Two Words

The current edition of ColorLines has an article titled Two Words That Can Get You Life in Prison by Raj Jayadev. Its mostly the story of Joshua Herrera, a 24 year old aspiring fire fighter who learned the hard way what you can be sentenced to life in prison for being in the wrong place at the wrong time if you are a young man of color in this country. Here’s a bit of the story.

Herrera was out one night with friends. He drove three of them to the home of Thomas Martinez, a boyfriend of one of the young men’s mother. The men wanted to confront Martinez, who had allegedly abused the mother, and retrieve her belongings from the house.

Herrera stayed in the car while his friends entered the home. Martinez fled the scene and later claimed that one of the defendants had a shotgun. According to court testimony, Martinez was assaulted by one of the defendants, Richard Rodriguez. According to police reports, the young men returned to the car with a safe and two ounces of methamphetamines.

After dropping off his friends, Herrera was pulled over by police three blocks from his family home. His car, it would later be revealed, had been under surveillance by detectives investigating one of Herrera’s friends. He was arrested on the spot.

So what are the two words that, were it not for the heroic efforts of his mother, family and community, would have landed Herrera in jail for life with no prior criminal record? Gang member.  

Herrera lives in San Jose, California and the law that was applied is the Street Terrorism Enforcement and Protection (STEP) Act.

To use the gang enhancement law, which is at the discretion of the prosecutor, two standards must be proven. One is that the criminal street gang exists. This means three or more people have formed a group, and one of their primary activities is to commit one of 25 crimes identified by the state. The group also shares a common name, and their members “engage in a pattern of criminal gang activity,” according to the law. Secondly, the prosecutor has to prove that the crime was “committed for the benefit” of the gang.

With this law, a sentence can be “enhanced” to life in prison based solely on association. But California is not the only state with such a law, most have them. In Minnesota, the “Gang Strike Force” (lovely words, huh?) has developed a ten point list. If you meet three of them, you can be identified in the “gang pointer file” with the state for 3 years.

1. The person admits to being a gang member.

2. The person is observed to associate with known gang members.

3. The person has gang tattoos to show alleagence.

4. The person wears gang symbols or colors associated with the gang.

5. The person is photographed with other known gang members or showing signs of gang involvement.

6. The person is written or documented on gang documents and graffiti.

7. The person is identified by a reliable source as a gang member (teacher, social worker, police, etc.)

8. The person is arrested with other gang members.

9. The person corresponds with other gang members by telephone, email, mail, etc.

10. The person writes gang symbols and other gang affiliations on notebooks, school work, etc.

If that doesn’t chill you a bit, then you’re not really paying attention. What I see is a list that basically criminalizes what kids of color do. That’s because most urban kids of color live in a world filled with gang members and, long before this list was developed, had adopted much of the dress and behavior as cultural norms.

A while ago, this was the highest rated video on youtube. I can definitely see the humor. But it also made me really angry because, you know, its kewl for white girls to flash gang signs. For youth of color, in could mean an “enhanced sentence.”

Ultimately, the judge in Herrera’s case did not impose a life sentence. He got 9 years. That’s mostly because he had a mother who went to bat for him and family/community connections that were valued enough by the judge to get his ear. Too many kids don’t have that. From the ColorLines article, here’s what Herrera had to say.

“I don’t want this to just be about me, lifting me up and letting the other guys this is happening to go down,” he says. “Then we’d just be doing the same thing that we’re accusing the law of doing to us-stereotyping.”

There is currently legislation in both the US House and Senate that would federalize this kind of thing. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Gang Abatement and Prevention Act of 2007 (S. 456) has already passed the Senate, and the bill’s language draws heavily from that found in STEP. A similar bill-the Gang Prevention, Intervention and Suppression Act (HR 3547)-has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California.

Every time you hear a politician talk about “getting tough on crime” or schools talk about “zero tolerance policies,” this is the kind of thing they’re usually talking about…an effective way to lock up more kids of color.