The Praxis of Conflict Transformation in Los Angeles

Los Angeles is often referred to as “the Gang Capital of America.” According to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), the city is home to over forty five thousand gang members, organized into 450 gangs. “Gangs are a symptom of society”, a representative from an organization that deals with justice in the prison system told us.

Besides incarceration, another way to deal with gangs is to deport them. “In regards to a deportation case, you are your worst enemy,’ an ex gang member told us. Your presence in this country is the evidence that you’re breaking the law. And the natural thing to do, seemingly, in these cases, is to deport the person who is illegally here. The thing is, that many of the people who live illegally in Los Angeles moved here with their families when they were very young. They grew up here and spent their whole lives here, and so when they are deported back to “their home country”, which is often El Salvador, they are complete strangers there. El Salvador is also incredibly dangerous, so that is a horrible place to go, and naturally they do whatever they can to come back. Los Angeles is often called the “land of second chances”. But what do you do with the new generation of gang members, who were born in the states and cannot be deported? Los Angeles tried to incarcerate its way out of the problem.

And so this is where we heard of the “school to prison pipeline.” Where you are born, and where you go to school, can dictate your chances of survival and success in the system. Because of their schools’ proximity to shady neighborhoods and gang activities, the youth are highly likely to become involved in them. “These age group is under siege,” we were told. Furthermore, because misdemeanors in these areas are treated as serious offenses, and because the youth of these areas are likely to be tried as adults, including incarceration without parole, these kids are at a serious risk of ending up in prison – and here we see the school to prison pipeline. These are the hopeless kids, with lives that have no hope. When they join a gang, they give up their problems, and in return they get a network or support, and they are ready to die for that. “Now they have something to do,” an NGO worker told us, “Before they were just children sniffing glue. Now, all they have to do is put a number or a letter on and everyone is terrified of them.”

So what can you do?

We were offered lot of ideas, from ex gang embers themselves, to people that work in NGOs that deal with gangs:

*notice how a lot of these can and do apply to the question of homelessness as well*

• Define the problem, define the solution.
• The work is about changing the culture.
• “Nuestra Lucha, Nuestra Voz” (Nothing about us without us)
• Focus on development without displacement.
• Be against gentrification, but for investment, and pay close attention to the difference.
• Leverage the media, change the words used. For example, instead of saying “offender”, say “incarcerated person”. This brings back the human element.
• Narrow the gap between policy and implementation, policy makers are so far removed, they have no idea how their work affects other people.
• If you drop 6 felonies to misdemeanors, you will reduce the prison population by a third (from 20k)
• Remove the police from first contact.
• Most of the homeless people and gang members are not your family, but they could be, and so treat them like they are.
• Validating minorities by giving them a voice and representation.

And last, but not least:

• Instead of asking, “what’s wrong with you?” ask, “What happened to you?”
• 

Where you live should not determine how you live.

But it does.

Something that really affected my classmates about Boyle heights was when we were told and shown how the area was (possibly and most likely) intentionally boxed in through major highways, effectively boxing in it’s residents, keeping them, their poverty, and the pollution from progress confined to a box. This might have affected my classmates more because we come from an international school and almost all of us have gypsy blood, but I agree with their indignation. Those borders that are marked with highways and walls are not much different than the fences we put around our livestock.

The phrase “school to prison pipeline” where also repeated a lot. The understanding is, that if you are born into a certain neighborhood and go to the school, that school is not designed to make you succeed. Because of its proximity to shady neighborhoods and gang activities, kids are highly likely to become involved in them. Furthermore, because misdemeanors in these areas are treated as serious offenses, and because the youth of these areas are likely to be tried as adults, these kids are at a serious risk of ending up in prison. And all because of their location.

This is also important because where you are born affects your access to goods and services. In this image (source), you can see the unequal use of water in neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Unsurprisingly, many of the poorer neighborhoods we visited use less water than the rest of Los Angeles, while the expense neighborhoods use water at a rate that is far above what is called for in the local rations:

This significant because as you know, Los Angeles is unsurprisingly one of the most drought stricken places in the United States:

This is especially unfair because of the lack of social mobility. Those that are born into poverty, under the current system which rewards those that are better off, and penalizes and criminalizes those that are not, stay in poverty. As hard as you try to better yourself, to move out of your current situation, nothing happens. And the louder you cry from the injustice, the more yo are regarded as unstable, or told to be quiet. And we are sorted into these social groups randomly, based off of where you were born.

Another image that affected all of us was a sign in one of the youth justice organizations we visited: “The code of the streets: two ways to leave, in handcuffs or in body bags.”

Skid Row, which in effect is an “open asylum” and a “containment zone” (somehow both of those seemingly contradictory terms apply) is a fifty square block section by the Los Angeles downtown. The neighborhood has been going through cycles of people who live on the streets there, beginning with the tent city that rose up there since it was the end of the railroad (which at the time, were mostly white). Now, the neighborhood is transitioning from a predominantly African American population to one that is more Latino, as white people move back through gentrification. On any given night, there are 4 to 6 thousand homeless people on Skid Row. It’s called “the hard school of knocks.”

“We live there because that is what we know”, we were told. “Skid row is my home. I have no bills and no responsibilities.” Skid row is a community, and has services nearby. “We live here because that is what we can afford. I could ill a man and have a bed for the rest of my life, but who wants to do that? No, I’ll stay here.”

Skid row’s porta-potties were removed, because if crime and prostitution; they have barely any trashcans,o it’s not surprise the streets are dirty. The streets are swept every once in a while, when the city has to look presentable for a big event, – and the people are swept right up along with the trash – and thrown into jail for tiny misdemeanors, like jaywalking, or for having the ash from your cigarette fall to the ground.

In the first month that the Safer Cities initiative was passed, there were 750 arrests (IN ONE MONTH) in a fifteen square block area. The initiative was based on a policy that aimed to address petty crime, which hypothetically would in turn address bigger crime – sort of like “trickle up” crime. Police cars patrolled those fifteen square blocks like sharks.

We no longer have asylums for the mentally ill, we no longer hospitalize them, – instead, we criminalize them. Jails are now the largest mental ill institutions, and housing the mentally ill in jail is inhumane. Even if you do not have a condition as you go to jail, you are very likely to develop one while there. Crime there goes on reported, you can’t film it on your hone like you can outside of jail. Last year alone, LA County paid out $40 million in misconduct – and that is just for the cases that were reported and could be proven.

One of the problems addressed is the role of the police, and their relationship with the people they serve. Cops have a quote to fill, and so are drivig around thinking <<ticket, ticket, ticket>> when they should be thinking of ways to address the problem. There is a line between your relationship with law enforcement and your relationship with the community. Law enforcement should come from the community.

Skid Row is supposed to be dangerous and scary, but as we walked through it, I felt comfortable, more comfortable than in many of the clean offices we had been to granted, we were there during broad daylight). We crossed the street, and a man called out, “You want some street? I got street for sale.”

People who live in Los Angeles, like in all places, have a lot of nicknames. We heard people called “shelter resistant” and “career criminals.” We heard about the “school to prison pipeline.” We heard the Unites States called “La Oosa”, and the “Land of Milk and Honey”, and Los Angeles called the “Land of Second Chances”. As protesters march, they call out “Nothing about us without us!” and as they leave, they chant, “We’ll be back”. Loca
l NGO’s talked about ‘mission drift”, and called the 90’s “the decade of death.” A homeless person tells us, “dog parks downtown have more amenities than our parks.” “Gentrification”, we were told, is the continuation of Colonization. “When Starbucks comes, you know you lost”, they add.

“So what keeps you motivated?” we ask. “It aint over yet.” is the reply

The definition of violence is a force or action that injures, harms, or destroys. An NGO that specialized in torture and trauma gave us this definition of the purpose of torture: to dismantle a person (physically, mentally, and emotionally) and take away their trust in themselves and other people. This definition especially had a big effect on me, because it reveals the purpose of torture, something I don’t think about, probably because of fear of looking too deep within myself and my experiences. But definitions are very important:

Definitions also have the power to direct or limit an NGO’s reach. As seen in the example of the Torture Immigration place we visited, they had to clearly define “torture” and related terms, to draw a line in the san between those that qualify for their help, and those that don’t, based off of available funding. And words are important because that is the way we frame things.

For example, when someone goes to jail, the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony changes peoples lives forever. The word “victim” does not often match the reality, or what people expect to see. When looking at mental illness, there is such a stigma associated with it. The people who have it don’t want to self identify that way because they might end up in a situation worse that what they are already in; NGO’s my have trouble finding funding for their cause. After all, as a person from one of the organizations we visited told us, “there are those that are easy to help, and those that are not.” If an NGO needs to meet a bottom line and show numbers of success, its much easier to boost numbers by avoiding the more, shall we say, difficult cases. “I’m scared to death that I a much sicker than I thought,” is a phrase we can all relate too.

Notable Stats, Geography and Population Breakdown:

Los Angeles County is the most populated county in the US, and if counted as a state alone, it is more populated than 41 of our 50 states. The city of Los Angeles is the second largest city in the United States by population, after New York City. 3.9 million people live in Los Angeles, which is just over a tenth of the total people that live in California (38.4 million people), and over 1.2% of the total US population (318.9 million people); If you took 1000 random people in the US, 12 of them would live in Los Angeles County. And that is just by population.

Geographically, Los Angeles is enormous. For reference of size of the city of Los Angeles, here is a to-scale map of all the cities that fit into the Los Angeles Boundaries:

Unfortunately, geographic size does not help the housing situation. There are 2,419.6 people per square mile in Los Angeles, compared to the 239.1 people per square mile in the rest of California. Housing is scarce, especially section 8 housing: there was a new housing complex built in Boyle Heights, and in it’s fist week, they received over 8,000 applications – for a complex that has only 140 units. Not only that, but many of these units are built and designed with the intention of repurposing them into lofts. As we walked through the rapidly gentrified downtown Los Angeles, we saw many, many sigs up for “trendy lofts” for sale. And there is no one to blame, even, because this is how it works in a capitalism driven society. Everyone’s making the choice that seems the smartest, not thinking of the consequences.

What are the alternatives?

In Skid Row alone, which is just fifty blocks, there are eleven thousand homeless men, women, and children on the street on any given night. Of those eleven thousand, two thirds struggle with drugs and mental illness.

There are also between nineteen to twenty-two thousand people in the Los Angeles Jail system. California has unlimited solitary confinement, which means someone can spend their life that way. Even if you’re not in a situation that extreme, Los Angeles jail and the legal system is not kind: In the last year alone, Los Angeles paid our 40 million for misconduct.

So who are they?

Who are the homeless? Who are the people who are affected by gentrification?

Los Angeles has one of the highest levels of income equality in the nation and according to the Los Angeles Times, this is due in part to a relatively strong local economy. Los Angeles is home to 6 of the 2014 Fortune 500 companies, (energy company Occidental Petroleum, healthcare provider Health Net, metals distributor Reliance Steel & Aluminum, engineering firm AECOM, real estate group CBRE Group and builder Tutor Perini) which is contrasted against the 25 thousand homeless people in the city (and 52 thousand in the county). The average age of he homeless is 40; an estimated 20% are physically disabled, and about 25% are mentally ill, although these numbers might be wrong, based off of the fact that many of the homeless may be reluctant to report disability. Poverty and income disparity has had a disproportionate effect on People of color: half of the homeless are African American, and a third are Latino (compared to the general population, in which only a tenth are African American, and nearly half are Latino). About 18% of the homeless are veterans.

As part of our group research, we talked with a few people who self identified as homeless, people who are often called “shelter resistant” or “career criminals”. One of them told us, “I live on the street because that is what I know.” Another added, “I could kill a man and get a bed for the rest of my life. But who wants to do that?”

The poor of Los Angeles have long carried the burden of progress, for example in the air quality of their neighborhoods, and their limited access to food, water, and services), but rarely see the benefits of progress. We saw a good example of this in Boyle Heights. A lot of buildings and housing in Boyle Heights were destroyed to make space available for a new Metro Line. The Metro then changed it’s mind, leaving the lots empty, which in turn is bad for the city as it’s unused land that gathers trash and lowers the value of the neighborhood, The Metro built a line through the neighborhood anyway, a few blocks away from it’s original proposed line. One the day that we visited Boyle heights, we took the metro line to Mariachi square. We did not see a single other person in the station or getting off this stop. Even though public transportation is supposed to serve all people, and is generally considered to be the transportation for the poor, in reality, those that are poorer, such as many of those living in Boyle Heights, cannot afford to take advantage of those services. So city management and metro can say “look, we’ve created a line especially for Boyle Heights” – when the reality is that they have created a lot of empty lots, and a line that goes through Boyle Heights, but is not for the people that live there.

As another homeless person said to us, “many people look at us and say, ‘Look at these people, why can’t they pull themselves up by their bootstraps, like I did?’ and we say, ‘what if we were born without boots?’ “

P.S. Looking at this is a startling image of the uninsured in the United States, it’s easy to see why we focused on Los Angeles: