ghettoside

Fabulously well-reported and well-told, compelling, frustrating and sad, important. Makes the argument that black communities are plagued not just by intrusive and unnecessarily violent policing of small crimes, but also by massive underpolicing of violent crimes. Catching and punishing criminals who commit violent assaults, goes the argument, in effect creates law and order.

The state monopoly on violence does not currently extend to many majority-black neighborhoods in big cities, and so segments of those communities police themselves, as people living outside the reach of a strong state have ever since strong states became a thing. Violent gangs are a symptom, not a cause. To end the grip that gang violence has on places like Watts and Compton, the state must decide that it cares enough about victims of that violence to aggressively pursue and imprison perpetrators of major violence. It's very hard for it to do so now because its historical indifference and underattention to major violence and heavy-handed approach to minor crimes and policing, especially of young black men, has created serious and well-founded mistrust of the criminal justice system.

It would be really interesting to explore the parallel between the quasi-tribal/familial gang system in many US cities with the tribal systems in places like southern Afghanistan.