PSU Magazine Winter 1995

COMING TOYOUR NEIGHBORHOOD Gang membership outside Portland is expected to double that of the city within the next couple of years. ang is one of tho e catch words that draws an immediate picture in the mind. And like so many other words in our vocabulary, the picture it invokes is frequ ently way offba e. Most Oregonians, according to Detective Dick Stein, the Gang Intelligence Officer for the Oregon State Police, hear the word "gang" and they think "urban" and "black"-an impression he is trying to dispel with stati ti cs. Of the 4,469 gang members in the state, more than 43 percent are outside Multnomah County, according to Stein. Eighty percent of O regon' new gang members in the last yea r were white, and the si ngle largest gang in the state is a group of white C rips in Salem. In the Portland metropo litan area, the suburbs have more gang acti vity than the inner city, according to Sgt. Russ Redmond, supervisor of the Washington County Interagency Gang Enforcement T eam. "The city doesn't have anything that we don't have," says Redmond, adding that one is as likely to find gang activity in Hermiston, Roseburg, Pendleton , or Bend as in Portland. Helping to dispel gang myth at Portland State is Annette Jolin, associ– ate professor of Admini n ation of Justice in the School of Urban and Public Affairs. Jolin '73, M '79, Ph.D. ' 5, PHOTOS BYSTEVE DIPAOLA A D 'TEVE DYKES By John Kirkland a fo rmer Portland poli ce office r, ha seen the ga ng problem from all sides, and u es her knowledge to help stud nts understand the root causes of gang activity. The picture i a daunting one. The social ills th at propagate gang -defined a any group of three or more who commit illegal act , from petty theft to murder-are seen in every income group, every soc ial class, eve ry race. The middle clas whites who move to the suburbs to get away from gang are bringing the pr blem with them. Or the problems are already there waiting for them. Anywhere there are young peop le who feel alienated, unattended , unloved or blocked from achi ev ing success, the ingredi ents for a ga ng are present, says Jolin. The e are disaffected youth. They are searching fo r an identity. They need other peop le because they rece ive insufficient nurturing from family or schoo l. And then they find each other. "If you talk with gang kids they'll tell you: That's my family," says Jolin. Inner city shootings give us the most obv ious examples of gang activity, but there are many more les obv ious one . There are the white males, often add icted to drugs or alcohol, who shop lift from suburban shopping malls. There are the other white males with close-cropped hair and steel-toed boots who intimidate blacks and Jews. WINTER 1995 9