Law Commons^™

Reifying Injustice: Using Culturally Specific Tattoos As A Marker Of Gang Membership, Beth Caldwell

Washington Law Review

The “gang” label has been so highly racialized that white people who self- identify as gang members are almost never categorized as “gang members” by law enforcement, while Black and Latino people who are not gang members are routinely labeled and targeted as if they were. Different rules attach to people under criminal law once they are labeled gang members, yet this two-track system is justified under the guise that the racially disparate treatment is legitimate because of gang association.

This Article takes one concrete example—culturally specific tattoos—and unmasks how racial markers are used to attach the gang label. Specifically, …

Police And Gangs: Undergraduates’ Perceptions Of The Similarities And Differences, Seroyah Williams

Honors College Theses

Police have been said to be the largest gang in America with badges. With recent events occurring throughout the United States, including police shootings of unarmed citizens, some may say that the police have shown various characteristics similar to those of gangs. Does the public also view officers, in general, in the same perspective? Surveys were administered to a large class of Georgia Southern University students to acquire their perceptions of both the police and gangs. Each student listed characteristics of the police and gangs, their opinion, and different ways those perceptions have been formed. The data collected revealed more …

Individual Autonomy Versus Community: Is It All Or Nothing? An Analysis Of City Of Chicago V. Morales , Keasa Hollister

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Gangs, Violence, And Victims In El Salvador, Guatemala, And Honduras, Juan J. Fogelbach

San Diego International Law Journal

Country conditions in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras will require U.S. courts to address complex protection law issues involving current and former gang members, as well as their victims. For example, just three months after the Seventh Circuit's decision, the Sixth Circuit also held that former gang members were a particular social group. In order to ensure proper handling of these cases, advocates, adjudicators, government attorneys, and judges must acquire a high level of understanding of gangs and violence in the affected countries. To facilitate this process, this paper will synthesize and analyze publicly available information on gangs and violence …

Gang Member Perpetrated Domestic Violence: A New Conversation, Videtta A. Brown

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Malibu Locals Only: "Boys Will Be Boys", Or Dangerous Street Gang? Why The Criminal Justice System's Failure To Properly Identify Suburban Gangs Hurts Efforts At Fighting Gangs, Brian William Ludeke

ExpressO

In the last several years, a group of youths calling themselves Malibu Locals Only or MLO has performed several violent crimes, intimidating many people in the area around Malibu, CA. Despite the gang-like appearance of these youths and their crimes, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department officials insist that MLO is not a gang. This article examines MLO, its history, and its current state in the context of California anti-gang legislation.

The article theorizes that the criminal justice system's failure to call a group like MLO a gang while waging war on other groups, primarily in lower income, heavily minority areas, …

Formal Versus Informal Allocation Of Land In A Commons: The Case Of The Macarthur Park Sidewalk Vendors, Gregg Kettles

ExpressO

Sidewalk vendors are becoming a more common presence in cities in Latin America and the United States. Vendor demand for the best sidewalk vending spots increasingly exceeds supply, making necessary a system to allocate space in what is essentially an open access commons. This paper presents an empirical study of two very different systems of allocation that have been adopted in the city of Los Angeles, California, a formal one imposed by the city on legal vendors when they were unable to come up with one on their own, and a second that was embraced by illegal vendors across the …

Dislocated And Deprived: A Normative Evaluation Of Southeast Asian Criminal Responsibility And The Implications Of Societal Fault, Jason H. Lee

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Note argues that certain Southeast Asian defendants should be able to use their families' refugee experience as well as their own economic and social marginalization in the U.S. as a partial excuse for their criminal acts. This argument draws its strength from both the socioeconomic deprivation of much of the Southeast Asian community and the linking of this reality to a careful analysis of the moral foundations of the criminal law. In essence, the American criminal justice system, which draws much of its moral force to punish from the theory of retributivism, cannot morally justify the full punishment of …

It Is Not So Simply Because An Expert Says It Is So: The Reliability Of Gang Expert Testimony Regarding Membership In Criminal Street Gangs: Pushing The Limits Of Texas Rule Of Evidence 702., Placido G. Gomez

St. Mary's Law Journal

The mechanisms developed by the criminal justice system addressing the criminal activities of street gangs, for the most part, have proved ineffective. The evolution of gangs, their complex structure, and multipurpose focus keep them one step ahead of law enforcement. The most recent weapon created to fight the war on gangs, the civil injunction, suffers from numerous inadequacies. One concern is that civil injunctions raise numerous constitutional concerns. Another is that these injunctions fall short of constitutional demands. Furthermore, the practical implementation of the injunction forces an analysis of the reliability of the gang expert’s testimony. This Article proposes courts …

Toward The Restorative Constitution: A Restorative Justice Critique Of Anti-Gang Public Nuisance Injunctions, Joan W. Howarth

Scholarly Works

Gang members from elsewhere congregated on lawns, on sidewalks, and in front of apartment complexes at all hours. They displayed a casual contempt for notions of law, order, and decency -- openly drinking, smoking dope, sniffing toluene, and even snorting cocaine laid out in neat lines on the hoods of residents' cars. San Jose prosecutors responded by obtaining and enforcing a broad injunction against the gangs and their members, based on the finding that the gangs' activities constituted a public nuisance. California prosecutors have sought such anti-gang public nuisance injunctions since 1987. Their constitutionality was in doubt for ten years …

Changed Society, Changing Law, Hence Unstable Prisons, Daniel Glaser

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Stateville: The Penitentiary in Mass Society by James B. Jacobs