Paper presented at "A Symposium on Gang Violence" sponsored by the California Democratic Party (Region 14), Los Angeles, CA, February 14, 1998.  Published in Psych Discourse, March, 1998.

    My topic is on the psychological costs of gang violence on the individual and the community.  There are both obvious and non-obvious psychological effects to gang violence.  If we can understand these effects, then we may derive clues to the causes of gang violence.  And if we can identify the causes of gang violence, then we may be on the correct path to writing a prescription for solving this deadly problem that plagues our community.

Obvious Psychological Effects

    I begin, then, with some of the obvious psychological effects of gang violence.

    Gang violence wounds.  Gang violence kills.  Gang violence robs both the perpetrator and the victim of their spiritual and physical integrity.  Gang violence victimizes individuals, families, and the whole community.

    This problem is best seen as one of epidemic proportions.  Whenever I speak with young people of high school age--which is fairly frequently--I often ask, "How many of you know someone who has been murdered?"  When those students are Black or Brown--from cities like this city or from communities like this community-- nearly all of them raise their hands.

    Our children are being killed and we are left to bury them and to grieve their loss.  A parent never fully recovers--psychologically--from the loss of a child.  And when that loss is violent, senseless, and random, the parents' and family's feelings of grief are compounded by a sense of rage, hopelessness and the desire for revenge.

    This epidemic of gang violence places our whole community in an "under siege" mentality.  We live in constant fear that we may be the next random victim of a drive by shooting, of a car jacking, of a burglary or armed robbery, or of a drug deal gone bad.  We are psychologically numbed to the violence around us as we hear gunshots in the night and really don't think twice about it.

    Gang violence also imperils our families and communities because gang members often spend many years -- or whole lives -- in jail and prison -- and their families and communities are robbed of their potential as bread winners were it not for their involvement in gangs and related criminal activity.  Twenty-five years to life incarcerates the man behind bars; but it also incarcerates his children and family that must struggle that much harder to survive.

    These are the obvious psychological effects of gang violence.  What are some of the non-obvious effects?

Non-Obvious Psychological Effects

    Some of the less-obvious psychological effects pertain to the gang members themselves.  Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands or even millions of our children -- our young men and women -- are entangled in the web of the gang lifestyle.  It is a lifestyle that is criminal, drug induced and dangerously violent.

    But it is a lifestyle, I imagine, that also gives these young people a sense of power.  It gives them a sense of importance, a sense of purpose.

    What a cruel irony! By engaging in illicit activity, in drug dealing, in murderous activity, our youth are finding their "place" in our society and deriving satisfactions from it.

    It is here where we may identify the causes of gang involvement and all of the horrors that that involvement engenders.  You see, gang members are gaining a sense of power in a context of extreme powerlessness.  They are gaining a sense of purpose in a context that is marked by extreme purposelessness.

    It is here, too, where we catch sight of the possible solutions to this terrible problem.

The Causes

    I want to suggest to you that gang violence is not the problem.  Gang violence is a symptom of other problems.  This is important because if all we do is focus on solving or eliminating gangs and gang violence, we will leave the underlying causes of these problems untouched and we will necessarily remain frustrated by our inability to bring peace and harmony to our families and communities.

    If young people derive power, purpose and importance through their gang involvement, we must ask, "Why do our young people feel powerless?  Why do they lack a sense of purpose?  Why do they feel unimportant?"  My time is short so I can only list a few of the answers to these questions.

    These problems derive from an ideology of White supremacy that has been translated into a variety of institutional practices that render our children educationally illiterate and unemployable.  Our institutionalized system of mis-education teaches lies, myths and distortions that our children naturally rebel against; and this mis-education is accomplished in a context where the educational resources are improperly distributed.  Our educational system--in this city and around the nation--is founded and exists according to the principle of "separate and unequal."

    The political economy is one where the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.  In fact, the rich get rich at the expense of the poor.  Industries have moved out of the city, to the suburbs and to other countries, in a desire to maximize profits while minimizing compensation.  And we, in the city, are left scrambling in an illicit economy precisely because there are no jobs available.  And there certainly are no jobs available for the functionally illiterate who have been condemned to a life of economic marginality and criminality.

    This American Apartheid is evident in schools, jobs, housing, health care and the criminal injustice system.

    We turn to violence because this country has institutionalized violence as a way of life.  This country was born in violence, and maintains its power, today, through the use of violence or the threat of violence.  What else is a B-2 Stealth Bomber for?  What use do we have for MX missiles, cruise missiles or nuclear bombs?  Our nation has shown the world that it is ready to fly-by and bomb -- in Vietnam, in Grenada, in Panama, in Iraq.  If the nation/state exercises its power through fly-bys, how can we be surprised when our youth mimic this violence and drive-by and shoot?  When the State of Texas (or Florida or California or Nevada) and the President of the United States and the Justices of the Supreme Court all say that killing the defenseless is justified -- as they did last week in the killing of Karla Faye Tucker in Texas -- who are we to tell our youth, "Thou shall not kill"?

Solutions

    So, what do we do about this?

    First, we must recognize that gang violence is a symptom of something much more fundamental that has gone awry in our social organization.  Then, we must repair that social organization.

    Again, I only have time to name these things.

    We must transform our educational system into one that loves and nurtures our children.  We must believe in the innate genius of our children and then nurture that genius into academic excellence.

    We must develop in our youth the kind of entrepreneurial spirit that doesn't "get a job," but that creates jobs.

    We must finally rid ourselves of the psychological shackles of White supremacy and love ourselves as Black and Brown people.  We must embrace a sense of unity among our people.

    We must thoroughly debunk the ideology of White supremacy so that even White people don't have to be incarcerated by a false sense of superiority.

    We must become a kinder and more gentle nation.  We must transform an economy that is dominated by the military/industrial complex into one that is dominated by a concern for the health, education and welfare of the people.  We must truly adopt the credo, In God We Trust, and promise that we will practice war no more.

    If we seek to end gang violence in our community, we must end the social conditions that give rise to gang involvement, we must end the ideologies that justify the killing of our Brothers and Sisters, and we must destroy the institutional structures that breed violence at home and abroad.

Copyright, 1998 by Halford H. Fairchild, Ph.D. and The Association of Black Psychologists