ABSTRACT
This is not meant to glorify inner-city dropouts or to argue that police should not arrest them when they commit serious crimes. They are traumatized children raised in war zones, needing respect, dignity, role models, rehabilitation, education, and training. When they are arrested, they should be respected, not treated as subhumans, which only keeps alight the slow-burning fuse of their rage. They have stories to tell that the public needs to hear. They can be role models, as members of the Alcoholics Anonymous community are to each other. The case for former gang members as intervention workers rests on the assumption that those who initiated the madness can contribute to ending it. But they have been defined as untouchables for thirty years, economically redundant, politically scapegoated. Their numbers represent the sixties’ greatest failure and may be Obama’s greatest challenge.
