Abstract:
A major black-run charitable organization in Los Angeles--the Brotherhood Crusade--decides in 1989 to "take back" a 48-square block swath of the city's black ghetto from drug dealers and gang members who appear to control it. The demonstration project would be led by volunteers recruited by the Brotherhood from black churches and include role models for wayward youth: stockbrokers, lawyers, and other successful males. The saturation campaign was to include tutoring, job training, painting over graffiti--but would pointedly not include the police, whose reputation for violence was thought to be a serious hinderance should they be included in the community project. The ambiguous results of the project raise the question of whether police should or could have been involved.
Learning Objective:
The case provides a vehicle for discussing relations between police and a minority community, as well as discussion of the efficacy of the tactics outlined.
