The city of Madison and Dane County have created a second task force to handle gang problems. Statements from Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk and Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz say the second task force is needed to deal with changes in the gangs. Try again. I don’t believe that excuse. You need a second task force because the other task force has proven to be incompetent and ineffective. What makes them think a second task force will do any better? A new task force was definitely needed, but they gave it the wrong task. The new task force should be investigating the first task force, all law enforcement agencies in the area and the local governments. Its task should be to discover why our law enforcement agencies have failed to reduce the problem and what is impeding progress.

I already know part of the answer. The police actively avoid areas where there is known gang activity. I partially blame Madison’s ultra-PC environment for that. It’s no secret that the majority of gang members in this area are minorities. What would happen if the police really started cracking down on the gangs? That’s right, an increase in minority arrests. The City Department of Civil Rights would blow a gasket.

But here’s an idea. Crack down hard on all gang activity. Damn political correctness. If there’s fewer gang members on the streets, the gangs will lose recruiting power. Peer pressure works. But if you remove the bad elements encouraging kids to join gangs, we should see a reduction in gang size.

But we also need to get innovative. Why don’t we start treating gang members like sex offenders? Force them to register with local authorities and inform their neighbors that they’ve been convicted of a gang related crime. Also, a convicted gang member should’t be allowed to reside in the community where they committed the crime. Think about it, if some piece of trash guns someone down to earn “street cred”, why let them move back to a neighborhood where many respect what they did? Bring back ostracizing. They shouldn’t be allowed to so much as set foot within city limits for at least ten years, except for necessary trips to government offices or medical appointments and only when approved by the authorities.

Basically, if you want to reduce the gang problem, you need to make it more unappealing to be in a gang. That means the police need to reaching down the throat of gangs, not looking the other way in order to make arrest statistics look politically correct.