{"id":15397,"date":"2012-06-24T00:23:57","date_gmt":"2012-06-24T07:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/198.57.196.122\/~gdatwofo\/theavtimes\/?p=15397"},"modified":"2012-06-28T19:42:05","modified_gmt":"2012-06-29T02:42:05","slug":"conference-starts-dialogue-on-crime-prevention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/2012\/06\/24\/conference-starts-dialogue-on-crime-prevention\/","title":{"rendered":"Conference starts dialogue on crime prevention"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Andrea Cano spoke at the Crime Prevention and Intervention conference.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

PALMDALE \u2013 About 40 residents gathered at the Larry Chimbole Cultural Center Saturday to discuss crime and public safety in the Antelope Valley.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a chance for community leaders and community members to come together to get a better understanding of what we need to do to prevent crime in our community,\u201d said organizer Pharaoh Mitchell.<\/p>\n

Panelists at the Crime Prevention and Intervention Conference included Darren Parker,<\/strong> Chairman of the Antelope Valley Human Relations Commission; Abdul Majeed Askia<\/strong>, community activist and public speaker; Veronica Fields<\/strong>, organizer of the recent \u201cHoodie March for Solidarity; Cynthia Beverly,<\/strong> CEO of the \u201cOne Way Up\u201d youth organization; Stan Muhammad<\/strong>, local director for the Nation of Islam; Xavier Flores<\/strong>, project director for Pueblo Y Salud; and Dr. Miguel Coronado<\/strong> and Jackie Contreras<\/strong>, representatives from the League of United Latin American Citizens.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Before audience members had their say, panelists were given five minutes each to share their perspectives on crime prevention and intervention.<\/p>\n

\u201cCrime prevention starts in the home. You do that by hugging, disciplining and paying attention to your kids,\u201d said Dr. Coronado. \u201cIf you don\u2019t pay attention to your kids, our community pays the price.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many of the youth, unfortunately, are automatically cast into the category of being enemies,\u201d said Askia, adding that youths are often labeled as being dangerous and wild, based on appearance alone.<\/p>\n

Fields, the youngest member on the panel, said she was hoping to establish programs that would bridge the gap between the young and the old, as well as the sheriff\u2019s department and the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sheriffs have a bad reputation and that\u2019s not right for our community,\u201d said Fields. \u201cWe should have more programs that show that the sheriffs don\u2019t just pick on people and kill people for no reason\u2026 I think if we bridge the gap between the sheriffs and the community then it will be a lot safer in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other panelists said there was a disproportionate number of blacks and Latinos in the prison system.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody in public office is saying \u2018crime is down, crime is down\u2019; guess what folks? People are being put in jail,\u201d Muhammad said. \u201cThe question is: what is the percentage of those individuals who really deserve a second chance at life?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Diann Moskowitz spoke against Section 8.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first audience member to speak was Diann Moskowitz<\/strong>, and she did not mince words in describing her frustrations with the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could be the president of the sick and damn tired old white women\u2019s task force,\u201d Moskowitz said. She said the Section 8 program was crippling the Antelope Valley, partly because of a lawsuit that prevented the cities from funding extra investigators to root out fraud in the program. She went on to blame the NAACP for its role in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps by joining those of us who want cheats thrown out of any entitlement program, your organization could actually help the younger generations of all colors to understand that government shouldn\u2019t be paying over and over again for illegal activities,\u201d Moskowitz said.<\/p>\n

Her comments prompted a response from another audience member, Andrea Cano<\/strong>, who urged Moskowitz to check out Tim Wise\u2019s “The Pathology of White Privilege”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we are entitled to everything we don\u2019t have to think about anything else but ourselves\u2026\u201d Cano said. \u201cIf we could acknowledge our white privilege and not play black and brown, maybe we could understand and make a change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another audience member, Ace Carter<\/strong>, suggested effective ways for dealing with Sheriff\u2019s deputies. You should always get a business card from deputies or get them to identify themselves and spell their names when you call the station, Carter said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cYou will get an entirely new response from the police if you just identify them and know who they are,\u201d he said. \u201cThen they know you\u2019re not a dope, and they treat you way differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jonathan Ervin<\/strong> said people were moving to the Antelope Valley because it was cheaper to live here. But because the area lacked jobs, some people were turning to crime to survive, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real foundation of the problem that we\u2019re seeing is jobs, and specifically, lack of manufacturing, low-skilled, high-wage jobs,\u201d Ervin said, adding that Morton\u2019s Manufacturing\u2019s<\/a> relocation to Lancaster would bring the kinds of jobs the community needed.<\/p>\n

Other topics included how to deal with gang members and effective ways to reach out to disadvantaged residents.<\/p>\n

Organizers said the conference accomplished its mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose was to get the dialogue going and to see how we could start to effectively make changes in our community as far as crime is concerned,\u201d said Mitchell. \u201cOur next step is to focus on getting more community members out to these events so that we can have the full participation of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PALMDALE \u2013 About 40 residents gathered at the Larry Chimbole Cultural Center Saturday to discuss crime and public safety in the Antelope Valley. \u201cThis is a chance for community leaders and community members to come together to get a better understanding of what we need to do to prevent crime in our community,\u201d said organizer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15397"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}