Helping Worcester or Prison Industrial Complex?

How Is This Gang Plan Going To Be Different?

It was announced this week at the Worcester Boys and Girls Club that Worcester will have a new gang control initiative. There will be nearly one million dollars spent on this program.

My first impression was a question about how would this program be different. There were almost no details about the program.  It is clear that for the first year that no money would go to the families directly affected by the gangs, no after school, no tutoring, and no jobs.

The first year money would go to get the “input “of the community, about one third of the money will go to academic doing research. The police will have special patrols; another third of the money will likely go to the cops. Then there are the administrator and coordinators who will get their fair share.

My second thought when reading the article about this gang control policy was that it was another element in the Prison Industrial Complex. There was no obvious plan to divert people away from the gang culture. And prison.

The third thing that came to mind was that groups like EPOCA and MOSAIC which work with ex prisoners will probably not get a cent of this money. The groups who have mentors and after school programs such as Dynamy would probably get not a cent.

Some people I have talked with indicated that Springfield tried something similar. That money had strings attached that led to what some perceived as oppressive police procedures.

However I will keep an open mind and see what happens in three years. It is likely that this new program will be like “Worcester Fighting Back” which wasted five million dollars and there was no substantive change.

The people who are trying to mitigate gang related problems should be applauded for trying. I hope that I am wrong and some good goes to those negatively affected by the bad aspects of the society in which we live.