U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., blasts U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk's, R-Ill., plan to lock-up 18,000 U.S. citizens without a trial (mostly young Black men) as "a sensational, headline-grabbing, empty, simplistic, unworkable approach"
There's a core of substance in Kirk's `empty, simplistic' crime-fighting proposal
Eric Zorn
Source: ChicagoTribune.com
It's an arresting idea, so to speak. Round up 18,000 members of the Gangster Disciples street gang and put them behind bars awaiting trial. On what charges?
"Drug dealing," said U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., when he first publicly advanced the notion earlier this month in a TV interview on WFLD-Ch. 32. And "murdering people, which is what they do," he continued.
Specifically, Kirk said in an appearance on WTTW-Ch. 11 Wednesday that "about 40 percent of the homicides in the city are due to the Gangster Disciples (including) the murder of Hadiya Pendleton."
Hadiya, a 15-year-old honors student at King College Prep, was shot and killed in a South Side park in late January, allegedly by a man affiliated with the Gangster Disciples. "And if they complain," about the mass arrests, Kirk said, "just say this is about the death of Hadiya Pendleton."
Well, there's a lot wrong with Kirk's plan, which U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., blasted as "a sensational, headline-grabbing, empty, simplistic, unworkable approach" in an interview with the Sun-Times Wednesday.
First, in America we don't just go around locking people up because of who they hang out with or what we think they might do (or at least we haven't since we interned Japanese-Americans during World War II).
Nevertheless, as raw, outlandish and half-baked as Kirk's proposal is, and as murky as his numbers are and as weak as his understanding of cause and effect may be, give him credit for advancing the idea that we need a new, stronger approach to combat gang violence, and for reminding us how huge the problem truly is.
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