Fighting Street Gangs With Military Counter-Insurgency Software

An anonymous reader writes "After every major war, technology developed for a conflict gets applied to civilian life. The BBC recently reported that Army researchers have adapted advanced social network analysis software used for counter-insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan to help law enforcement analyze the behavior of street gangs. With the growing problem of gang violence in major U.S. cities, this may provide a fresh perspective. 'Orca can figure out the likely affiliations of individuals who will not admit to being members of any specific gang, as well as the sub-structure of gangs – the gang ecosystem – and the identities of those who tend to dictate the behaviour of others. ... Having some knowledge of the links and affiliations between different gangs can highlight dangers that call for more focused policing. If a gang perpetrates some violent action on a rival gang, police will often monitor the rival gang more closely because of the likelihood of retaliation. But gangs know this, and so the rivals might instead ask an allied gang to carry out a reprisal. Understanding such alliances helps the police stay a step ahead.' The question is: will it work?"

Ironic, because this arose from police tactics

[HighOrbit]

One of the lessons learned by the military in Iraq was that investigation and interrogation sometimes trumps raw muscle. So the intelligence teams started studying police procedures and thinking like police investigators to establish who was linked to who (in Iraq its usually cousins/tribesmen or people from the same village). They also studied how the French conducted the Battle of Algiers (which the French won despite losing the overall war in Algeria). The French had discovered that figuring out who specifically was running an operation and kicking down his one door was far more effective than randomly kicking down 100 doors . So the French started extensively interrogating (unfortunately with torture) prisoners to figure out who were members of different cells. The French started keeping books of rap-sheets, family trees, organization charts, and mug shots of all suspected insurgents in the city. Once they had a good grasp on a cell's organization, then they merely had to pick them up. The US military learned some of these lessons. For example, if they found finger prints on IED fragments, and the prints matched a guy from the town of Ramadi, then the first place to look for him would be the local house of his cousin who was also originally from Ramadi.

Gang members ARE domestic terrorists...

[gestalt_n_pepper]

whose targets are citizens rather than government personnel or buildings. Frankly, this is one case where I'd say the use of this technology is appropriate and overdue.

Re:it could be stopped

[VortexCortex]

when gang members are identified, eliminate them. Simple and fully effective. let their worthless parents cry about how they were turning their life around blah blah blah.

I don't think you fully understand the problems of gangs. In some neighborhoods, young kids almost have to join a gang in order not to become a victim. It is a matter of becoming a predator vs prey, and those youngsters don't always have the world view that adults have to distinguish right from wrong in that situation, and the potential impact on their future. Equally effective and simple would be to isolate these folks by taking them out of that situation. Move them to some flyover state in the middle of nowhere, where they can be drilled in a youth detention center. Not as a punishment, but as a form of education. While it would be unfair towards the parents who were unable to raise their kids, I'm sure they would prefer to have the state take care of them, rather than execute them. Not to mention the cost of the death penalty, or difficulties in proving gang affiliation.

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK ARE YOU THINKING?!

You mother fucking McCarthyist. Gods damn. Do I have to spell this shit out for you?!

Are you now, or have you ever been affiliated with a gang?

Son of a fucking bitch. You dumb fools are advocating a secret police style intelligence network be used to arrest anyone for being an ASSOCIATE of someone that NO ONE ADMITS TO KNOWING. That's EVEN FUCKING WORSE. You trust the fucking police?! SERIOUSLY? Those same corrupt assholes who I have on video towing my car while not improperly parked, fucking up, dropping it on its side, totaling it then lying in court saying it was side swiped when they got there, and the judge disallowing the surveillance video? The same governments that goes after whistle blowers with the full force of their armed forces, even destroying relations with other countries for ONE MAN.

YOU FOOLS are ACTUALLY saying that we should let these power hungry elitist mother fuckers create a HUGE internment camp?!?!

Proof once again, that low UIDs don't mean shit. Hurry up and die, you're SERIOUSLY hindering the herd!

Re:it could be stopped

[mjwx]

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK ARE YOU THINKING?!

You mother fucking McCarthyist. Gods damn. Do I have to spell this shit out for you?!

I 100% agree with you. But the GP did unwittingly point out that a lot of kids join gangs to prevent themselves from being victims of gangs.

But to say the rest of his post was absolutely retarded is an insult to every genuine window licker throughout the entire world.

All detention centres will do is take them out of one gang and put them into another gang in another place (it would probably make them worse, teach them discipline, motivation and an absolute hatred of authority... That always works right, guys, right?).

If you want to stop gang violence then you need to look at why kids are joining gangs and target the causes, not simply target them once they've joined... Hey kind of like dealing with terrorists.

Re:it could be stopped

[Anonymous Coward]

"Condone" and "Not Immune To Bullets" are 2 very different things I think.
You arrogant prick. WTF do you do when the police won't even come to your side of town?

Re:Or we could just...

[aaaaaaargh!]

The USA is provably the most injust industrialized country of the world, and its getting worse all the time. On average, an employer used to get a 30 times higher salary than an employee in the 50s, nowadays he gets a 300 times higher salary. The USA is the only modern industrialized country in the world without legally guaranteed vacation - 25% of all Americans have not a single day of paid vacation per year. The top 1% of US households in terms of income own 35.4% of all privately owned wealth (in 2010). You have - before / without Obamacare - one of the most expensive health systems in the world, yet it doesn't even cover the whole population. Your Gini index is 0.49 - only select countries in Africa, parts of South America , and China have a worse Gini index. The list could go on and on. At the same time the US is the 15th richest country in the world in terms of GDP per capita (according to the CIA world fact book), so the country is not poor at all.

Sorry if these facts annoy you, that's not my intention. I'm just mentioning them in orer to illustrate that there might be a social problem in your country. Of course, you could also just ignore it and explain it away as your politicians apparently prefer. But there is a good chance that one day in the more distant future the social justice problem will bite you in the ass.