Founded by Gregory Boyle, ‘Homeboy Industries’ has been playing an incredible role in offering mental health counseling, training, and job placement, and removing tattoos from gang members after they have been set free of charges. Established in 1986, ‘Homebody Industries’ serves an excess of 8,000 people from 700 different gangs in Los Angeles. The organization also provides other services such as anger management and parenting among the gang members (Boyle 19). Rival gangs are given an opportunity to work together in five different lines of business. Boyle has an immense passion for facilitating gang rehabilitation in a society where violence is a normal way of life. This observation suggests that Homeboy Industries has yielded success in reducing the problems of gang violence within Los Angeles. However, a question arises concerning the extent to which Boyle’s book, Tattoo on the Heart, provides lessons that the American government can emulate in addressing gang violence problems within all major US cities.
Felony disenfranchisement cases have characterized the history of the United States since 1965. By noting that America advocates universal human rights, several states have been concerned about the continued growth of the number of felony convicts and ex-convicts. By 2003, about 4.7 million felony ex-convicts in the United States had been disenfranchised. In societies whose democracies are based on people’s rights, punishment for crimes committed by convicts is enhanced through the curtailing of some fundamental rights of people, including the right to association and traveling. From Boyle’s work, the US can learn a different approach to dealing with problems of felony and negative implications that may influence ex-convicts, including the possibility of reverting to crimes after serving sentences.
Boyle identified the need for rehabilitating gangs, other than just placing a sentence and sending them to jail. Indeed, in all the sermons that he delivered in jails, he has never been tempted to preach hellfire on offenders (Boyle 131). In this context, although Boyle may disapprove of felony crimes that offenders commit, the US government can learn that imprisonment does not mean the rehabilitation of gang members. Jailing offenders is not also perhaps the solution to dealing with gang violence. The government should be busy integrating offenders into society rather than portraying disappointment with their behaviors. From this perspective, the government needs to interrogate why people engage in crimes while others do not. A response to this issue can yield information that can help the government to share different experiences of different people in a bid to enact the appropriate strategies for ensuring that their lives turn around.
When felony convicts’ rights are eroded, including voting privileges, their rehabilitation process is impaired. They may perceive themselves as having lesser equal rights in comparison with other people who have not committed felony crimes. Siegel also holds this position by claiming that the denial of voting rights impaired the rehabilitation process to the extent of making people devastated after the passing of 1965 (PL.89-110) Voting Rights Act (89). In this context, felony convicts may develop psychological challenges that may impede their capacity to fit well in society by developing a negative perception of their equality and their value to society. Hence, the US government can draw lessons from Boyle’s work. Rehabilitating gang members while integrating them into society can help in not only increasing their acceptance in society but also improving their psychological health.
From Boyle’s, an important lesson emerges that dealing with gang problems effectively requires people to feel that their citizenship is valued. Through the provisions of the 14th Amendment of the US Charter, nations are mandated to make laws that deny voting rights to inmates and felons. In California, disenfranchisement laws stipulate that all adults who are convicted of felony crimes to the extent of being held in paroles and prisons should lose suffrage rights until their jail terms lapse (Siegel 88). Such persons consist of more than 4.7 million people who do not enjoy their voting rights in the US. This position does not just amount to saying that robbers, murderers, and rapists do not have suffrage rights. Acts of felony extend beyond these crimes to include other offenses whose penalties range from serving a jail term of more than one year. This case raises the question concerning the impact of felony convictions on people. How do the convictions make people alter the manner in which they perceive their citizenship rights?
People may engage in acts that lead to their conviction for felony crimes due to economic hardship. Therefore, an appropriate way for the government to address gang problems is to understand the load that the people are carrying, as opposed to just judging them based on how they should carry it (the load) on their shoulders (Boyle 96). This way, the government can develop appropriate policies, which can ease the people’s economic and social challenges, which in turn reveal some of the reasons why they join gangs. Similar to Boyle’s approach, this strategy calls for compassionate approaches to dealing with felony crimes in the US.
Apart from the applicability of the strategies to gang problems, Boyle’s approach may also apply to other areas of policy formulation. In policy formulation and implementation, it is important to involve all stakeholders. In the case of gangs, successful rehabilitation requires their involvement and the sharing of their experiences. In other areas, for example, economic and political policies, the involvement of stakeholders is also crucial to the success of any policy implementation process (Whitford 17). Indeed, any government policy should address the people on the ground together with their problems. Such people should be cognizant that a policy is developed and implemented for their collective benefit.
‘Homeboy Industries’ has been successful in dealing with gang problems within Los Angeles, yet it is church-based. An arising question is whether ‘Homeboy Industries’ would be more successful it was bureaucratically steered by the government, as opposed to the church. In the US, prisons are rehabilitation centers. Nevertheless, some people revert to committing crimes even after serving their jail terms amid the intense bureaucratic approaches to prison administration. This issue suggests that ‘Homeboy Industries’ would not be more successful if it were administered bureaucratically by the government.
The bureaucratic administration of Boyle’s approach can be appropriate where reducing incidents of non-compliance with the model are necessary. However, Boyle’s approach is based on compassion and collaboration. Therefore, forced compliance is unnecessary. Implementing policies through bureaucracy focuses on conformity to the groups of people who are targeted by the policy. Less focus is put on their reactions to the policy (Whitford 19). Bureaucracy also emphasizes the determination of the capacity to enforce a policy through the established rules, regulations, and laws to avoid deviance. Boyle’s approach has no established rules and regulations that can guide the rehabilitation process together with all other functions that ‘Homeboy Industries’ does. Therefore, the ‘Homeboy Industries’ cannot be more effective. It is administered bureaucratically by the government.
Works Cited
Boyle, Gregory. Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Borderless Compassion. New York, NY: Free Press, 2011. Print.
Siegel, Jonah. “Felon Disenfranchisement and the Right for Universal Suffrage.” Social Work 56.1(2011): 89-91. Print.
Whitford, Andrew. “Decentralized Policy Implementation.” Political Research Quarterly 10.1(2007):17-30. Print.