Gang Boundaries-- Where's The Map?

Whether the subject is violence or displacement, people are always talking about gangs and gang boundaries, but I've never seen a map -- until now.  I have no idea if it's accurate or not, or if there are other maps o ut there -- if so please let us know.  Here.  Does CPS have one, or CPD?  Hard to believe that there's not anything out there besides this.  Though it's interesting to check out -- you can zoom in, etc.

Comments

Amazing! Not one gangbanger on the northside. Not even in Humboldt Park. Where did they all go? Probably working for the insane Civic Committee deciples.

This map is for the Southside. To view the Northside gangs (for which there are many), simply erase SOUTH in the web address and type in NORTH.

I have seen a gang map for the Chicago area. The CPD gave a seminar on identifying gangs, locations, recruiting methods, gang iconology, etc. at the school I was at. We each got a package with detailed info. I was not aware of how organized and big they were until the seminar. Once I got the info on gangs I paid closer attention to student connections to gangs and watched for the signs. I gave an open assignment, taping large sheets of paper to the walls and had cool markets and told the students to draw whatever they wanted. The gang iconology was all over the place.

These were 11 year old students. Some of the students used the symbols and colors and had no idea that they were gang identities. Others that saw the symbols knew what they stood for and ran to tell me that the students were making gang symbols. It was very interesting. The students who used symbols didn't know they were related to gangs and I had to wonder how they knew to depict them. I thought that they must have seen these symbols used in their homes but had not been made aware of their meanings. I thought they must be 2nd or 3rd generation gang members. The students just used them as decorations.

The CPD gave us alot of info. Gangs are really nighmarish. Recruiting is horrible. What they make the kids do is terrible both for girls and boys. Gang rape of girl friends of gang members is acceptable, it's your brothers. Kids who don't want to be in gangs are forced with threats. Could be they'll threaten a kid sister or another member of the family. Some parents don't know if their children are in gangs because of secrecy and coersion. Some identifying signals are very subtle and include what side you slouch on, what pocket you keep your hand in, or the colors used in rosary beads.

Gang tagging designates drug territories. I live in a nice, affluent neighborhood on the northside but it was marked on the map as being controlled by a particular gang. There are no visible gang graffiti to be seen. I started to pay attention to everything in the neighborhood and I found little gang symbols in the most unexpected places, almost unseen on a gas station pump, or in a corner of a window in a public building. I was amazed that the tagging was there. It was minuscule and it was the correct symbol for the gang claiming my neighborhood as its territory. It's about selling drugs in that territory and a warning to other gangs not to trespass.

Another assignment I gave my students was to make a list of things that they were concerned about and wanted to discuss. We made the list together and wrote it on the board. It was an eighth grade class and one of the biggest boys said he wasn't liking the idea of going to high school because he was concerned about being recruited by a gang. He was too old to be in eighth grade and although quiet never did the assignments until one day. I couldn't believe how fast and well he did it. He was so smart but never let anyone know. I didn't know what to tell him about his concern. Although my school arranged the gang seminar for teachers, it began there and ended there. There was no further discussion or action taken about the gang problem. It was an invisible problem.

It seems to me that schools should be more active and formal in discussions with students regarding gangs. The students need to hear from people other than the police or gang members. Classes, seminars or workshops about gangs for students should be implemented in schools, like sex ed, gym, or computer classes. The problem is big and students need advise. Many students don't want to be in gangs and don't know what to do about it. I don't know what to do about it. I have a lot of stories about the subtle affect of gangs in my school. I have watched as these children have changed because of their affiliation with gangs. Good, smart students and suddenly they are behaving very differently, coming late, belligerent, disrespectful, not doing work, intimidating other students and teachers, and just enjoying being bad. They feel their power and use it.

"Classes, seminars or workshops about gangs for students should be implemented in schools, like sex ed, gym, or computer classes."
Why do the schools have to accept another responsibility? We are overwhelmed now.

[teach for survival]

12:47 is on the money and those on this list that go after George for making every CPS kid into a gang member should understand what this teacher has written. Many of us have had students that are 2nd and 3rd generation gang members.

We know that in some situations there are higher performing students who are hooked up with gangs. There are even young people who are groomed by gangs and have no arrest records that attempt or do join the CPD.

I guess the situation is not a lot different than where we see in Africa or Asia children turned into warrior murders for war lords. CPS and the Mayor moralize against gangs, but they are not equiping schools, including charters with effective anti-gang programs.

After school programs alone do not solve the problem, because in some communities the entire youth culture is riddled with one gang or another. The Mayor running on and on about guns does not solve the problem. We know this because in many Latin American counties private ownership of fire arms are virtually completely outlawed and there are massive drug gangs armed to the teeth. Where there is massive poverty there are massive gangs.

This is a very big problem in the schools and it requires a massive investment in wrap around social services for these students, that go way beyond having a social worker and psychologist at the school one day a week to work on IEPs. The Mayor would rather do PR shows against guns and gangs for the 10pm news than put up money for the social services so badly needed in all of our schools.

[George Schmidt]

"Classes, seminars or workshops about gangs for students should be implemented in schools, like sex ed, gym, or computer classes."
Why do the schools have to accept another responsibility? We are overwhelmed now...."

Because every child in your classroom knows more about gang realities than a lot of the subjects your are trying to teach (if you are teaching in the majority of the schools best called "inner city").

Every child on that fatal bus down 103rd St. (Blair Holt) knew the dangers.

When I taught Romeo and Juliet the best way to get the plot set for the children on Day One was to draw a five-pointed star on one side of the blackboard and a six-pointed star on the other side and ask "What would happen is a five-pointed girl falls in love with a six-pointed guy?"

The majority of the students (except maybe the Natioinal Honor Society types, with some exceptions) would answer: "They'd be dead."

The schools don't have to do the workshops.

Before Marilyn Stewart fired me as Director of Security and Safety for CTU in August 2004, I was working with CAPS and Chicago Police to host a gang information day at Wright College for all schools (public, private and other) north of Belmont Ave.

That kind of thing can provide teachers with the basic information so at least you are not "false flagged" when some honor student comes up to you with a sob story that's really a cover for some gang stuff.

Last story. Back when I was teaching at Amundsen (late 1980s, early 1990s) one of our former students, an NHS officer, invited my wife and me to the third birthday party for her baby.

I told my wife to wear neutral colors.

The party was in an apartment off Damen on Leland.

On the wall above the couch in the living room was a Latin King crown five feet high. The baby had already gotten her first little tykes tattoo.

That's why.

please explain "false flagged" and what that has to do with a sob story?

OMG! I remember when advisory was first imposed on us. The first lesson I had to teach was on "false flagging". I was the only one in my high school division that did not know what it was. It was silly for me to teach it.
This pointed out the absurdity of one advisory for one. At least that standard "curriculum" is gone!

uh, thanks for explaining...

Sorry,
False flagging is throwing up the wrong gang sign. For example, some gang bangers might be throwing a sign for a gang with which they are not affiliated. If people in the car return the same sign, the people in car 2 might get shot.
Throwing up the wrong sign is a way to see if someone is in a rival gang. However, some people (who might not be gang-bangers) will return the sign in hopes that they will not be bothered.

I recognize that most of my students know "more about gang realities than a lot of the subjects [I am] trying to teach." That's EXACTLY the reason I should not be expected to teach my students about gangs. My students and their parents want me to teach the children in my class how to be successful in the larger culture. No parent expects me to teach my students about gangs. They get enough of that from the streets. The school should be an oasis from the violent culture of gangs, not a place that validates that life style by incorporating it into the curriculum.

Duhhh, what's wrong with you? Don't you get it? The gang culture has invaded the school culture making it difficult for teachers to teach and students to learn. If you understood the message as to teach students about gangs than you have a comprehension problem. It's not learning about gangs as it is to learn how to preserve yourself from gangs. What good is it for the students to learn whatever subject you are teaching when the world doesn't make sense to them, it's about survival for them and your subject will make even less sense.

I still don't understand the connection between the false flagging and the sob story.

Excuse me 11:40, but nothing is wrong with me. I simply believe the best way to teach my students how to "preserve" themselves from gangs is to provide them with a solid education in reading, writing and arithmetic. Giving students the skills needed to succeed in the world is the best way to help them make sense of the world. The gang culture may have invaded the school culture, but the school culture shouldn't be adjusted to accommodate the gang culture. I can teach literature in a way that connects with students without drawing gang symbols on the board. Perhaps I'm just a better teacher.

[George Schmidt]

"...Excuse me 11:40, but nothing is wrong with me. I simply believe the best way to teach my students how to "preserve" themselves from gangs is to provide them with a solid education in reading, writing and arithmetic..."

Two examples, 1:36 AM, hopefully helpful.

First, if you are teaching in a place where the gangs are a major influence in the daily lives of children, those lives will revolve around those influences. Had you been teaching at Williams Elementary back in 2000-2001, for example, and been paying attention to the children, you would have learned that the "MCs" had moved "up" into Dearborn and were competing with the "Ds" for the right to sell drugs out of Dearborn. Since the children you were teaching lived in Dearborn (which beings less than 50 feet from the front entrance of Williams Elementary), at least you'd have understood why, when the ITBS was given in 2001, the children were pre-occupied with other things and couldn't concentrate.

Then, when you learned (in early 2002) that the scores had gone "down" on the 2001 testing program, you would have understood that the "down" was out of the control of anyone in the school. The people who had torn down the four project buildings down at 54th and State ("the Hole" to be precise) and scattered the "Mickey Cobras" across Chicago and the suburbs (that's what the "MCs" were -- Mickey Cobras) had created the conditions where the MCs had moved north to try and have an exit off the Dan Ryan to keep selling near.

Then, in April 2002, when Arne Duncan declared the first "Renaissance" and said he was closing Williams Elementary for the sake of the children, you might have at least realized what BS Arne was spooning from his gooey sound bits. The scores had gone "DOWN" because there was a shooting war outside the school, in the "Homes" where the children lived.

Like Baghdad or Kabul.

Now that wouldn't have helped you much, knowing that.

Your school was being closed because you "failed" -- just look at the test scores! My God! We've got to do something NOW for these children! -- and the Tribune and Sun-Times would have assured you editorially that Arne Duncan had done the courageous thing by closing Williams because, after all, the children's future was at stake.

A year later, when the "Renaissance" Williams reopened, you then could have at least known what hypocrisy all those red, white and blue balloons, mayor on stage, KIPP propaganda, four principals in one building, "Multiplex" nonsense, and all the rest was.

You'd still be out of a job. With luck, and young enough, and you'd be in some safe suburb where affluent children (of all colors) get a new car at age 16 and to be cool put decals looking like bullet holes on the fenders.

And then drive that new car into Chicago to cop drugs at one of those convenient corner pharmaceutical places that people like the MCs always have within a half mile from an expressway exit.

And then you'd wonder why for more than 20 years the State's Attorney of Cook County couldn't figure out what those nine and ten year olds in your classes knew back in 2001.

And wonder why coca-based products can get 4,000 miles into the hands of those thugs standing on those corners selling them to your affluent suburban students.

Or, if you really had a tragedy, you'd have seen one of those suburban kids leaving school talking about partying on a Friday night and been told about his funeral Monday because he had copped some bad heroin (also sold, those days, in Dearborn) down in Chicago.

And of course nobody who teacher bashed Williams Elementary back in April 2002 (while calling Arne Duncan a "hero" for closing and renaissancing Williams) would put two and two together and ask how the poppies that were made into that heroin which was then adulterated with some other (fatal) stuff got all the way from the outskirts of Kabuel to Chicago and Homeland Security and two State's Attorneys (Daley and Devine) couldn't figure out how to stop it.

But can figure out how to spend Homeland Security dollars to fence off the space under the expressways so the homeless don't blow up, say, the Kennedy while their sleeping in those comfortable niches while the world's trade rumbles three feet above their tired heads...

Because we've "reformed" public housing by tearing down the homes where once the homeless lives...

And we've "reformed" public schooling by tearing down the reputations of the teachers who tried to teach while the MCs shot it out across the street...

Does this help?

Yeah.

You really don't have to know these things to survive as a teacher.

But the children in front of you have to know them (or at least the parts they can see with their own eyes) to survive in that world our leaders have created for them -- the one in which you are blamed when their test scores go "down."

[1.04]

No Mans Land

The school sat on 83rd street .Up at 79th street were the D’s .Down at 85th street were the
Stones. We were in a gang No Mans Land. The school reflected this reality. Folks went out one door and People out a different door. Each group made a mad dash into there
Turf. This arrangement worked well until the Four Corner Hustlers came on the scene.
This caused a war. If you don’t know what HOYA represents, Georgetown University
Excluded, you do not know anything about the reality of gangs.

[11:40]

George, last time I checked there is a gang in every single neighborhood in Chicago. Good schools learn how to keep the garbage outside. Here is an idea that may have saved Williams. Stop making excuses for all of the problems in society and start bringing effective teaching strategies to these childrens lives. Here is another idea. How about training your teachers on the different gangs in the neighborhood. You could show them the different colors and signs the gangs use. Then when a teacher sees this in the classroom he/she can bring it to the administration. That is when George my friend you come down with a hammer on the children. Suspension UDC code 4-5 (gang affiliation minimum 3-5days). Soon children know they aren't going to bring that mess into the school. Then you get some staff members and security to stand outside before and after school to make sure no "gang members" are standing around. Soon you create a safe haven around the school and things improve inside the school.

To 8:59 -You are a dreamer and don't have a clue. What effective teaching strategies would you suggest be used in these schools. What staff members are going to put their life in danger, further more how can a staff member stand outside and also teach. If security is standing outside the gang members don't have to parade to be seen, just lay low until the right time. Wake up and smell the coffee do gooder.

[some may say that I'm a dreamer]

Sorry 8:59 you don't agree with me. At my school, our staff, security, and off-duty officers do an excellent job of keeping the gangs away and trust me they are there La Raza, 26, Latin Kings. Maybe your school has a bunch of scared suburban girls or old teachers who are afraid to speak up. I feel sorry for you because you lack vision and a proactive attitude.

yeah, "do gooder". we don't want any of you in CPS! No dreamers allowed!

I taught in Humboldt Park where several gangs were rife. We had 2 wonderful asst principals who kept gang culture out of the school. Anyone with gang colors, drawing or throwing gang signals were suspended. Teachers were educated on what to watch for and were vigilant in doing so. Security inspected for graffiti in the AM and and all gang signs were removed immediately. During the last half an hour or the school day, the asst prin./disciplinarian organized a "cleanup crew" (a reward for discipline problem students who had had a good day) that would scrub all graffiti off the school and bathroom walls, as well as the playground. Dedicated teachers I(of which there were many) could teach. Test scores?--went up consistently.

I stay in touch with many students. Did we lose many to the streets? Unfortunately, yes. But I prefer to focus on the success stories of which there are many. College graduates who came back to teach at their school--and their friends who have built other careers.

So George--teaching in a gang ridden school, though difficult, can be done.

[An "old"teacher]

Re: 11:41
I am an "old" teacher,
female, white and raised in the city and yes, you can try to make the school a safe haven from gang activity but ONLY if you have administrative support. Some school administrators cater to the gang element-LSC members who are gang members will vote to keep a principal who looks the other way...sad reality. Teachers and administrators who come into CPS are not street smart let alone knowledgeable about gangs. Yet, CPD hires former surburbanites and trains them to be street smart and knowledgeable about gangs. CPS needs to train (a boot camp approach?)the new teachers-maybe less of them will leave.

"Test scores?--went up consistently."
Just curious-- which Humbolt Park high school has seen test scores go up (EXCEL, Vines, Westinghouse), or are you referring to an elementary school?

Elementary school. We sent most of our successful students out of Humboldt Park for HS.

Unfortunately, under the last administration--that thought our kids were scum and teachers weren't doing their job--scores hit bottom and many teachers left for other schools. Sso I agree--a good administration, though rare, is golden.