Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
Thinking about the nasty situations described by you and Ted, organizing the community against the gangs (assuming they have effective control) would seem more akin to being an insugent with external support and sanctuary areas (the police and the "safe areas").
Word. True dat.

First of all, thank you for your comments and emails. I've yet to commit emotionally or physically to this problem. I suppose that I'm conducting an assessment. Several LG and LE officials came to us for some help. I'm trying to determine the parameters of how I can and want to help. As I began researching, I was struck by the similarities I saw from my own combat experiences. It is quite plausible I was simply naive and oblivious prior to actually fighting to win the nations wars...Regardless, I was intrigued by this perceived gang-problem, and I'm trying to consider how to help if I choose to...Moreover, I thought this particular case-study would be a good discussion point for SWJ.

I'll start with Bill's comments:

Counterinsurgency students would tell you to focus on local solutions, and of course the police have attempted to do that with neighborhood watches, increasing ethnic diversity in their forces, etc.
I'm gonna have to disgree with you on this...I don't see a gang problem with a local solution. From my initial research, I believe the gang issues are simply symptoms of the larger social, economic, and political problems.

As Slap suggested,
LE can not solve the gang problem....they can surpress it, but they can not solve it.
I recall reading (Galula in the 1962 Rand Symposium?) that the proverbial change must be simultaneously bottom-up and top-down.

Anyways, I've gotta give some more thought to the other comments, but I thought we could start there. As with my adapted Kilcullen quote, I think that Salinas is more akin to Afghanistan than Iraq. Regardless, it is something that we will eventually have to deal with.

Again, I'd like to thank y'all for your thoughts and comments...

Keep em coming....We may all learn something

v/r

Mike