"We have to strive for the redemption of all our kids. What have you done today?"

"An interesting article."

"Some people can change. Read what Arkansas Boys State saw."

Are you watching your kid's habits on the net?

Interesting Article from MA

Updated Skate Park Info

More Skate Park Info

Butterflies Soar in My Book

Dreams end up in Dreamland plans-- A skate park comes to life in North Little Rock

Back to Boxing- An intervention dream...

Here's Romine Video's Website Link. Scott Romine is a talented film-maker from my Hometown of North Little Rock. And, he is quite the epitome of "redneck"! Not that there's anything wrong with that. Just kidding of course, he is a good guy, and check out the old General Lee he is working on.

Articles from the Sawyer County Record about my trip to Wisconsin

A national column by Tribune Media Services Columnist, Deborah Mathis

Here is a five-year old article from my hometown weekly newspaper. Most of the information is still timely. One difference today is that many schools allow students to carry pagers and cell phones (in the off position) since emergency situations in schools have shown communication to be very important…not to mention dad and mom like the ability to reach out--

As our foreign policies draw accusations of imperialism abroad, at home, we may be fiddling while our cities prepare to burn: President Bush is asking for $87 billion to rebuild Iraq while in Los Angeles, children are being shot as they await school buses. The problem isn't localized to L.A., either. Around the country, violent crime is inching toward numbers unseen in America since the late 1980's and early 1990's, or the "decade of slaughter", as I've sometimes called it.

During those years, in Arkansas, I served as coroner to the Little Rock metro area. The job brought me close to the carnage of gang life on a daily basis. Eventually, the sheer emotional toll of dealing with families of dead children drove me to resign. If only to get some kind of closure, I wanted to use what I'd learned in studying death to help the living. This desire led me on an eight-year journey to over 35 states around the country, researching and teaching about the causes and commonalities of juvenile violent crime. I spoke what I knew, having earned a hard-knocks-and-heartache degree on the bloody streets of my hometown, where a soon-to-be President of the United States also lived.

While governor of Arkansas, President Clinton resided with his family in the Arkansas governor's mansion, located squarely between Little Rock's Blood and Crip gang territories. Members of the Clintons' protection staff still recall hearing the gunshots at all hours of the night and day. This is actually how then-Governor Clinton, local folklore holds, came to understand that it takes more than just expanding police forces and building bigger jails to effectively fight crime. Amid the rush to fund operations in the Middle East today however, the Bush administration and both sides of Congress seem to have forgotten this vital societal lesson.

The upsurge in gang and juvenile violence we're facing has multiple causes, but revoking funding for intervention and prevention programs may be the single most deeply-rooted. Granted, military operations do cost money, but in the process of turning America upside down to shake out $87 billion (in the absence of a tax hike), lawmakers are increasingly drawn toward cannibalizing crucial preventative programs' funding. Most Americans understand why responding compassionately towards Africa's AIDS epidemic is as strategically important in the long run as it is a moral imperative. At the same time, we've developed amnesia when it comes to the long-range necessity of maintaining (and now, increasing funds for) anti crime community programs for our youth. This is as dangerous and short-sighted a mistake as it is tragic.

As I write, police and preventative outreach program budgets around the US are as strapped as I've seen them in nearly 30 years of public service. It's important to help Iraq, but we must keep in mind that local forms of terrorism are being wreaked upon citizens within the United States every day. This is symptomatic of the fact that members of the 5-H Club, as I call them, are on the rise: Increasing numbers of kids and adults are helpless, hopeless, homeless, hungry, and hug-less. Hungry and hopeless people are especially dangerous.

Most of us can do that math: We need zero-tolerance policies to make it clear that those who won't help themselves and insist on harming others will go to prison. At the same time, providing a safety net for at-risk teens (whom violent gangs have the easiest time recruiting), through intervention and prevention, saves lives. Conservatives and liberals should also appreciate that preventative measures not only make our streets safer - they avoid incarceration costs.

While our leaders cogitate and debate the problem, they should study closely what a 6 year old Brooklyn, N.Y. child named Fabian said about all the violence-"We can't fight if we hold hands." Out of the mouths of babes…

Grafitti and violence...

Grafitti can make people nervous, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water, just deal with it.

Does music lead to violence?

From Crime King to Mentor...you decide...

Great insight from the inside...

No longer just a city problem...

Do you know a bully?

Fraternity or Gang, you decide...

Here is the link to the National Gang Crime Research Center in Chicago. This is a great resource site from a great group of people.

From Binghamton, NY. For those of you that know me, I've never used the term 'wannabees'.

THIS INFORMATION MAY BE USED IN REPORTS AND TERM PAPERS IF THE WEBSITE IS USED AS THE SOURCE. MORE HISTORICAL INFORMATION ON OTHER GANGS (FOLK, PEOPLE, MEXICAN MAFIA, ETC.) WILL APPEAR AT A LATER TIME.

In the late 60s and early 70s the blood gang was born in the Compton area of Los Angeles. It is believed the original blood gang members and founders were Sylvester Scott and Vincent Owens. Activity was heaviest around Centennial High School and the Nickerson Gardens area. The bloods adopted the color red and would wear red bandanas known as "doo rags". It is believed the word "blood" was adopted from black soldiers who called each other "blood" while in Vietnam. The Bloods are outnumbered about seven to one by the Crips in the LA area. In the early years, Bloods would never be caught fighting with other Bloods, but that has changed. Bloods are also known as PIRUS, which is the name of the street where the original Blood groups formed. Bloods/Pirus have a reputation of being much more violent than Crips.

Also originating in the late 60s and early 70s, the Crips are believed to have been formed by Raymond Washington and Stanley "Tookie" Williams in Compton. The CRIPS ruled the area around the Imperial Courts Housing Project. There are wildly speculative stories about how the word "Crips" came about. One is that Washington named them after the "tales of the crypt" misspelling the name. Another is that one of the first groups of people this gang jumped on was a group of Asians. Since the gang wielded walking canes in the attack, when many of the non-English speaking victims tried to describe who had jumped them, it is thought the were trying to say the word, "cripple" due to the presence of the walking sticks. A reporter supposedly overheard this and tagged the group with the name-Crips. One Crip in jail for murder who I interviewed told me that Crip actually stood for: Crazy Real Insane People. Another Crip told me it meant: Criminal Riot In Progress and originated during the riots in Watts in the 60s. Another story is that the word CRIP stands for Community Revolution in Progress. All of these are colorful beginnings to a deadly killing pod of children today. Regardless, the Black Panthers of the era had a heavy influence on these groups but unlike the Panthers, these groups of gangs battled fiercely over turf issues.

The CRIPS began wearing blue bandannas. The origin of the color may be as simple as the fact that blue was the local school, Washington High, color. Bear in mind also, that in the 60s, bandanas only came in two colors, red and blue. However, over the years, the actual origin of many Crip and Blood traditions has blurred.

It doesn't matter that the history is muddled, it only matters that many kids today have adopted a gangster lifestyle based on faulty or misunderstood information. Many groups today have no real ties or connections to any "hardcore" gangsters but it doesn't mean they are any less dangerous. There are generally three ways a gang presence begins in a community. Recruiters come to town looking for more "slingers, servers or sackers" as drug dealers are known. These persons will allege strong gang ties and many times will begin teaching youngsters "gang knowledge" in order to pull them into the activities of the group. Initiation rituals vary, but are almost always present along with the ceremonial "branding" or tattooing of neophytes. In my experience on the streets of Little Rock, I frequently ran into these recruiters and oddly enough, often they were seen in both Blood and Crip territories making me believe they were more loyal to the "green" of drug sales than the color of their gang.

It doesn't always take recruiters to bring a gang to your town either. Suppose you live in a nice community with great schools and you have a sister in a large city who has a teen-aged son or daughter who appears to be in some sort of trouble. Soon you have agreed to take your nephew or niece in so they can attend a good school and get away from the "bad kids" who are the "actual cause of Junior's problem." I have run into lots of parents who are in denial and think it's really "everyone else's problem, not ours." So all of a sudden, this transplanted teen brings what little they knew of gangs with them, and to impress their new classmates, they assume a "gangsta" persona, which suddenly creates a whole new dynamic in your idyllic little community. And, of course, there are the teen-aged mutant gangsters. Those with absolutely not one iota of real gang experience but perhaps their entire knowledge is based on movies or music. Many times these persons are labeled as "wannabes" which to me is a dangerous downplay of a potentially deadly problem. I prefer to call them "gonnabes."

Often, on the street, gangs with no definite gang connections are known as "busters" or "perpetrators" meaning they are falsely "flying the colors" of the group. It is important to keep in mind that many times, these "gonnabe" gang members are more dangerous than actual Crips or Bloods who are kept in check by powerful "shot-callers" or OGs (original gangsters).

Gangs today are going "quiet" as it is known on the streets. Many law enforcement officers across the country are making comparisons of the contemporary street gangs to the Mafia. Gangs and gang leaders are making investments in legitimate businesses in many places and seem to be gravitating away from drug sales. It is not known how long this trend will continue.

In many rural and suburban areas, young people are adopting gang style dynamics and imitating the better known Crips and Bloods and the Midwest area People and Folk "nations". In a small eastern Tennessee community, I came across a group calling themselves the "Northside Red-neck Whiteboys". They used the rebel battle flag as their moniker and required prospective members to be "jumped" in and do a house burglary in order to claim membership. It seems it is no longer a requirement to come from the inner-city ghettos to claim gang allegiance.

At any rate, what used to be a Los Angeles problem long ago made its way to middle class suburbia. This trend will continue until communities recognize they must compete with gangs to beat gangs. This means understanding a need to balance strong law enforcement tactics with equally as strong, and funded, intervention and prevention programs.

Over the last several years, due to a combination of factors, the juvenile crime rate appears to be dropping. Occasionally there is a spree-killing that skews the numbers, but generally, there does appear to be a drop in many places. This can be attributed to a number of factors such as increased law enforcement and corrections resources as well as strong intervention and prevention efforts. News reports from around the nation seem to be showing an upswing, however, in homicides in some cities, the most notable of which is Los Angeles. Little Rock's homicide rate this year (2002) is already ahead of 1995 which was a particularly bad year for youthful killings.

As I am writing this, the stock market is as low as I can remember in five years and unemployment is inching upward. In Arkansas recently, Southwestern Bell laid off over 1700 people. The prisons are full, the city and county jails are bulging and President Bush is proposing an aggressive and costly war in the Middle East.

With all of that said where is the money to pay for these things going to come from? More taxes? "No Way!" scream American citizens. It only makes sense that lawmakers will begin foraging through intervention and prevention money like a cow loose on a summer lawn. And this, my friends, is a horrible mistake that will help blood flow in the streets of our neighborhoods.

From the Home News Tribune.

"A moving account of why you must not keep a secret--"

From Teen People.