Preventing gang violence in San Diego

Half of the world’s population – 3 billion people – lives in urban areas, and we are witnessing a transformation in how cities organize to prevent community and gang violence. Police departments have acknowledged that “we can’t arrest our way” to peaceful communities. And in fact the most dramatic declines in violence are found in cities like Minneapolis, Chicago – and, yes, San Diego – that have launched neighborhood-level strategies to prevent violence, supported by state and federal funding. Today, the San Diego Summit on Gang Prevention and Intervention celebrates the urban resilience of San Diego. The summit will bring together 350 of our city and county policymakers, community and school-based leaders and organizations, law enforcement and community members. We will share information about strategies to prevent the growth of gang activity and violence in San Diego County neighborhoods and expand our efforts regionally through strategic planning sessions led by North County, city of San Diego communities (Mira Mesa, Linda Vista, Southeast, Mid-City) and East County.

The parallels between strategies for building peace in international conflict zones and those for preventing community violence in U.S. cities are striking. Cities like Los Angeles, Detroit and Philadelphia are using peacekeepers to monitor street-level security conditions; peacemakers to mediate and broker cease-fires between rival gangs; early warning and response teams that prevent triggering incidents from escalating into shootouts; and long-term (collaborative) peacebuilding programs coordinated between law enforcement, the private sector and community leaders that offer real incentives (job training and placement, life skills training) and disincentives (close monitoring, harsh sanctions for violent behavior) that encourage gang members to adopt pro-social, nonviolent behavior and transition out of the gang lifestyle.

To understand why street-level strategies work so well, we must understand that local communities are more than territorial or geographical spaces occupied by people. Instead, we must think of them as places where people live, work and address social problems. In other words, community is not urban space – it is what we do within that space. For the last decade, San Diego communities have been doing things that prevent their young people from taking up arms against each other or becoming unwitting victims to the armed groups in their midst. A smattering of these projects: police, service providers and faith leaders come together for twice-monthly collaborative curfew sweeps at Mountain View, Southcrest and Memorial; parents join arms for the Safe Passage Program at Montgomery and Mann Middle Schools to keep gangs from harassing children on their way to school; Project Safeway monitors 15 corners in southeastern San Diego to keep them free of violence; and Hire A Youth summer program gave jobs to 3,000 youths countywide.

The success of these programs is unequivocal. Violence is not inevitable. Instead, interpersonal relationships and ability to organize – across faith, ethnic or racial divides – makes neighborhoods resilient to violence. What does resilience look like? Parents joining hands across racial lines, faith leaders across religious boundaries, police officers alongside former gang members – each with a shared interest and a common goal. San Diego belongs to the 13 Cities Gang Prevention Network, the first of its kind in the nation, which focuses on California cities’ efforts to bring prevention, intervention and enforcement together to combat gang violence and victimization.

Throughout this county, there are many unsung heroes working tirelessly to provide education, mentoring, tutoring, sports and recreation, and many other prevention/intervention services for our young people. Law enforcement personnel are heroes as well, putting their lives on the line to suppress gang activity and the crimes connected to it.

Many of these people will come together at the University of San Diego today to share information and inspiration with each other and hopefully to learn and move forward in their great work a little stronger than before.