Why does Ogden have a gang problem?
Cracking down on gang violence takes tough law enforcement, but it also signifies a deep social wound.
Ogden was the first city in Utah to file an injunction to help address its unique problem with the Trece gang back in 2010. The Utah Supreme Court invalidated the Trece injunction in October 2013, but the Weber County Attorney’s Office and the Ogden Police Department want to bring it back. While other police departments in northern Utah support Ogden’s injunction, nearly all said they don’t see the need for one in their own jurisdictions.
Which raises the question: what makes Ogden’s gang situation so problematic, so exceptional?
According to Theresa Martinez, it all boils down to a city subculture that feels marginalized. She’s an associate professor in sociology at the University of Utah, specializing in juvenile delinquency and deviant behavior.
“Hardcore, serious violent gangs are about communities who have lost hope and faith in the system,” she said. “So for the folks in Ogden, it obviously takes work and time, but they should be looking at root causes of this issue. An injunction is a Band-Aid.”
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Law enforcement officials in Davis County communities said they’re aware of a gang presence in their cities, but members don’t spark the violence or property damage they cause in Ogden.
“We do know gang members live in our city, but they do their criminal activity elsewhere,” Layton Police Lt. Travis Lyman previously told the Standard-Examiner.
Much of the difference boils down to demographics. More minority populations live in Ogden, and there are gaps in economic and educational achievement among these groups, Martinez said.
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“I’d imagine Layton is mostly white, and I’d say in smaller white communities there are less gaps in wealth,” she said. “It’s where you see gaps in occupations, health care, wealth, well-being, that’s where you really see it.”
And those gaps aren’t necessarily due to race and ethnicity. They’re more about communities pushed to social fringes.
“Think about early gangs. They sprung up because they felt completely left out of picture,” Martinez said. “Italian and Irish immigrants formed our nation’s first gangs. You didn’t see Anglo-Saxon gangs.”
A SOCIAL RIFT
Newsweek magazine recently proclaimed the Ogden metro area an oasis of economic equality. They looked at household income numbers from the most recent U.S. Census figures and found the city and its surrounding towns had the narrowest wealth gap in the nation.
But if you tease out incomes based on race and ethnicity, a much more pronounced gap in Ogden appears.
Ogden has one of the most ethnically diverse populations in Utah. Hispanics and Latinos comprise nearly one-third of its residents — a bigger percentage than Salt Lake City. But compared to white households, there’s a 38 percent gap in median income. Things look even worse for black families, where there’s nearly a 42 percent gap.
Zooming out to the county level, there’s a 44 percent gap in Weber County for Hispanic households compared to white ones. In Davis County, that gap is only 25 percent — although the gap for black households also remains stark.
“I’m sure law enforcement understands this is a deeply rooted issue,” Martinez said. “Where you have poor people, you’ll have gangs.”
Ogden’s Hispanic kids are also far less likely to graduate from high school. They’re far less likely to go to college. Black and Hispanic children are far more likely to be born to single mothers.
“Gangs didn’t come out of a vacuum,” Martinez said. “Our culture bred them. They came out of populations of people who had great needs, but they were being shunted around.”
The Ogden Police Department tracks active gang members in a database. The Standard-Examiner requested demographics for Ogden Trece on Oct. 15 but the police department says it is still working to provide the information.
Ogden Police Deputy Chief Eric Young said Ogden’s gangs include a diverse mix of races and ethnicities.
“We have white gang members in each of our major gangs here. And we have white supremacist gangs we deal with as well, which are typically white,” he said. But, “a lot of the gangs are Hispanic-based. The Southern Norteños, the Sureños, even Trece are.”
’THAT’S THEIR FAMILY'
Young said gangs are often conspicuously comprised of young people, especially Trece’s members.
“The reality is, someone who’s heavily engaged in the gang lifestyle, by the time they get to be a young adult or older adult, a lot of times they’re dead or in prison,” he said. “That’s the lifestyle. Go out and do what you want to do until the time comes that you get hurt or arrested.”
Martinez said children only join organizations with such violent, dangerous groups because it’s often the only place they feel a sense of power and belonging.
They join “because they don’t have a family, or maybe their family has fragmented and fallen apart,” she said. “Because they want to belong, because they want safety. Because they want to be men in a world that doesn’t value young men of color. Because they’re young and they want to chase riches like young people can.”
But the sense of belonging gangs provide comes with a price.
“You don’t see too many people, once they’re in, get out,” Young said.
Kids often watch other family members join gangs, and it’s natural for them to follow suit.
“I see these kids, I know them. I knew their parents, I knew their uncles. I can see where it’s almost impossible to take this kid and break him out of this path he’s being sent down,” Young said. “That’s what they see, that’s what they know, that’s what’s normal to them.”
That’s why the Ogden Police want to bring back the injunction. In part, it makes gang membership look less attractive.
“That’s one big thing that changed when the gang injunction was in place. Kids were not so readily eager to admit they were involved in a gang,” he said. “They were more likely to hide the fact they were involved in a gang because they didn’t want to be part of the gang injunction … It was effective with younger kids. Now most of them will admit they’re in a gang.
“That’s their family.”
INJUNCTION’S ROLE?
But what worries Martinez is an overly broad gang injunction that can be used to further ostracize and marginalize minority communities. She said she agrees criminals must be punished, and officers must use the tools they can to stop crime. But law enforcement also must be sensitive to concerns of discrimination.
“I hope this injunction can be revised so that it’s meaningful to the community and honorable to the community of color,” she said. “I haven’t heard their voices in this. I have not heard from parents of the kids, or the kids themselves.”
Whether the Ogden injunction returns or not, both Young and Martinez agree it takes an entire community to create alternatives for marginalized communities and help break the gang cycle.
“We don’t have all the answers. It is a community problem and it’s a social problem,” Young said. “We’re the enforcement piece of that, but we have to work as a much larger group to truly make some headway on it.”
Contact Reporter Leia Larsen at 801-625-4289 or llarsen@standard.net. Follow her on Facebook.com/leiaoutside or on Twitter @LeiaLarsen.
