Ras BarakaI know how frustrating the violence in our community can become, and worse how paralyzing. Our families are organizing their lives around threats and acts of violence. Our children are growing up with Post traumatic stress, and I would say that we can take post out because they are living in it daily. I have been fighting this disease for years since my brother was shot in the head on Bergen and Shepard and only fot the grace of God is still with us. I have organized gang truces, rallies in the street, forums, and held summer events. It is still not enough. I still attend countless funerals and am waiting for the day that our rallying will end or at least slow down. We have to first label or identify what is happening to us correctly. This is a disease or rightly put an epidemic and needs to be treated as such. When we identify it correctly we will begin to treat as a public health crisis. This in turn allows us to target more resources in a broader way to our communities that have been affected or that are most likely to be. In NYC they have targeted violent neighborhoods calling them impact zones. They target the area with walking patrols but also begin to attack the graffiti, garbage , and vacant lots in that area. In Newark we have to begin with putting more police on the street to walk our neighborhoods but we also have to use comstat to target the worse affected communities. We then go one step further than NYC. Yes we have to send in code enforcement but we also have to target these same streets with mentorship programs, jobs and job training, literacy programs, family counseling, and economic development. We have to put counselors in the precincts and empower local organizations to develop youth leadership programs. It is imperative that we change the culture and thinking of our community. We have fell short in our efforts. My office has at least two to three programs for young athletes and entertainment but we must begin to develop leadership and training programs. All of this begins with treating this violence as public health, and pragmatically it means we develop our remedies around treatment, intervention, and prevention. This is the direction that we must go in. I was at that literacy event with my two young girls and just walked away when that happened. The irony of it is that the police were there in the park, but more importantly I had a discussion with Dr. Johnson from UMDNJ and he explained to me that the number one sustainable deterrent to the crime and violence we are witnessing is literacy. This literacy event is where we must be and what we should be about. So its clear to me why the devil showed up. An old African proverb says if you want to move forward fast go alone but if you want to go far go together. We have been moving fast all alone and relying on individuals its time that we go far by working together and depending on ourselves. So we need more community policing and foot patrols, we need to target neighborhoods, we need treat violence as public health, we need to attack a culture of violence and destruction, but more importantly we need to do it together.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Jun 2013 22:49:17 +0000
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