
go on to college. That same year,
national surveys revealed that almost
20% of non-urban youths considered
gangs in their neighborhoods a
significant threat to their welfare.
Just a couple of months ago after one
of my son's football games, two
suburban kids associated with gangs
drew guns, pointing them at each
others head-not in a dark, blighted
neighborhood, but in front of a local
pizza parlor. Today, it's common for
50-250 gang members to reside in the
average middle- or upper-middle-class
community in both large metroplexes
and small towns. For example, in
three of the surrounding Dallas
suburbs, the stats are: Plano 150;
Richardson 100; Farmers Branch
150.Gang related homicides have
occurred in such diverse affluent
communities as Appleton, WI;
Arlington , TX, and Harrisburg, PA.
According to juvenile officers, the
affluent gang growth curve is moving
upwards with no end in sight. So who
are these kids? Virtually every youth
I interviewed in eleven countries
over the last eight years came from a
home with one of the following:
divorce, separation, physical or
sexual abuse, or one of the parents
is severely dysfunctional-with an
emphasis on severe. Mom and Dad just
having a little rough spot doesn't qualify.
Ruptured/broken homes often
act as a magnifying glass on their
rebellion, colliding with their
anguish, loneliness, frustration,
fear, etc. That these moneyed youths
go to the best schools and live in
sleepy communities resistant to other
kinds of crime doesn't seem to be a
deterrent. Their profile doesn't
excuse their crimes, but what they do
is statistically predictable. In the
mid-1980s I predicted that gangs
would appear in affluent communities
because the number of kids in
deteriorating homes from upscale
neighborhoods was skyrocketing. By
the late 1980s, the numbers of these
youths reached a critical mass, and
they found each other. Bang. Now you
have gangs. Not simply kids with a
nervy subculture edge, but those who
commit crimes. Numerous affluent gang
types and variants have appeared.
Some, like the Down for Life gang in
Minneapolis, specialize in burglary
and engage in shoot-outs. Some attach
themselves to extremist ideologies
like skinhead gangs. In my book on
suburban gangs I predicted that
leftist/anarchist gangs would
surface, similar to those in Europe.
Now they're here. What's a leftist
gang? They're like the flip-side of a
skinhead gang. In Salt Lake City kids
from up to $1,000,000 homes joined
the Straight-Edged gang, broke into
furniture stores, shredded leather
couches-protesting the use of animal
hides, and took to the streets with
clubs and chains doing combat with
other gangs. Because affluent youth
gangs are an international trend,
they are now inspiring each other
across the Atlantic through conduits
like the music subculture and the Internet. In a 1993 lecture to Swiss
police, I explained that gangs were
likely to appear in Switzerland
because of their rising divorce rate
and the appearance of specific types
of raw-edged graffiti. I returned in
1995 and gangs were a perceivable
trend. That's right, in Switzerland
which doesn't have run-down urban
communities. So what can be done? As a
lay volunteer working through a local
Dallas church, we initiated a
strategy that resulted in what is
believed to be an unprecedented
success story. Over a period of six
years we worked with over 400 acutely
at-risk youths from a neighborhood
loaded with gangs. During those six
years, not one youth joined a gang,
even though one-third of the kids had
actually seen shootings and stabbings. What did we
do? We
neutralized the Missing Protector
Factor (MPF) in each of their lives.
Simply stated the MPF is when a youth
is faced with a crisis and he/she
doesn't have an adult to call upon
for help. The MPF was first
identified by Dr. Maria Kopp, a noted
Hungarian sociologist, and when
layered on top of a shattered home is
the one skeleton key factor that
dramatically increases a youth's
vulnerability to gang recruitment. To
neutralize the MPF, we gave at-risk
youths who weren't in gangs our
personal phone numbers and committed
to be there for them, night or day,
if they called. The only
qualifications of a protector are: 1.
Ability to relate to a youth 2. Live
close to a youth and see him/her at
least once a month 3. Maintain
regular weekly phone contact.
Protectors don't have to have the
ability to solve all of a youth's
problems. Parents can't do that.
Protectors just need to be there and
try to help. No other prevention
strategy has this track record in the
US or Europe. Affluent gangs will be
with us long into the next century.
The choice is preemptive action now,
or engaging a new uncontrolled form
of terrorism in the future-the very
near future.
