Counterinsurgency methods used to fight gang crime

[Jazzy]

Street gangs had become so intimidating in Springfield that citizens stopped calling the police on them. And no wonder: gangs were so strong that motorcycle-riding members once cruised a neighborhood with military-style assault rifles strapped to their backs in a show of force. But crime in the gang-infested areas of the Massachusetts city has begun to drop after law enforcement started using a military-style approach of its own.

Massachusetts State Trooper Mike Cutone realized that the methods of the insurgents he combated as a Green Beret in Iraq were similar to those used by the Springfield gangs. "Insurgents and gang members both want to operate in a failed area," he tells Stahl, referring to the breakdown in cooperation between the citizens and authorities. "They know they can live off the passive support of the community, where the community is not going to call or engage the local police," says Cutone.

So he helped form an anti-gang unit of troopers who work with the Springfield Police Department employing tactics right out of his old military manual. Key to the strategy in the old New England town -- just like in Baghdad or Basra -- was re-engaging the citizens and making them allies instead of impediments. "We're using the other 99 percent of the population that live there. Winning them over," says Cutone. "They become our eyes and ears ...floodgates have opened for criminal information that we can go after now."

Citizens of the North End are now passing on information from many sources in the community to law enforcement. And the counterinsurgency team is working to reduce gang membership by providing help, such as jobs, for at-risk youth or gang members who want to go straight.

Springfield police say violent crime in the targeted areas of Springfield fell 25 percent last year, while drug offenses have dropped 50 percent.

Source

Seems like it's working.

What do you think about these counterinsurgency methods?

 

[Evil Eye]

Sounds like a good thing to me.