Murder Capital Of The World

[gobbledonk]

a negligent use of one's mother tongue! luckily in USA everybody speaks english as a foreign language so they are excused!

 

Just refresh my memory, HT - what is YOUR mother tongue ? I swear Ms CP knew more English when I met her than she did 3 years later, and there are times when your posts bear a distinct resemblance to her emails. Does wonders for my paranoia.

[Horneytorney]

i dream in 4 languages, Gobbie, but I am not fluent in any of them

[Steve]

The Salvadorean youth gangs in America are very very victious. There is a large Salvadorean population in and around Washington DC and they have a huge reputation.

 

In California they don't get along with Mexicans. I dated a Salvadorean chick once. Her family didn't like her dating a black guy but Mexicans were an absolute no under no circumstances. The girl didn't like Mexicans anyway.

 

The street gangs started out as an extension of the adult groups from El Salvador.

 

Bottom line is though whether its Salvador, Cuidad, Lagos or Philly you can get killed pretty easily in some cities. The stats are pretty much inconsequential.

[gobbledonk]

CS, I saw a doco on one of the hardcore US jails recently, and it highlighted just how entrenched the gangs are in the US. They focussed on two main groups - the white supremacists and the blacks in this huge 'dormitory in a gym' - overcrowding in the main jail had forced authorities to put them all in this gym without the protection of cell doors etc.

 

There were 4 main groups in the gyms - Southern Mexicans, Northern Mexicans, blacks and whites, the Mexicans outnumbering the whites and blacks by about 4 to 1. The fear in the black and white groups was palpable, but it was the dynamic within each of these two groups that was more interesting than the threat they faced from the Mexicans (who point blank told the doco team to piss off).

 

The whites had a guy who wasnt a supremacist but realised that he stood no chance without them, and he had to try to fit in with his extreme 'brotherhood'. The blacks were an interesting bunch - Bloods and Crips thrown together with a common interest in surviving long enough to get out and resume trying to kill one another. Everyone feared one of the Mexican groups more than anyone else - I think it was the Southern Mexicans - as they attacked without warning and were the most violent.

 

In both the black and white groups, there was a clear Alpha male and in each case he projected the 'fuck with us and you'll regret it' machismo that you would expect from a guy like that, but I was surprised by how candid they were with the crew re their survival prospects. What they didnt tolerate was anything less than the same hardcore attitude from the others in the group, and it ended with a white guy and a black guy being removed from the gym and put in solitary for their own protection. The solitary cells also held the heads of each of the gangs in the gym - the ultra-Alpha males - they claimed they could get orders to the gym anytime they wanted someone taken out or simply 'sent a message'. I didnt see anything that resembled an attempt to break the gangbanger cycle - these seemed to be the worst of the worst and I wondered how the hell anything would change when these guys were put back on the street.

 

Nothing will change until we start addressing the root cause of the problem - poverty. Given that we've failed at that for over 2000 years, the only other solution is to start euthanising gangbangers - 3 strikes really will mean 'game over'.

[Flashermac]

I may have mentioned before that I taught a black staff sergeant from LA at the NCO Academy who admitted he'd been a gangbanger. He said you do not quit the gang! If you try, they will kill you. He joined the army for protection. Good guy, good soldier ... but he said he could never go back to LA. If he did, they'd kill him even now. Gangs are for life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Steve]

American prisons. This is a topic I have discussed in the American forum before. My thoughts are a bit more radical than most Americans. First, I would classify the American prison system, especially the state prison system and to some extent the federal prison system as being more than worthy of human rights violations that would warrant investigation by Amnesty International.

I believe criminals should be punished. I have absolutely no problem with that. However, I think one should have the right to do their time in relative peace. If one were to offer me no other choice than 3 years in the California state prison or 5 years in a Bangkok prison, I’d buy take the latter without so much as a 2nd thought. Were I facing time in a state prison I would seriously consider suicide as a very viable option.

I’ve never been to prison. I have known numerous people who have and I also have a friend who is a LA county deputy sheriff who is a prison guard there.

I’ve known what goes on in prisons since I was a little boy and heard the stories. Now, no one has sympathy if a serial murderer, child molester or rapist is beaten and raped ad nauseum. I certainly don’t. I don’t lose a bit of sleep over that. However, the fairness in my says they and others who are there for non violent , fairly innocuous crimes should be able to serve their time without much risk to their person.

The prisons are brutal. Rape and beatings are the norm not the exception. From the minute you walk off the bus at the prison you walk the gauntlet and hear men tell you in no uncertain terms how they will either rape you or beat you and they not only mean but have the means to do so. Prisons are a industry, big business and there is overcrowding. We can’t build prisons fast enough in America. You’re in a small room with at least 3 or more guys. That’s not bad enough. What is that you are the target of gangs and predators.

Is it right for a person who is in prison for something like having a bit too much pot, write bad checks to get out of a tight spot or was in a car that his friends stole be subjected to being used as someone’s personal slave and sex toy? I’ve seen guys who have gone to prison, some deservedly, some not and come back completely broken. You’re lucky if you come back a better criminal than when you came in and were lucky enough to be part of the right group.

No one cares in America because who wants to stand up for someone who has broken the law? Even if you are ‘lucky’ (and I use that term loosely) to join one of the various groups for protection you’re still a target if you’re caught alone by a rival group or you do something that angers someone in your own group.

If someone can name a prison system worse, I’d like to hear it. China? Middle East? Hmmm…nope I’d still say America is worse. You face whatever the others do in American prisons. The torture is by the prisoners instead of the guards in America. That’s the only difference and at least the guards in China want to keep you alive presumably. I can’t say the same for a prisoner at San Quentin in California or Rahway in New Jersey.

[gobbledonk]

In the US system, and to a certain extent here, I get the distinct impression that money can get you off almost anything - look at Michael Jackson and OJ. Karma eventually caught up with both of them - in OJ's case, his arrogance was his undoing. If two black men with money can get away with crimes that 99 per cent of the population believes they committed, imagine what rich white men in the US have gotten away with over the last two or three centuries ....

 

 

The Puppetmaster, aka The Great Satan. Burn in hell, motherfucker.

[Steve]

Money and celebrity status keeps you out of jail. Were Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton male, poor and a bit more melanin or some trailer guy in West Virginia or Barstow, California they'd be doing way more time than the pittance they did.

There were a few people who we knew growing up who had to take a guilty plea even thou they were completely innocent. Why would someone do that? If there was some crime that the police and prosecution office needed to get a conviction for and you were the wrong place or whatever, with a public defender who is telling you can't win the trial and you'll face 2 or 3 times the number of years if you risk a trial, then you might.

 

Look how many passes Robert Downey Jr got? It would NEVER happen were he poor.

 

Anyway, U.S. jails are unlivable. In my opinion they are constitutional as they subject one to cruel and unusual punishment. For the same reasons it is now illegal to send someone back to their home country if its common that they would be tortured, then the American prison system is the same. How do we fix it? Decriminalize many crimes, especially treating drug addiction in a criminal manner instead of a medical issue. Do house arrest and ankle braclets that keep you at home for certain times for non violent, misdemeanor crimes so those people who were working at the time can keep working and being productive, tax paying members of society.

 

As far as high crime areas. Improve K-6 education, smaller classes, better resources, teachers, etc. and treat drugs as a medical issue and I guarantee you the crime rate in the inner city will drop dramatically along with teenage pregnancy and welfare. Fund afterschool programs. Summer jobs programs. There are so many little things. I recall Clinton I think being ridiculed for funding midnight basketball at gyms in the inner city.

In the summer, my local middle school opened the gyms at nights. They weren't supposed to but some smart person thought it was a good idea. I remember all of us going to the gym to play or hang out. There isn't anything to do in the summer when school is out except to hang out. The corner. Playground, etc. The girls came to the gym because the boys were there. They hung on the bleachers or even played a little in order to be with the boys. No one wanted to mess it up so we didn't act up too bad. You brought your own basketball and it worked great. Gave us a air conditioned place to hang out at night instead of the corner or the park where all sorts of things were going on. Arguments happened on the court but the older kids regulated it. We knew if we messed up we'd risk having it closed and no one wanted to be the person who got it closed and risk the neighborhood on your ass about it.

 

Little things like that.

[gobbledonk]

Your media failed Americans and the world by reporting rumours of mass rape and murder in the Superdome as 'fact' in the days immediately following Katrina. Ask yourself how ready they are for a major pandemic or similar emergency ... start telling people that law and order is non-existent and I guarantee you that some will see that as a green light to start smashing shop windows, trashing cars and raping people. Sounds like something out of a movie, but so do significant parts of this Wikipedia entry.

 

My link

 

Some initial reports of mass chaos, particularly in stories about the Superdome, were later found to be exaggerated or rumor.[45] In the Superdome for example, the New Orleans sex crimes unit investigated every report of rape or atrocity and found only two verifiable incidents, both of sexual assault. The department head told reporters, "I think it was urban myth. Any time you put 25,000 people under one roof, with no running water, no electricity and no information, stories get told." Government expected hundreds of dead to be found in the Superdome, but instead found only 6 dead (of which there were 4 natural deaths, one drug overdose and one suicide).[48][49] In a case of reported sniper fire, the "sniper" turned out to be the relief valve of a gas tank popping every few minutes.[45]

[Steve]

Even some of the worse places in America aren't as bad as some of these 3rd world countries. Puts things in perspetive. When I started traveling I saw places I had no idea were tough.

 

I was shocked to see or hear about white oouncil estate areas in England. These guys in London, Manhester and Liverpool had the same swagger and attitude of the guys I knew growing up. Every bit.