Watts truce

The Watts truce was a 1992 peace agreement among rival street gangs in Los Angeles, California, declared in the neighborhood of Watts. The truce was declared in the days just before the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and although not universally adhered to, was a major component of the decline of street violence in the city during the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s.

Background

The truce was influenced by the decision between two rival sets (sub-groups) within the extensive Crips gang to call a ceasefire. Many of the large American street gangs, such as the Crips and their primary rivals the Bloods, had formed in the late 1960s and the 1970s to fight each other, but by the 1980s disorganization and the growth of crack cocaine had led to infighting among sets within the gangs. By the early 1990s, after 20 years of increasing internecine gang warfare across public housing projects that saw peak crime rates in Los Angeles, gang members themselves began trying to stem the violence.

1992 Truce

In late April 1992, sets from Crips and Bloods in the Watts neighborhood in southern Los Angeles convened to negotiate peace. The Grape Street Crips from the Jordan Downs Projects, the P Jay Watts Crips from the Imperial Courts housing projects, and the Bounty Hunter Bloods from the Nickerson Gardens housing projects met in the Imperial Courts Project gym.[1] Football legend and activist Jim Brown, and hip-hop artists of the West Coast Rap All-Stars, helped the rivals to negotiate their truce, and the factions would go on to draft a formal peace treaty modelled on a ceasefire 1949 Armistice Agreements reached between Israel and Egypt. Within days of the truce, despite the relative lawlessness caused by the 1992 Los Angeles riots, most of the African-American and Latino gangs in the city declared themselves at peace and there were no major flare ups in violence. The Watts truce is generally credited with contributing to the trend in declining street violence rates in Los Angeles.[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Duane, Daniel (January 2006). "Straight Outta Boston Why is the "Boston Miracle" – the only tactic proven to reduce gang violence – being dissed by the L.A.P.D., the FBI, and Congress?". Mother Jones. Retrieved November 9, 2013.
  2. ↑ Stoltze, Frank (April 28, 2012). "Forget the LA Riots – historic 1992 Watts gang truce was the big news". 89.3 KPCC Southern California Public Radio. Retrieved November 9, 2013.
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