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St. Thomas Law Review

Silvia Perez

First Page

619

Document Type

Comment

Abstract

Gang violence continues to be a problem in today's society. Gangs have spread beyond our inner cities into this nation's rural areas, parks and streets. The United States spends $20 billion a year treating the victims of gunshot wounds. "Gang violence is not only tearing at our moral culture and killing our children, it's also picking our pockets." Gangs exist in 94% of major American cities. Former President Clinton found the 1998 statistics released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Centre for Education Statistics unacceptable and urged Congress to "fight the trend by approving anti-gang and youth violence" legislation and initiates. The President has called for what he claims will work, which is tough, targeted deterrence! Despite these calls for tough legislation, criminal anti-gang ordinances have met with particular resistance and invalidation by the courts based on constitutional challenges. "Our failure to curb such mayhem must be blamed on tolerance, not ignorance." Alternatives of providing education, recreation and job programs are possible long-term solutions to gang violence without any guarantees and, further, do not address the current problems encountered in every community. This paper constitutes an analysis of the constitutional issues that face criminal anti-gang loitering ordinances and public nuisance laws by comparing, with particularity, the issues present in two recent decisions. The Supreme Court decision in City of Chicago v. Morales9 (Morales) and the California Supreme Court decision in People ex rel. Gallo v. Acuna (Acuna) are illustrative of the most recent legislation enacted in fighting criminal gang activity. The Supreme Court in Morales faced the issue of the constitutionality of an anti-gang loitering ordinance," while the premise at issue before the California Supreme Court in Acuna relates to the constitutionality of a public nuisance law used to enjoin gang activity. The opinions in Morales and Acuna show certain similarities and differences in the Courts' treatment of the constitutionality of laws relating to gang activity and gang violence. Additionally, the analysis in this article will also focus on whether public nuisance laws currently being used to fight street gangs will continue to withstand constitutional challenges.

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