When was the last time you were able to turn on the news and not hear about some sort of violent act? Crime is a growing concern amongst most cities, and street gangs are behind a lot of the trouble. Street gangs have plagued the streets for centuries and there is no stopping the urge to commit such hideous crimes. Gangs grow from recruiting young kids but what makes a kid decide to join a crime filled lifestyle.
The gang life contains many negative aspects including the most notorious reason for violence, drugs. Getting high seems appealing to many students but with the excitement of getting high comes the responsibility of buying and selling the drugs. The biggest reason for a gang to start would be drugs. Marijuana might seem like a harmless drug but it can be the most dangerous drug to start doing. When someone smokes marijuana it attracts them to use other drugs and these addictions need gang support. Addictions attract young kids to this lifestyle to keep themselves supplied with drugs.
With the drug lifestyle comes the violent aspect of it. Violence is important to gangs because it draws fear in the eyes of those who try to stand up to them. Violence is the worst aspect of gang life because it keeps getting worse as gangs keep growing larger. Violent acts are the biggest reason society has a negative outlook on gang life. But young gang members don’t start out using violent acts to get attention but by simple crimes like shoplifting. Even though shoplifting is a crime that puts people in jail, it seems like an easy way for attention for young kids. Shoplifting is also a very addicting activity because it’s a rush for the people that do it. Shoplifting can start out with something small like a keychain but then it keeps getting worse as one keeps stealing bigger things like money and electronics.
When a young kid gets involved with gang activity their personality changes in a bad way. Now that the young gang member is part of some kind of illegal crimes their personality changes because they feel unstoppable. These young kids feel invincible, almost as if nobody can stand in their way, which can be a big problem to the people who stand in their way. These kids act as though they have no fear so this leads to more crime, which further leads to jail time.
So why would young kids want to join a life of crime? The answers are numerous. Some kids a...
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...f supplied and to make your profit.
The next step up from being a drug dealer is to perform acts of violence to keep your gang feared. These are the kids who nobody dare mess with because rumors and stories spread quickly which makes them seem more popular. When the gang kids hear about them they instantly try to recruit them bribing them with drugs and money. These kids then have to be ready to fight the gang’s battles if anything ever gets bad.
Then there are the ones who are on the top of the gang life ladder who gives out all the orders, which the others will follow. These are the kids that normally don’t deal drugs or use violence to scare people but are very smart. I consider them to be the most dangerous because they are the ones who control all the other gang members and use their powerful minds to bring fear to those who try to defy them.
Gangs will forever be in the media and as long as crime still plagues the streets gangs will be recruiting young kids for there evil deeds. Family and friends need to stop ignoring the younger generation because their lives aren’t as simple as everyone thinks. Growing up isn’t easy and to find comfort in this lifestyle is very easy.
Morch, S., & Andersen, H. (2012). Becoming a Gang Member: Youth Life and Gang Youth. Online Submission
First let's focus on the fact that gang related crime is one of the most dangerous challenges facing society and law enforcement today. They are younger, more brutal, unafraid of consequences and becoming increasingly more vicious. Gang members work together as cliques, they commit all sorts of violent crimes including murders, rapes, robberies and kidnappings. "They live in aimless and violent presents; have no sense of the past and no hope for the future; they commit unspeakably brutal crimes against other people often to gratify whatever urges of desires drive them at the moment and their utter lack of remorse is...
Gang involvement has been quite higher than past years. The 2008 National Youth Gang Survey estimates that about 32.4 percent of all cities, suburban areas, towns, and rural counties had a gang problem (Egley et al., 2010). This represented a 15 percent increase from the year 2002. The total number of gangs has also increased by 28 percent and total gang members have increased by 6 percent (Egley et al., 2010). This shows how relevant gang related activity is in today’s society. More locations are beginning to experience gang activity for the first time. Gang crime has also been on the rise in the past...
The root of gang violence all begins at home and then spreads. A troubled teen may be lacking the love and attention from their parent whether it is because they work too much, or simply do not care. Then, the teen will result attending school and will begin to find that comfort in places that they can feel stability. According to Ramsey, Rust, and Sobel “girls tend to become involved in gangs for prosocial reasons […] [such as] robbery, […] shoplifting, and prostitution [while] male gang members tend to be involved in activities such as drug dealing and fighting.” Most people involved in gang activities can feed off a person’s vulnerability and use that to convince a person that it is ok to commit crimes. Finally, that teen will remain in that life style and probably involve others or can get out, but surely be affected by the past for the rest of their lives.
Street Gangs are becoming popular in many cities across the country. According to the Department of Justice's 2005 National Gang Threat Assessment, there are at least 21,500 gangs and more than 731,000 active gang members (Grabianowski). Gangs bring fear and violence to neighborhoods, drugs, destroy property, involve youth in crimes and drive out businesses. When you have gangs in a community, it affects everyone in the community. An alarming amount of young adults are joining gangs and becoming involved in illegal activity. Most gangs have a rule that when you join the gang you are a member of the gang for life. Gangs can be removed from our communities with more community involvement and education.
The kids became gang members for many reasons. Some needed to find what their place was in the world, and they needed to know who they were as human beings. Joining the gang gave them a feeling of being involved in something and made them feel better about themselves. They felt that as a gang member they received the attention, emotional support, and understanding that they couldn’t get from their actual family members at home.
Among the crimes that gang members are often associated with, some of the most common are theft and drug sales. According to a bulletin posted by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the commission of crime, including non-violent crimes, is disproportionately high among youth gang members. In Seattle, Washington, the OJJDP performed a study in which “gang members (15 percent of the sample) self-reported committing 58 percent of general delinquent acts in the entire sample, 51 percent of minor assaults, 54 percent of felony thefts, 53 percent of minor thefts, 62 percent of drug-trafficking offenses, and more than 59 percent of property offenses” (Battin et al., 1998).
Gang violence is a growing problem in this world. No parent would like to imagine their kids dealing with weapons or being threatened by them. These violence’s affects each child individually and their families as well. These gangs recruit multiple different individuals for many reasons such as bribery, family traditions, or even threatening. Although, many kids feel like they have to be a part of it but there are many resources out in this world to prevent them from believing so. Gang violence has been a problem in society for several of years and is a growing problem each and every day.
The drug trade is also lucrative to gang members. Distribution of narcotics is the main source of their money. The illegal substances are cheap to make. But result in high profit margins. Given the demand of their products, the gang members can be financially safe. But, their high amount of money can be dangerous since other gangs may wish to take over the area the products are distributed in. This has been known to lead to bloodshed, and the death of innocent people who happened to be in the wrong place at the worst time possible.
Drugs According to the social disorganization perspective, gang members do drugs because they are forced into a substance. Drug offences are a common substance that is used and abused in gangs. Most people and kids that do drugs are because of peer pressure. Other reasons why gang members do drugs are because the environment that they are in forces the people to do drugs to fit in. They also do drugs because the environment they live in stresses them out so much that they lure them into drug use and abuse.
Across the United States and Europe, suburban gangs are growing as never before, estimations that in a typical inner city American community of 50,000 or more, there are 200 to 500 gang members. Some even larger organization called super gangs, which have more than 1,000 members spread over several states, have been known to operate in small town America. You cant say that any community is insulated from this activity," There's no restriction on where gang members can live. Gang members living in the suburbs share traits with recruits in the cities, and many of those factors have been exacerbated by tough economic times, The list of factors include divorce, separation, physical abuse, sexual abuse and having a parent with
Gangs originated in the mid 1800’s in the cardinal direction using it as a method to defend themselves against outsiders.The idea of gangs became populous, powerful, and a broad influence. But like all powers, they tend to corrupt and recognizes violence as a way of getting what they want faster than other methods.They turn violence into fun, profit, and control.Creating a situation that affects youth in today’s society.
All the employers would have to do is hire more help so they do not wear out their staff. Hiring more help would be simple, but an exceptional management team needs to interview potential employees looking for the staff that will stick around and not call off every other week. Continuing to hire staff with poor work ethic will just continue the never ending cycle of overworked employees. Over working the staff would just make the workers miserable and not want to continue working at that facility. Employees who are overworked will tend to resent the facility and decide to quit and find a “better” place to work, but their all the same in the policies for being mandated. A facility without employees can not thrive, let alone even exist. The facilities should put in guidelines to help alleviate the stress and headache of having to be forced over. Employees should earn days off after being mandated and should not be forced to work more than five days in a row. Working holidays are a given in this choice of career, but to be forced to work seven days in a row because the said holiday falls on the only day off the employee has, is completely uncalled for. The scheduler should work with an employee who is being forced to work and help cover a shift during the week to lessen the burden of working many days in a row. Management would never be caught dead being forced to work seven days in a row; on the
With the promise of a greater life by the gangs, the excited teens get attracted to the illegal activities of the mob (Bryman, 2008). Some of the teens are addicts of substances and they tend to believe that being in a gang will give them the freedom to continue using it. At home, the challenge can be bad since parents may not even have an idea of an addiction or ways of coping. Therefore, most teens are forced to join a mob because they have the desired freedom and access to the drugs. Some of the teens are pressured into joining a mob if their association will add to the mob’s criminal actions.
There are various reasons behind young people joining street gangs. One of the reasons young people join street gangs is because of neighborhood disadvantages. A theory that can contribute to why young people might join street gangs is Social Disorganization Theory. Social Disorganization theory assumes that “delinquency emerges in neighborhoods where neighborhood relation and social institutions have broken down and can no longer maintain effective social controls (Bell, 2007).” Social Disorganization contributes to residential instability and poverty, which affects interpersonal relationships within the community and opens opportunities for crimes to be committed.