With schools closing come gang concerns

Much has been made of the potential negative consequences of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools closures and consolidations — whether they will affect students’ ability to learn or teachers’ ability to teach.

But some members of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s Gang Intelligence Unit are concerned that CMS’s recent budget cuts and school closings may have unintended consequences when it comes to juvenile gang membership.

On Tuesday, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board approved a plan to close 10 schools.

GIU members are concerned that some of those students, thrown into a new environment and needing to re-establish a sense of community, might see the “family” offered by gangs more appealing.

“You have kids trying to find a place to fit in,” said GIU Officer Luke Sell. “If they’ve just been moved to a new school where they don’t know anyone, if they’re on the fence about joining a gang, that could push them over.”

GIU’s concerns are echoed by Angela Cathcart, detective for CMS, who worries about students in elementary and middle school who are younger and more impressionable.

“If a school closes, that’s where their friends were,” Cathcart said. “They don’t know where their friends are, or if they’ll be able to go to a school with their friends anymore.”

Plus, Cathcart said, it’s not clear whether the schools adding students will also be adding police officers.  If there aren’t more officers, the higher number of students may make her job tougher, she said.

“It’s going to be awfully hard,” she said. “It’s already difficult enough to get our hands on this problem.”

CMS Board of Education chairman Eric Davis said that while the issue of security at schools affected by the closings was discussed while the closures were being considered, the issue of juvenile gang membership was not.

When it came to making decisions about school closures and consolidations, security concerns were not a driving factor, Davis said.

“The driving factor in the issue that we face is money,” he said. “The second driving factor is how to do so with the least negative impact on academic achievement.”

Upward trend

Gang membership in Charlotte has been on the rise, climbing 6.8 percent to 2,218 identified or suspected as members or affiliates as of Jan. 1 from 2,076 as of Jan. 1, 2009.

More than anything else, a desire for camaraderie is driving gang membership, the GIU says. The organized crime or drug trade typically associated with gangs isn’t a factor in Charlotte, said Mike Campagna, a GIU detective.

Members of the GIU, formed in August 2003, say Charlotte’s gangs are more about being part of a community — or a sense of belonging — rather than organized crime.

“The biggest thing that we find is that they want that sense of belonging, that place where folks expect something of me, they have expectations of me. It provides that structure, even discipline, that they need,” said Fran Cook, director of the Charlotte Gang of One prevention and intervention program.

According to data from CMPD, the number of CMPD gang arrests increased from 1,407 in 2008 to 1,453 in 2009, while the number of gang-related crimes slightly decreased, dropping 2 percent to 1,313 last year from 1,340 in 2008.

But Campagna said the numbers aren’t an accurate measure of the relationship between gangs and crime in Charlotte.

“A lot of it is just crimes committed by gang members, but there are some intangibles,” he said. “If a gang members beats up a guy who hit his sister, he’s not doing it because the gang told him to. But then there are other questions: Would he have done it if he didn’t know his gang had his back? Would he have had the confidence?”

‘More like a social group’

Campagna said the impact of gangs on crime in Charlotte is minimal.

He said that while the gangs here are more driven by a need for community, they don’t draw the boundaries found in Los Angeles. Members of different gangs in Charlotte may even get together to commit crimes, because there isn’t as much rivalry between gangs as there is in other cities, he said.

“It’s really more like a social group,” said Joel McNelly, a GIU detective. “It’s that sense of belonging.”

When it comes to getting rid of Charlotte’s gangs, Campagna said the key is to focus on prevention. Once someone’s been in a gang for a long time, they’re probably not getting out, and a gang problem isn’t something the police can “arrest away,” because there’s no law against being in a gang, he said.

Hence the unit’s work with the Gang of One program, which works on prevention, giving presentations about the dangers of gang membership and offering other after-school programs to occupy students’ time. From 2008 to 2009, the number of gang-related crimes committed by juveniles in Mecklenburg County decreased 34.8 percent from 658 to 429.

Financial future uncertain

But the Gang of One program faces an uncertain financial future.

The program has been funded primarily through grants provided as part of the federal stimulus program – $629,000 so far. But once the stimulus money dries up, Cook said she doesn’t know where funding is going to come from, though she hopes the city and county figure out a way to fund the program.

Sharon Wright, director of Race 2 Inspire, Stimulate & Educate, an after-school educational program affiliated with Gang of One that helps train students about careers in the motorsports industry, said she plans to reach out to local businesses and corporations for funding.

“I’m very concerned about what will happen when the stimulus funding is gone,” Wright said, “but I hope some of these companies will realize the benefits of the program.”

Even when it’s fully funded, Cook said she sometimes “feels like we’re swimming upstream” with the Gang of One program thanks to gang culture being glamorized in the media, a complaint that GIU members echo.

“We’re marketing this glorification of gangs, this thug life, to children,” Sell said.

Cook worries that such glorification could reach children whose families are struggling, especially with current unemployment high. If youngsters think there’s no other way to make money, they might join a gang, Cook said.

Cook said the recession has made it more difficult for the Gang of One program to help young people who are trying to get out of a gang get a job so they don’t have to rely on money they make as part of a gang. But with the unemployment rate, Cook said it’s difficult to find jobs for young people.

Caitlin Coakley can be reached at [email protected].