These two statements seem contradict each other. If gang violence is unbiquitous, it certainly cannot be caused by "local" conditions, such as poverty. In fact, gang violence was a big problem in socialist countries and was particularly prevalent when opportunities to move up the social ladder were abundant.
IMHO, gang violence is an interplay of two factors - the warped male psyche and the weakening of social control. Certain (if not most) males are thrilled by collective violence, by the society can usually channel that psychopathic male trait into less destructive venues, such as sports, certain types of spectacle, or military service, or control it by a system of informal norms, sanctions and rewards for conformity with social norms. However, when the social control breaks down, usually as a result of rapid grand scale social cganges, such as migrations, wars, or commodification of social relations - this warped male trait runs unchecked and finds its expressions in more or less organized collective violence, from gang rape, to loose criminal bands, to organized gangs.
As any other form of social organizations, these gangs reward conformity with their norms and sanction non-conformity. In this case, however, the norm as violence, aggession, and subjugation of others, and the gang members are rewarded when they engage in that behavior. That is why legal sanctions of any sort have little effect on their behavior - the severity of punishment may even encourage criminal behavior in these individuals, because it icreases th erisk and risk taking is rewarded in gang culture.
Another thing - saying that crime results from desperation and lack of opportunity is the lamest excuse possible, that has little factual basis. There is a lot of poor people and relatively few of them engage in openly criminal behavior. Criminal behavior (albeit of a deifferent sort) is more prevalent among corporate elites who are endowed with privileges. It is the perceived opportunity of getting away with violating th enorm rathen than poverty and desperation that causes criminal behavior - and such perceptions increase with the social status of the perpetrator.
Michael:
> You aren't qualified to judge him unless you can say for
> certain that in
> the same situation you would have behaved in a more saintly
> and selfless
> way.
Sally:
>
> For me the issue is not if 'they' are guilty, or even: are
> people who go to jail and spend time in prison worthy of
> sympathy? -- but: how many of us in this world are not guilty
> of something? Greed, ruthlessness, selfishness, misanthropy,
> misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, ethnocentricism etc. is not
"You too" is a really unconvincing ad hominem. If "whoever is without sin let him cast the first stone" was a generl norm - that would be an open licence to sin. Besides, there is a clear difference between prejudice and acts of violence
RE: retribution argument for punishment I tend to support Justin's/Kant's position that punishment does not need an external justification - it is an inseparable element of the concept of crime and justice. We if we accept that there is such a thing as justice, then we must accept that a violation of it requires punishment - just as if we accept that every effect must have a cause. Both are apriori forms that cannot be or need not to be externally justified.
My only reservation is that retributivism does not call for any specific form of punishment - i.e. it does not say whether a partricular crime must be punished by jail, death, or perhaps even public torture. If, to solve that problem, we accept that punishment must be commnesurate to the severity of crime, why stopiing at death and not include public torture for especially heinous crimes (like crimes against humanity or crimes that caused great suffering)? One possible answer is that the appropriate form of punishment is the one that a society deems to be befitting crime - but that is a very shaky argument, to say the least.
Wojtek