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On Gangs and Proposals

As Isaac wrote, it almost never hurts to claim gang activity in a proposed service area (“[. . . f]ind and call the police unit responsible for gang suppression in your target area, then ask leading questions. Invariably, the officer will tell horror stories about rampant gang activity.”). Now, by way of Freakonomics, I found an L.A. Weekly article on the subject:

Eventually, James started talking. He told me he’d started gangbanging when he was 12. “I got shot when I was 15, and that’s when it got bad,” he said softly. “I got extreme after I got shot.” James started teaching youngsters from Nickerson how to gangbang. Using rival gangbangers for practice, he taught his students how to hunt and kill. “You teach a person how not to take losses, how to be gladiators, run them down, gun them down,” he explained.

James wasn’t remorseful, but he was far from proud. In truth, he seemed numb; his life of crime and death hung about him in a static haze. There is a personal demilitarized zone in the advanced lives of former hardcore gang members, should they survive their 20s, where they live as neither soldier nor citizen. James said he struggles to keep a gun out of his own hands every day, but that in January he was tempted to join the battle with the Grape Street Crips after a young Bounty Hunter he knew was killed.

Steven Levitt of the Freakonomics Blog says he can’t agree with the article’s conclusion about increasing violence:

Landesman argues that the gang problem is worse than it has ever been, and that gang violence hasn’t dropped the way other crimes have. A quick glance at the homicide rates among young black males over the last 15 years shows that this statement just can’t be accurate. The biggest declines in homicide have been among young black males, both in absolute and percentage terms.

What Levitt doesn’t address is the possibility that gangs are getting worse in Los Angeles, which is the area covered by the article, even if the situation is improving nationwide. Judging from articles like “The Story of a Snitch” in The Atlantic, which covers Baltimore, I wouldn’t be surprised if gang problems are changing rather than abating. Or maybe programs like G.R.E.A.T. are having some effect, as The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) argues. This seems improbable but possible, and I don’t know of anyone who has examined the methodology of the NIJ’s study.

The preceding paragraph again goes back to Writing Needs Assessments: How to Make It Seem Like the End of the World by demonstrating how statistics can be attacked and why you shouldn’t necessarily trust conclusions found in the popular press or elsewhere. They can be changed and challenged in an actual proposal. If you’re writing one, you usually have an incentive to make the area or situation appear as bad as possible so you can remedy problems through your project.

Consequently, when writing about a target area, you’re better off claiming gang activity, since most reviewers aren’t going to be aware of gang trends nationwide, and even if they are, you can announce that gang activity in your area is rising, as the L.A. Weekly reviewer did. You could also cite Levitt, as I do, and then attack his reasoning.

As with most things about grant writing, there are some local aspects Levitt doesn’t know about, and in this case it’s something everyone in South Central does: Nickerson Gardens, a public housing development, is among the worst areas around. Here’s one example of its history: “The Nickerson Gardens is considered by many as the most violent, drug infested, crime riddled neighborhood in the country.” It’s a very scary place and, ironically, there’s a street running through called “Success,” which reminds me of Soviet propaganda about worker achievement and happiness.

Success Ave

(Click to here to see the full image.)

When I talked to Isaac about this article, he immediately said that he bet that the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA), which owns Nickerson, hasn’t tried to use the HUD HOPE VI program to revitalize Nickerson. He was right, and HOPE VI also hasn’t been attempted at the other three public housing projects in Watts: Jordan Downs, Imperial Courts, and Avalon Gardens. Nickerson was also right in the middle of the civil disturbances in Watts in 1965 and the Rodney King incident in 1992, and 15 years later it remains a place of hopelessness and gang activity. Despite the street name, there is little success in Nickerson.

This is the kind of revisionist information you could include in a needs assessment about the area. The stories embedded would add flavor and help counteract what Levitt writes, so even if the reviewer happens to know a lot about gang activity, which is improbable, he or she would still award you points for need.


EDIT: This post covers similar territory.

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