Good investigative reporting of a troubling problem. Nice work here.

This problem is never going to get better, unless there is a better alternative.

We could offer better foodstamps, and bigger HDTVs. Throw money like there is tomorrow. Make it rain!

Or we could have better employment opportunities. Jobs that don't make the worker look like a sucker for working for little more than foodstamps. Jobs that allow the workers to drive the nice cars, a decent crib, and money left over to buy bling. Jobs that make the parents look like heroes even though they can't make a jump shot.

The cheapest way is to teach the little delinquents not to victimize poor people, and instead to go for where the real money is. That would inspire action, I betcha.

The policemen are doing nice work to stop against the gang.

I'm curious what the role of vice is in fuelling gang activity. The article mentions that gangs have moved from drugs to prostitution; would legalizing these remove the gangs' motivation? Or are they just involved in vice because they have an "insider advantage" by already being criminals?

Look at the Mercury doing a serious piece! Good for you guys.

Race issues in this country are still alive and well, even after the first Black president, as the Trayvon Martin case illustrates. But the elephant in the room is that it is black-on-black violence that is the problem. We may argue about where the line between individual responsibility and societal responsibility should be drawn, but there is definitely a problem. Poor, urban blacks have failed to assimilate in to the larger culture and are stuck in a cycle of poverty and violence. It is unfortunate that his has been going on for decades with no easy solution in sight. Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a famous report in 1965, tracing some of the causes back to ghetto culture and the absence of the nuclear family. That's still true today and is the reason why the cops are now arresting the children of the people they used to arrest in earlier decades.

The basic social lessons that everyone should learn are: 1) finish high school 2) get a job 3) don't get pregnant until you are married 4) don't do anything illegal. These are lessons that are passed down from our parents and the larger society. Individuals need to follow those basic rules. And society, through its laws and institutions, should help facilitate the following of those rules. Education, employment opportunities, birth control, welfare reform, criminal justice reform, and drug legalization are some of the levers that can be used.

In time, the Portland mayor befriended Tokyo Gov. Shunichi Suzuki, who told Clark that having police officers live in the communities they served was a prerequisite for community policing. But in Portland, the Portland Police Association blocked such a requirement.

Thanks a lot PPA for sucking so badly yet again!

@jamdox

The role of vice is the same as the role of drugs - it is something associated to the gangster lifestyle because it is illegal and not widely socially acceptable. The gangster lifestyle has to do with not following the rules and doing what is seen as easy. Gangsters have a very short term philosophy. It is more important in their mind to have short term pleasure and "respect" than any type of long term plan. They are aware that they may very well end up dead or in prison, but they have been indoctrinated into the lifestyle that it is better than knuckling under to "the man". Making things legal would not change that. And are you suggesting that forcible compulsion of a 15 year old to prostitute herself should be legal?

@ed

Basic social lessons don't apply if the perception is that a racist society doesn't reward young black men (or women) for following those rules. Perhaps reality has changed (perhaps not as much as we might wish), but the perception remains among many in the black community because the victim mentality has been passed down generationally, and government programs allow it to continue.

@chicostix

Unlikely that the PPA "blocked" the requirement, more likely that they asked to negotiate for compensation in return for not being allowed to live wherever they wanted, like most members of our society. The city simply didn't think is was a good return on investment in that case.

@ Jimmy Carter I agree.

The poor,urban, black community doesn't share the same values/ behavior (education, work, children in committed relationships,etc) as the larger society. Victim mentality, perceptions of racism (valid or not), government programs all contribute to this. Absolutely. What the Moynihan report said is that the "ghetto culture" itself and absence of nuclear family also contribute. It's a vicious cycle with the bad values being passed on from generation to generation.

Glorification of gangster life seems to me to be anti-thetical to black progress. Where is the attention to positive black role models? What about Obama, Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, Eric Holder, even Clarence Thomas? I would venture to say that America is less racist today than it has ever been.