Where help is needed.

Portland, Oregon, a place that has never been as pure as it thinks of itself as being, has had another "resurgence" of gang violence. No reasonable person places all the blame on the parent for the child who makes very bad choices and gets himself on a self-destructive path. We all know that, after a certain quite early age, the influence of the parent over a child diminishes as the influences available outside the parental home increase in importance. The matter of Rashad Banks, the young gangster who was shot recently in Portland, Oregon, is a case in point. Though a parent loses the "control" over the child that she once had, the parent that fails to perform the parental role in the situation must be understood to be part of the equation. A parent has to see what is to be seen regarding the child's style of life. A parent has to make reasonable evaluations about what that conduct must be understood to mean. A parent must perform the parental role of protecting the child - from himself, if necessary. Deficient parents aren't able to do these things. They should be the prime object of the community's efforts to control gangs. The principal "avenue of approach to the problem," to-date, is a man named Brown who is a contact person acting out of his own gangster background. This "approach" is working some good results but the community must provide a parental-assistance program.