"Better to have a seat at the table than no seat at all"?

David Bernstein and Noah Isackson report in Chicago Magazine on the alliances of Chicago Democrat politicians and street gang leaders.

To what extent do street gangs influence—and corrupt—Chicago politics today? And what are the consequences for ordinary citizens? To find out, Chicago conducted more than 100 interviews with current and former elected officials and candidates, gang leaders, senior police officials, rank-and-file cops, investigators, and prosecutors. We also talked to community activists, campaign operatives, and criminologists. We limited our scope to the city (though alliances certainly exist in some gang-infested suburbs) and focused exclusively on Democrats, since they are the dominant governing party in Chicago and in the statehouse. Moreover, we looked at the political influence of street gangs only, not of traditional organized crime—a worthy subject for another day.

Our findings:

While they typically deny it, many public officials—mostly, but not limited to, aldermen, state legislators, and elected judges—routinely seek political support from influential street gangs.

In some cases, the partnerships extend beyond the elections in troubling—and possibly criminal—ways, greased by the steady and largely secret flow of money from gang leaders to certain politicians and vice versa. The gangs funnel their largess through opaque businesses, or front companies, and through under-the-table payments. In turn, grateful politicians use their payrolls or campaign funds to hire gang members, pull strings for them to get jobs or contracts, or offer other favors.

Most alarming, both law enforcement and gang sources say, is that some politicians ignore the gangs’ criminal activities. Some go so far as to protect gangs from the police, tipping them off to impending raids or to surveillance activities—in effect, creating safe havens in their political districts. And often they chafe at backing tough measures to stem gang activities, advocating instead for superficial solutions that may garner good press but have little impact.


...For some politicians, gang members can be a source of political strength—all the more so given that the once-formidable City Hall–Cook County patronage system, the lifeblood of the old Machine, is mostly gone. In the heyday of the Machine, recalls Wallace Davis Jr., a former 27th Ward alderman, political chieftains could simply snap their fingers and marshal a large cadre of city workers to go door-to-door with “a pint of wine and a chicken” to turn out the vote.

Few politicians nowadays have such armies at their beck and call. To win elections, many officeholders and candidates—especially those who represent parts of the city with high concentrations of street gangs—turn to those gangs as their de facto political organizations. “It went from wine and a chicken to hiring a gangbanger,” says Davis, who served from 1983 to 1987. “It’s unfortunate.”

Though estimates vary, most authorities and criminologists agree that there are 70,000 to 125,000 gang members in the city. In the numbers game of Chicago politics—in which, as the old joke goes, a one-vote victory constitutes a landslide—a constituency of that size gets noticed. (Keep in mind that in Illinois convicted felons can vote once they are released from prison.)

...A Latin King, interviewed at Cook County Jail, recalls how the top leader of his gang, the Corona, ordered every member in his area to vote for Ricardo Muñoz, the 22nd Ward alderman. “Every chapter had to vote for that guy, anyone who was eligible to vote,” says the Latin King. “That was a direct order. That means you can’t say no. If you do, you face a violation”—typically a beating, or worse.

...Before he was charged with shooting a rival gang member, the jailed Vice Lord says, he regularly met with the alderman in parking lots or at a Mexican restaurant to pick up and deliver envelopes of money. In time, the alderman—whom the Vice Lord refused to name but described as heavyset and middle-aged—grew more comfortable with these meetings and began asking to be introduced to young women who hung around the gang.

In return, the Vice Lord recalls, the alderman would sometimes give the gang a heads-up about what was discussed at CAPS meetings, where police and residents talked about neighborhood crime and other issues. The alderman, he says, would tell them which corners or gang members were receiving police attention. That way, the gang would “know how to move around” to avoid police, he explains. (Many aldermen wield considerable influence over the police commanders in their districts. In some respects, the commanders unofficially report to the aldermen.) He says that the alderman would also let them know about jobs at particular construction sites in the ward.

...The Vice Lord and five other top gang members—all of whom requested anonymity out of concern for their safety—described how gangs and public officials use each other in ways legal and illegal. Though they are from different areas of the city, their stories are similar. Generally speaking, they say, the relationships grow out of activities related to Election Day, when politicians can offer dozens of temporary jobs to those willing to do the get-out-the-vote work or, if necessary, intimidate voters, tear down signs, or vandalize an opponent’s campaign office, among other misdeeds. From there, the relationships can, and do, get seedier.

...Anti-gang activists, police, and political insiders say that elected officials show how serious they are about tackling the gang problems in their districts by the public safety actions they take or don’t take and by the services or favors they provide. For example, many politicians in high-crime districts regularly offer help to ex-offenders who want to get their criminal records expunged—treating such favors as a constituent service, like garbage pickup, rather than a legal process best left to practicing lawyers. Gang leaders we interviewed told stories of how aldermen put off installing or fixing streetlights to keep the streets dark for criminal activity and how gangs can hold picnics or block parties without the required permits.

...“There are parts of this city where there are no legal jobs and the drug dealer and the gang leader are the biggest employers in the community,” Baskin says. “The politicians know it; people in the community know it. That’s the social dynamic that plays out in these meetings.”

Read more here.