Welcome to another post on gang issues in education. But before I begin this post, I’d like to mention that over the weekend I was able to attend the Border Book Festival here in Las Cruces. And I had the opportunity to meet Luis J. Rodriguez, who happens to be the author of the book; Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A., as well as other wonderful literary works. And I can only say that he has a vast wealth of knowledge as far as street gang life goes. But not only is he a great author he is also one of the nicest people you can meet.
In case you haven’t read his story let me fill you in on the jest of it. He was a gang member who was able to rise above street life through writing and is now active with at-risk youth to help them avoid his fate. Sadly, his son followed in his footsteps and is now serving a prison term.
So if you want a first hand account of what gang life is like and how it affects the family, check out his book, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed. However, I found it unusual that our paths have crossed, because he writes about gang life looking out and I write about it looking in. I guess if you look hard enough one can see the irony in our meeting.
Any way in this post I want to address a question that was asked by one of my readers. I sent him a response to the question, then it occurred to me that the information he was requesting is something all my readers should probably know about.
The question posed was, how early should intervention begin on a child who is either in a gang or contemplating joining one?
I believe that to answer this question one must know at exactly what point in time did the child start to exhibit the signs of gang membership. But more importantly, did anyone notice the change and how was it handled, by first the parents of the child and eventually the school?
This is where the answer can become muddled because all the factors that go with gang membership must be understood by all parties involved with the child. If one does not know what signs to look for, then the chances of getting to them early becomes more difficult to achieve. The sad fact is that the longer they stay in a gang the harder it is for them to leave even when presented with other options.
So the first answer to the question is that intervention should begin as soon as someone knowledgeable on gang practices notices the changes in the child. The second point is that intervention must be quickly initiated, to at least give the child a chance to at least contemplate other alternatives.
Some of these interventions might include sending the child to a family member in another part of the state or country, to after school community programs geared specifically towards at-risk students. The problem with the moving strategy is that there is nothing to stop the child from claiming affiliation if moved to a new location.
And these are not the only alternatives that can be used for intervention, because there are many others that can be implemented that are extremly beneficial to the child, such as mentoring programs. But the bottom line is every strategy available must be used to help a child from getting into a gang, or helping them get out of the gang. Because the earlier one intervenes on the child’s behalf the better the chances of removing them from the situation.
But regardless of what kind of intervention is imposed the parents have to be fully involved with their child, which I understand is difficult, because many parents are often forced to choose between work and family. Sadly, most of the time family time suffers because work is needed to sustain life. And in these difficult economic times two jobs are not uncommon to make ends meet.
So I can see where it becomes difficult to raise a child, but if they are contemplating joining a gang everything else should become secondary until the child is out of the gang. Because the only thing accomplished by gang membership, is it breaks the family apart and the possibility of death or prison life becomes very real for them.
Even though the community and the schools can take a proactive role in helping the child out of gangs, the parents also have to buy into everything being offered. If they turn a blind eye to the situation then the battle is lost before it is even begun. Everyone has to buy into the solution for anything to be effective. So in nutshell this was my response to him, but obviously I did go into more detail in my letter, and I gave him more information than I could give you in a posting.
So, for a more detailed view on this or other issues you can purchase a copy of my book by sending $19.95 plus $4.00 S&H, to Gilbert R. Cabrera, P.O. Box 13591, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88013. Or just go to my website and order using Pay Pal.
Please feel free to contact me at: cabgil@aol.com, and I will try to answer your questions promptly.
Thanks and come again for another post on gang issues in education.
Gilbert R. Cabrera