St. Louis CofCC Blog

Boston Globe:

Bill bars gangs from ’safety zones’

Gang members seen talking to one another or standing together on public property could be fined or jailed under a new bill being pushed in the Legislature and supported by some prosecutors and Boston police.
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The bill would give broad authority to police and prosecutors to bring civil lawsuits against reputed gangs or their members, forbidding them to hang out together in the neighborhoods and parks that police say they terrorize.

(snip)

Under the bill, suspected gang members would be barred from parks, neighborhoods, and other areas designated as “safety zones,” and police could order groups of three or more gang members found there to leave. The restriction, which would not extend to church or school events, would also impose a 10 p.m. curfew on gang members.

Good luck with that, Boston.  You’re talking about people that have trouble obeying laws against murder, robbery, drug dealing, and so on.  What makes you think they’ll cede to curfews and safety zones?  Assuming that, and assuming that gang members are that easy in a legal sense to identify (gang laws often do not hold up in court, because of the nebulous and informal nature of black and Hispanic street gangs), why stop at a 10 PM curfew and only a few “safety zones?”  Why not make a 24-hour-a-day curfew and make all of Boston a “safety zone?”  Further, why not just round them up using RICO and state equivalents?

Similarly, I cringe whenever I hear one community activist or another calling for a moratorium on violent crime for a finite length of time.  If they have that much power to stop crime for a month, why not make it forever?