March 3, 2011
UPDATE: More than 55 organizations from around the state have now come out against HB 1126, the Gang Bill (see updated list below).
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February 7, 2011
Op-ed for The Stranger by the ACLU of Washington
Why Do So Many Groups Oppose the AG’s Gang Bill?
This past Thursday, 25 community-based groups sent a strongly worded letter opposing Attorney General Rob McKenna’s gang bill (HB 1126), saying it wouldn’t reduce crime and would lead to profiling in communities of color. So far, a total of 50 groups from across Washington—representing people of color, civil rights, labor, bar associations, service organizations, and faith communities—have come out against the proposed legislation.
Why do so many organizations oppose this bill?
The answer is simple. While nobody wants gang violence in our communities, the evidence overwhelmingly shows we can’t arrest our way out of the problem—and when we try, we end up making the problem worse. Our prisons and jails are overflowing incubators for criminals, our education and service budgets have shriveled, our constitutional rights are shortchanged, and our communities are less safe—in part due to just such misguided efforts to fight crime with ever-larger incarceration hammers.
HB 1126 falls squarely into that category. We urge everyone to read the bill to appreciate what it truly is—a 51-page compendium of failed suppression tactics that ignores the one proven way to tackle gang crime. That way is to provide prevention and intervention services to youth who are still reachable, rather than put them in prison.
But instead, the bill’s centerpiece creates a new way to jail youth—civil injunctions, which are court orders issued against youth who law enforcement believe to be gang members. This could be based, among other things, on how youth dress and with whom they associate. Targeted youth—who are likely to be overwhelmingly low-income—are not provided a lawyer to show they should not be the targets of an injunction. So in the real world, it will be nearly impossible for them to counter law enforcement’s assertions before a judge.
And yes, the bill does indeed allow that judge to issue an injunction against youth who have committed no crime at all—in fact, the bill’s proponents have strongly resisted including conviction of a crime as a requirement for an injunction to issue. Once that happens, a young person may be banned from an area and could be charged with new crime just for returning there. This backwards approach cuts off youth from the resources—family, jobs, sports, and school—they need to stay out of gang life. And they can be sent to adult prison, where they meet hardcore gang members or may join a gang for their own protection.
Groups that work with youth of color recognize this approach is a recipe for profiling. The Stop Racial Profiling Coalition said in their letter to legislators, “In a state where the education system is failing our students of color AND where youth of color are two or three times more likely than white youth to be placed in a confinement facility, this type of racially charged punitive approach will only railroad our kids into the prison system.” These groups should know—for many of their members, profiling is not just a theory but a matter of personal experience.
As the Latina/o Bar Assn. of Washington and the Loren Miller Bar Assn. pointed out in their joint letter opposing the bill, the real answer “is not to enact laws defining more crimes that target vulnerable youth … The only viable long-term solution to gang activity is to target the leaders of gangs (suppression), while providing alternatives (intervention and prevention) to at-risk youth so that they do not fall prey to these ‘kingpins’ of violence.”
They’re right. It’s time to follow their wise counsel and adopt a smarter approach, not the same criminalization tactics that perpetuate the cycle of gang violence rather than addressing it at the root. Suppression tactics should target violent criminals, not vulnerable youth. And our legislature should reject the Attorney General’s suppression-only gang bill and instead support the community groups that are doing the hard work of prevention and intervention. It’s their work, after all, that will get youth out of gangs and make safer communities for us all.
Organizations in opposition to the Attorney General’s Gang Bill
(as of March 3, 2011)
1. ACLU of Washington (Statewide)
2. Aliansa Student Coalition (Statewide)
3 .Amigas Unidas (Yakima Valley)
4. A. Philip Randolph Institute (King County)
5. Asian Counseling & Referral Service (King County)
6. Asia Pacific Cultural Center (Pierce County)
7. Asian Pacific Islander Coalition of King County
8. Asian Pacific Islander Coalition of Pierce County
9. Building the Bridges (Pierce County)
10. Center for Justice (Spokane)
11. Central Washington Progress (Yakima County)
12. Children's Alliance (Statewide)
13. Community to Community (Whatcom County)
14. Council on American-Islamic Relations – Washington Chapter (Statewide)
15. El Centro de la Raza (King County)
16. El Comite (King County)
17. Entre Hermanos
18. Fab-5 (Pierce County)
19. Filipino Community of Seattle
20. First Place School (King County)
21. FirstThursday
22. FUSE Washington (Statewide)
23. Japanese American Citizens League - Seattle Chapter
24. Latina/o Bar Association of Washington
25. Latino Civic Alliance (Statewide)
26. Latino Community Fund (Statewide)
27. Legal Voice (Statewide)
28. Loren Miller Bar Association of Washington
29. Lutheran Public Policy Office of Washington (Statewide)
30. Merci Foundation (Renton)
31. Minority Executive Directors Coalition (King County)
32. Mothers for Police Accountability (King County)
33. Mujeres Fuertes
34. Mujeres of the Northwest (Statewide)
35. NAACP-Seattle/King County
36. Nonprofit Assistance Center (King County)
37. Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (Statewide)
38. Northwest Leadership Foundation (Pierce County)
39. OneAmerica (Statewide)
40. People Advocating Involvement in Democracy (South King County)
41. Powerful Voices (King County)
42. Project HOPE Spokane
43. The Conversation (Pierce County)
44. Tierra Nueva (Skagit County)
45. SafeFutures Youth Center (Seattle)
46. Sea Mar Community Health Centers (Statewide)
47. SEIU Healthcare 775NW (King County)
48. SEIU Local 925 (King County)
49. Social Work Immigration Alliance (Seattle)
50. Southwest Youth and Family Services (Seattle)
51. Statewide Poverty Action Network (Statewide)
52. United for Peace of Pierce County (Pierce County)
53. Washington Association of Churches (Statewide)
54. Washington Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys (Statewide)
55. Washington Christian Leaders Coalition (Statewide)
56. Washington Community Action Network (Statewide)
57. Washington Defender Association (Statewide)
