GANG VIOLENCE IN NEW YORK CITY

Gang Violence in New York City

Gang Violence in New York City

Successive and pronounced cycles of gang violence have been documented in New York City, reaching back well over a century. Social historian Eric Schneider has chronicled the trajectory of the serious and widespread gang problem that plagued the city from the mid-1940s through the mid-1960s, during the transformation of the city's economy from war production and manufacturing to financial and legal services, insurance, real estate development, and civil service jobs (Schneider 1999).

African American and Puerto Rican families migrating into the city faced a highly racialized labor market that systematically excluded them from well-paying job categories and racial segregation that shunted them into older housing stock located in the poorest neighborhoods. Adolescent peer groups formed within crowded city schools competed outside of school with hostile ethnic groups for recreational space along neighborhood borderlines.

As neighborhood rivalries spread, the schools themselves became contested territory between competing groups of cynical youngsters of color who were well aware of the class, racial, and ethnic barriers that stood between them and opportunities for good jobs in the future. Dropping out of school only stiffened the barriers they faced, trapping them within the city's secondary labor market, where discrimination and exploitation rendered employment an episodic experience at best.

War veterans returning to the city introduced emerging street-corner-fighting groups of disaffected youths to more violent tactics and more sophisticated weaponry. The rate of youths killing youths increased markedly as a result. In 1947 the recognition that gang violence was a serious problem led to establishment of the New York City Youth Board (Gang Identifier, 2009.

Youth Board funding became available to support gang intervention projects operated by private social welfare agencies. The Youth Board placed street-level gang workers (termed "detached workers" because they worked entirely outside of traditional social service program offices) in central Harlem, in the Tompkins Park area in Brooklyn, and in the South Bronx neighborhood of Morrisania to intervene whenever violence flared between neighborhood youth gangs.

Schneider recounts how street workers sought to establish relationships with youths they perceived to be gang leaders and tried to deflect gang members from fighting. They organized athletic programs at neighborhood recreation centers, offering advice supplemented with field trips to amusement parks, beaches, and camp sites. They provided resources for organizing neighborhood social events, block parties, and "hall dances." Their most highly valued service by far was intended to draw individual gang members away from gang activities by locating job opportunities for them.

By 1955 the Youth Board was deploying 40 street gang workers in troubled neighborhoods across the city.

Ten years later the number had swelled to 150. While gang members were initially suspicious of street workers, they were also status-conscious-well aware that an officially assigned street worker enhanced a gang's prestige by underscoring its reputation as a dangerous group. Mediation sessions engineered by street workers between hostile gangs dampened violent confrontations, but they also provided a level of recognition approaching celebrity for certain gang ...