A recent photograph illustrates the need for an anti-gang law | Opinion

The South Carolina General Assembly has recently created a task force to study juvenile crime. Inevitably, there will be calls for mentors for troubled youth. Unfortunately, many of these juvenile delinquents already have mentors — their gang leaders. If we are serious about preventing children from being drawn into a life of crime, we will work to eliminate the gangs that are luring them in.

The City of Columbia Police Department recently circulated a photograph showing two people hanging from a car’s passenger windows, firing guns. Reports said that the shooters were later seen on surveillance cameras after a drive-by shooting.

For all law enforcement, not just the Columbia Police Department, this is nothing new. Police officers and prosecutors see drive-by shootings every day — one group shooting at another group, their homes or their cars. It is also not unusual for an innocent person to be struck in the crossfire.

The proliferation of machine guns is making an already bad situation worse. South Carolina defines a machine gun as any weapon that is manufactured or can be altered so that a single pull of the trigger releases multiple bullets. Beaufort County law enforcement has made more machine gun cases in the past two years than in the previous 10 combined. An internal analysis by that county’s Solicitor’s Office shows that two thirds of those machine guns were in the hands of gang members.

This underscores the need for a statute in South Carolina that allows law enforcement and prosecutors to dismantle gangs and hold those involved accountable. Thirty-eight states already have gang laws, including North Carolina and Georgia. South Carolina must follow suit. Now.

State gang laws — often referred to as Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO acts — allow for the investigation and prosecution of organized crime. They are effective because they attack the entire criminal enterprise at once, rather than through piecemeal prosecutions that target one gang member at a time. Too often, by the time a gangster reaches bond court, the gang has already replaced him.

A gang law would also allow juries to see the full scope of the crime. Much of the information about gang activity is currently inadmissible in criminal trials. As a result, jurors are left in the dark about the how and the why of a crime. A state gang law would change that.

It would also bring additional benefits by allowing for the investigation and prosecution of any criminal organization made up of three or more people. That includes human traffickers, fentanyl traffickers and those involved in organized retail theft. These crimes require logistics and coordination across jurisdictions. They involve multiple people working together and are most effectively addressed through a gang law or state RICO act.

The General Assembly is addressing many issues in the final year of this two-year session, but none is more important than public safety. There are currently two gang bills in the S.C. Senate — one sponsored by Sen. Tom Young of Aiken County and another by Sen. Greg Hembree of Horry County — and one in the S.C House sponsored by Rep. Robbie Robbins, who represents Colleton and Dorchester counties. Any of them would go a long way toward helping law enforcement and prosecutors keep our communities safe; but Hembree’s bill, S. 76, appears to have the best chance of becoming law.

We need it passed, and we need it now. If you have any doubts, just look at the picture.

The authors are solicitors for 15 of South Carolina’s 16 judicial circuits