Former gang member lectures on reasons people join gangs

A former gang member spoke on the gang epidemic Friday at the University Center as a guest of the UT College of Education and Phi Delta Kappa, a fraternity for professional educators.

Antonio R. Longoria, who has a masters degree and is working toward a doctorate , wore a conservative gray suit that contrasted with his shoulder-length hair. He is negotiating a treaty with two gangs as part of his duties as a gang deterrent specialist with the Fort WorthPolice Department, and he said appearance is important to establish credibility with gangsters.

"I certainly understand the conservative nature of East Tennessee," he said. "I was told I'd scare you to death and you'd start stoning me."

His lecture, "Cultural Diversity, Moral Fear and the New Paradigm for Researchers and Workers Among Gangs," concentrated on the inefficiency of current gang deterrent programs and the inadequacy of current research methods.

"Because of the constant change in the dynamic of gangsters, gang prevention becomes obsolete by the time it is (implemented)," Longoria said. "This constant change requires reprogramming regularly."

New trends police have failed to recognize include the makeup of gangs. White female gang members are on the rise, Longoria said.

"It (the gang problem) will no longer be a phenomenon to minority communities," he said.

The gang's function is not to organize crime or to make money, but to provide a support group for displaced young people, he said.

Gang members, lacking social and emotional support from home, develop an ethos, moral or not, that meets their social needs, Longoria said. The failure of police to understand gangster motivations leads to policing by intimidation and "zero-tolerance" programs that combat the outward expression of gang hostility without attacking its root causes.

"They (gang members) create a model of life that you and I cannot understand," he said, "It's a `you versus me' paradigm. (They) look for others in the same boat. They will forsake their families for this support system."

Longoria used an episode with his dog to illustrate the problems with conventional police methods that create hostility and increase misunderstanding. While trying to break up a fight between his dog and a neighbor's, Langoria's Chow turned on its owner.

"In street fights you always hit first," he said. "I admit it. I feared for my life ... That dog ran so far away from me I thought I'd never find him. I created a paradigm in his mind. To this day this is how I call him: Hey Rocky, want a cookie?"

Longoria criticized colleges and universities for their failure to understand the phenomenon of gangs.

"Observation-based research is not accurate," he said. "Higher education has been incompetent. It has not created a holistic model for analyzing the problem. They utilize isolationist methods and they teach `keep them away from my neighborhood' as a way of dealing with the problem. Only higher education can put on the streets people who have the street knowledge to become gang infiltrators."

Longoria warned that gangs cannot be controlled until they are understood, and society continues to ignore the root causes of gangs at its own peril.

"This is a cultural epidemic that threatens to cripple young generations," he said.