plan and organize activities quickly evolved. They developed a new social ecology, ruthless
and damaging to young lives. Gangs filled the vacuum. In interview after interview those gang members willing to talk to me
expressed remarkably similar views of the world. The police, they said, were just another gang, no better than their own, but
officially sanctioned. Some said it did not matter whether they committed a crime or not, because the cops would find a way to
frame them and send them off to prison. In this, without knowing it, they had intuitively grasped the reason for William Blackstoneâs
famous observation that it is better that some who are guilty go free than even one person who is innocent be wrongly
imprisonedâso that people have reason to obey the law because it is just.
In the dead parks,
crime was rampant. A careful observer could see folded greenbacks furtively exchanged for packets of folded paper filled with
drugs. Turf wars over perceived slights brought young men brandishing guns while, for reasons we shall see later, frantic calls to
the police by park directors often went unanswered for hours, if at all. The cruel reality of this separate and unequal funding forced
many parents in Los Angeles and other cities to keep their children home, denying them part of the foundation for successful lives
as adults, denying them what Joyce Hogi so treasured in New York for her own three children.
In the elbow of the downtown Harbor Freeway ramp that heads west into the Santa Monica Freeway sits
Toberman Park, one of the deadest of the dead. Herb Price, the Toberman recreation director, sat in one of two decrepit office
chairs that wobbled constantly and seemed about to collapse, their quality on a par with his dark and unpainted office, the sunlight
obstructed by layers of dirt and the shadows from heavy metal screens. Would-be thieves had pried back the screen corners in
several places before they gave up, perhaps realizing there was nothing inside worth taking.
âWhatâs different today from the sixties is the drug problems and the gang members,â Price said. Back then
the city had money to keep kids busy. Gangs were a much smaller problem, their pool of recruits kept out of trouble by an almost
limitless supply of organized activities from softball games to making sculptures with Popsicle sticks and glue. The city also
provided jobs to college students, who enforced, however inexpertly and unevenly, boundaries on behavior. But as the budgets
were cut, healthy activity faded away, gangs rose to deadly prominence, and drugs became freely available until, Price said, âabout
once a month, I have to call the paramedics because someone ODâd.â
Price and other
recreation workers, including part-timers, were told their job duties included maintaining order, which often meant telling drug
users and gang members to leave. Few were courageous, or foolish, enough to confront gang members. But when they called the
police for help the cops often failed to show. When they did, the cops usually came in several cars, each with two officers carrying
guns and wearing Kevlar vests. âItâs dangerous here and the city wonât even talk about hazard pay,â Price observed
dryly.
At two dozen parks, groups of children gave interviews to a stranger in which they
articulated the boundaries of various gangs. There were few differences of opinion about which streets were safe to cross. Some
boys and girls said they wished they could go swimming on hot days, but they almost never did because between their homes and
the public pools lay territory too risky to cross, even with a grown-up holding their hand. All of these youngsters were familiar with
a chilly entry into the lexicon of urban lifeâthe drive-by gang shooting.
Wise as they were to
nuances of gang culture and geography, few of these children, who were mostly between 7 and 11, had been to
and damaging to young lives. Gangs filled the vacuum. In interview after interview those gang members willing to talk to me
expressed remarkably similar views of the world. The police, they said, were just another gang, no better than their own, but
officially sanctioned. Some said it did not matter whether they committed a crime or not, because the cops would find a way to
frame them and send them off to prison. In this, without knowing it, they had intuitively grasped the reason for William Blackstoneâs
famous observation that it is better that some who are guilty go free than even one person who is innocent be wrongly
imprisonedâso that people have reason to obey the law because it is just.
In the dead parks,
crime was rampant. A careful observer could see folded greenbacks furtively exchanged for packets of folded paper filled with
drugs. Turf wars over perceived slights brought young men brandishing guns while, for reasons we shall see later, frantic calls to
the police by park directors often went unanswered for hours, if at all. The cruel reality of this separate and unequal funding forced
many parents in Los Angeles and other cities to keep their children home, denying them part of the foundation for successful lives
as adults, denying them what Joyce Hogi so treasured in New York for her own three children.
In the elbow of the downtown Harbor Freeway ramp that heads west into the Santa Monica Freeway sits
Toberman Park, one of the deadest of the dead. Herb Price, the Toberman recreation director, sat in one of two decrepit office
chairs that wobbled constantly and seemed about to collapse, their quality on a par with his dark and unpainted office, the sunlight
obstructed by layers of dirt and the shadows from heavy metal screens. Would-be thieves had pried back the screen corners in
several places before they gave up, perhaps realizing there was nothing inside worth taking.
âWhatâs different today from the sixties is the drug problems and the gang members,â Price said. Back then
the city had money to keep kids busy. Gangs were a much smaller problem, their pool of recruits kept out of trouble by an almost
limitless supply of organized activities from softball games to making sculptures with Popsicle sticks and glue. The city also
provided jobs to college students, who enforced, however inexpertly and unevenly, boundaries on behavior. But as the budgets
were cut, healthy activity faded away, gangs rose to deadly prominence, and drugs became freely available until, Price said, âabout
once a month, I have to call the paramedics because someone ODâd.â
Price and other
recreation workers, including part-timers, were told their job duties included maintaining order, which often meant telling drug
users and gang members to leave. Few were courageous, or foolish, enough to confront gang members. But when they called the
police for help the cops often failed to show. When they did, the cops usually came in several cars, each with two officers carrying
guns and wearing Kevlar vests. âItâs dangerous here and the city wonât even talk about hazard pay,â Price observed
dryly.
At two dozen parks, groups of children gave interviews to a stranger in which they
articulated the boundaries of various gangs. There were few differences of opinion about which streets were safe to cross. Some
boys and girls said they wished they could go swimming on hot days, but they almost never did because between their homes and
the public pools lay territory too risky to cross, even with a grown-up holding their hand. All of these youngsters were familiar with
a chilly entry into the lexicon of urban lifeâthe drive-by gang shooting.
Wise as they were to
nuances of gang culture and geography, few of these children, who were mostly between 7 and 11, had been to
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