Did you know that one person is victimized by crime every 1.7 seconds in the United States? Or that one person is murdered every 35.6 minutes?
To shed light on these staggering statistics from the National Center for Victims of Crime, Saint Peter’s College and the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office jointly hosted “Extending the Vision, Reaching Every Victim” – a program in accordance with the 2012 National Crime Victims’ Rights Week Symposium – as part of the Guarini Lecture Series on April 25.
Students, faculty and guests piled into McIntyre Lounge for a full day’s worth of events that consisted of speeches from various local authorities, including Hudson County Prosecutor Ed DeFazio; two panel discussions; and a keynote address from New Jersey State Attorney General Jeff Chiesa. Local agencies were also in attendance, setting up stations around McIntyre to offer materials and information about the various programs available to crime victims in Hudson County.
One topic at the symposium, The Rise of Gang Culture, offered an abundant amount of information on the negative effects of gangs for the youth and community of Hudson County. For the panel discussion’s moderator, Kevin Callahan ’69, lecturer of criminal justice at Saint Peter’s College and a former Superior Court judge, it was a topic he found quite familiar. During his speech to the audience, he said, “I was on the criminal bench for 25 years. For the last 15 years or so, I handled every gang case that came along that the Prosecutor’s Office vigorously prosecuted. It was a challenging experience. I tried cases involving Latin Kings, Crips, and Bloods. Hudson County, in the years that I was doing this, really did not have those issues until 15 years ago. When we wound up getting our gangs, boy, did we get our gangs.”
In addition to Callahan, two panelists were also present for the discussion: Captain Keith LaMont Stith of the Homicide/Special Victims Unit, Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office; and New Jersey State Police Detective Sergeant Jay Mandziuk, Organized Crime Control Bureau.
The three men staged an interactive program that featured a PowerPoint presentation on gang activity at local schools, titled “Neutral Ground,” which provided details on gang recruitment, retention, retaliation and how these incidents can be prevented, such as through the implementation of extracurricular activities for youth.
Stith said, “My personal opinion is that I think the community needs to do a better job of providing things for the kids to do after school.”
A segment of the presentation, called “Fact or Folklore,” also challenged the audience to guess whether bulleted items were true or false, and subsequently shout out the answer. In response to the statement “Gang members don’t snitch,” the crowd replied with an overwhelming “yes,” which Stith confirmed was correct.
The panelists also conducted a question and answer session with the audience. Former Congressman Frank Guarini H ’94, for whom the Guarini Institute for Government and Leadership is named for and guest at the event, asked the first question: “Are women as violent as men in these gangs?”
“They’re more violent,” Stith replied, citing that women often lure a victim to male gang members through flirtatious behavior, only to have said victim assaulted or even killed.
But not all messages were dark and dismal. Callahan concluded the presentation by saying, “We are winning the battle, but there’s an epidemic out there. If you think we are losing the battle, just look around at our students here. They are the future.”