Ban da Gangs and other myths

Caution against gang ban
Gangs will go underground if New Zealand introduces laws banning them, a Canterbury gang researcher says. Prime Minister Helen Clark and Corrections Minister Phil Goff said yesterday they would consider banning gangs if a new law doing this in South Australia proved successful.
Under the South Australian law:
A gang can be designated illegal on the advice of police.
Control orders can be made against individual members, making it illegal for them to associate with other members.
Police can ban gangs from public places or events through control orders.
Breaching the ban can lead to up to five years jail.
Canterbury University academic Jarrod Gilbert said implementing the law would be difficult, and "legal tussles" would arise over how the organised criminal groups would be defined. "The crux of the argument is whether these groups are made up of criminals, or whether or not they are criminal groups," he said. "So, within these groups, do individuals commit crimes or do they work together to commit crimes? "To prove that would be incredibly difficult. "It is very easy to enact law, but it doesn't necessarily mean the law will be workable. I think those people who are excited and think this is the easy sort of route to rid us of certain problems will most probably be disappointed.

Banning gangs will not work, you know it, I know it, the bloody Government knows it but with the election in less than 8 weeks Phil wants to beef up his raw meat cred and comes out swinging with this U-turn on banning gangs. If you want to target organized crime, we should use the old SFO to do it, not the ridiculous version the Police are cannibalizing the SFO for. Attacking the financial structures of gangs under the old SFO would cripple organized crime financially not allowing them to amass capital to grow, but the complex reasons alienated people bond to gangs for can’t be solved by throwing them all in prison. Let’s put aside the multiple human rights issues for a second, especially as most NZers on this issue snarl when you mention human rights and gangs in the same sentence, but can any of us imagine the horror we will have if every single gang member was put in prison? Just think about what those ramifications would bring, we struggle to keep control of gangs in our prison system at the moment, what if we suddenly flooded that over stretched prison service with an estimated 10 000 gang members? We can’t allow naked hatred of da gangs to warp public policy with consequences that are entirely predictable.