Cause Of Gang Violence In The United States

Gang Violence

Gangs have become a major issue in Memphis Tennessee. These gangs participate in activities such as, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, theft, human trafficking, murder, and the list goes on. All of these activities can potentially result in people getting killed. Memphis is considered the Southern headquarters for gangs in the United States with close to 200 different gangs and a total of almost 10,000 members in just the city alone. Some of the major gangs in Memphis are, Goonsquad, YoungMob, Trulla, and King Gate Mafia. Most of the gang related activities come from the rural areas like, North Memphis, South Memphis, Frayser, Binghampton, Hickory hill, Whitehaven, and Orange Mound.

Gang violence is pretty much all of the

illegal activities that are done by gangs against another group of people. There are many types of activities that are considered gang violence and these activities can all create a fear of crime in people. “We can define fear as an emotional reaction characterized by a sense of danger and anxiety.”(James Garofalo) Almost everyone has experienced a fear of crime at least once in their lifetime. Just remember how you felt at that one moment when you didn’t feel safe at all where you felt like your heart was in your stomach and suddenly stopped beating. Now think about how some people have to go through that every single second of their life. No human being should have to experience that because they are scared something might happen to them. People want to be able to enjoy their lives and not have to worry about anything. I hope that one day gangs will not have any power and will not be able to do anything but that is nearly impossible to do. What isn’t impossible to do is to help prevent them from getting born and to help prevent them from getting new recruits.
The key factor to all of these gangs and their illegal doings is poverty and also family. There is a clear relation between the two but it isn’t always the reason that these gangs are created and participate in their violent and illegal activities. There are many reasons that people join gangs and the top reason is to make money. Typically gangs are known to be around where poverty rates are high and jobs are limited. These gangs attract people from pretty much any economic background. The ones that are the most dangerous are the ones from the lower class and les wealthier neighborhoods. The reason is because the gangs that are in the poorer neighborhoods usually have more members than those from a higher economic class. More members means more potential to create violence and potential risk harm to the public. Another key factor that takes part in people joining gangs other than poverty is family. All youth need to have a positive environment within their household. If a certain household has a bad lifestyle and usually has family problems like not having a parent for them or the parents are just a really bad influence, then the odds of a child in those situations joining a gang are going to be pretty high. The reason the odds of these children joining these gangs are high is because they want a sense of family and they feel like if they will join a gang then they will feel like they are part of a family who cares about them and will feel protected.
Poverty and family are really the main factors in gangs because these are the factors that keep these gangs running. If poverty was no such thing then I guarantee that there would be much less gangs then there are now. Although poverty is nearly impossible to solve, it is not impossible to fight. One great way to fight poverty is to get the people who are living in poverty to become active and participate in efforts to fight poverty. Fighting an issue individually can be effective but fighting an issue such as poverty and gang violence as a group can have exponential results. One individual might be able to do small things like make awareness about poverty but if everyone comes together then they can do things like help create more jobs, better education, and also might be able to raise minimum wage.
Gang violence and activities
Moving on to the types of violence and activities these gangs participate in such as drug trafficking, arms trafficking, theft, human trafficking, and more. Drug trafficking is a major part in these gang members lifestyle. Selling drugs is one of the main ways that these gang member make their money. Although this sounds harmless, drug trafficking can become extremely dangerous because these gangs compete against each other for who “owns” a certain part of an area. If one gang tries to participate on another gangs own turf then that gang will probably not allow that to happen which would result in probably some kind of violence.
Arms trafficking also known as gun trafficking is similar to drug trafficking except with the product being drugs, its guns and ammunition. Gun trafficking is also another way these gangs make their money. These guns that these gangs are moving around are not just pistols, they are assault rifles, submachine guns, carbines, light machine guns and pretty much any other type of gun. Instead of guns, these gangs also deal with some explosives. All of these things are either used for personal use or to try and sell to make money. This is what make gangs so dangerous because they have access to all of these weapons that can cause great harm to the public.
Gang members also perform in theft. Whether it is robbing a store or even participating in stealing someone’s identity. Theft is an activity that is participated in the public and is what can cause potential danger to an innocent person. For example: if a gang member needs to get a hold on some money quick, then he/she might come up with a stupid idea to rob a store. This poses danger because if a gang member robs a store, then he/she is not going to be very friendly about it and they are usually pretty violent towards everyone. Theft isn’t very common for gangs to participate in because they already get a lot of money from selling drugs and guns but when they are desperate enough these members will probably go try and steal from a store or even try to rob it which is unacceptable because it can put an innocent person’s life in danger.
Human trafficking is also another extremely illegal activity that these gangs perform in and it is also a huge violation of a humans rights. Human trafficking is basically trading a person to another gang or illegal organization. These people getting traded are mostly getting used as a slave or forced labor. These gangs don’t just use adults either, children are also very common to be part of this. Human trafficking just doesn’t involve slavery, it also involves forcing a person to marry someone, or even selling organs from other people. Human trafficking is an activity that is growing and is also becoming a more common way for gangs to make their money.
As seen above these gangs are extremely dangerous and they are organizations that need to be shut down. These are horrible people we are dealing with and they need to be put in jail. The only way I see that we can help stop these gangs is to come up with some solutions to help prevent them from getting new recruits. We have talked about poverty and family before but there is more that needs to be said to help fight poverty and help make families better.

Fighting Poverty
There are many ways to help fight poverty and that is quality education, access to health care, economic security and child participation. If we as a whole help build more schools and get better teacher in poverty stricken areas, then this will help children acquire the life goals that they need to help them realize to themselves their full potential. Plus the better teachers could help guide the children in the right direction. If the children have a better school experience and are better educated, then they might be smarter than to even think about joining a gang because they might realize to themselves that they can do so much more in their life.
Another possible solution to help fight poverty is let these people who are in poverty stricken areas have access to health care.

If these people have access to health care, then their children will be able to grow up healthy and strong. It is important to have health care facilities in an area because I think it makes it safer and it is also just a good thing to have in case your child gets sick and needs to see a doctor. Also if the doctors are really nice and caring for the children, then they will feel loved and that they matter in this world. Although this will not help people not join a gang, it will help fight poverty and fighting poverty is what we are going for to help prevent these gangs from getting new

recruits.
Economic security is also another solution to fight poverty. If the people in these areas acquire certain skills, they will be able to get a job and even help support their families so that their children can have a better home life. Which if a child has a good home life then that child will have a lower chance on joining gangs and would have a better chance on being able to do something with their life and becoming successful. Also since these people will have skills and are able to get a job then they might possibly be able to move out of poverty and become successful
Child participation is another possible solution to help fight poverty and help prevent gangs from getting new recruits. If a child helps participate within their community then they can help make their community better. When a child is participating within their community, then they are more likely to engage in citizen chip they will also express their views more often and will probably make decisions that will let them have a better life in the future and become more successful. Having a good home life is extremely important in anyone’s life especially in a kid. If a kid does not feel like they have a good home life then they will probably not make the right choices in life and head down a bad road which is not what we want.
Historical events
Now were going to move on to some historical events that have happened so that we can see why we need to help lower gang violence. There is a news article on WMC Action News 5 that talks about where Memphis Police department busted some gang members that were wanted for dealing drugs, guns and other illegal stuff. Shelby County D.A. Bill Gibbons said “Obviously, law enforcement officials believe operations like this do a lot of good. They just hope gang members get the message rather than the itch to move up. (WMC) This is a story where our local police officers are actually doing something about these gang members and when it gets posted on the news, I feel like some of the gang members will see that their friends got busted so they might be more hesitant to continue with performing illegal activities.
Here is another story where gang members have caused harm to the public and why gang violence needs to be stopped. On the night of September 6th a crowd of teenagers randomly targeted and beat three people up in the Poplar Plaza Kroger parking lot. Some of this incident was captured on video through a smartphone and it shows about 100 people running to the parking lot and then some of them targeted a 25-year-old man and then they all throw punches at him to the head and started kicking him. The video even shows where pumpkins were even thrown at him while he was unconscious. The police were able to arrest nearly a dozen teenagers and they faced charges from aggravated assault to aggravated rioting. The police were also able to identify these juveniles as gang member. (Louis Goggans) This story just breaks my heart because the 25 year old man that got beaten up was just doing something that we as every day humans do. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This event wasn’t really a gang organized event but since they are gang members this can still relate to gang violence because it just shows how these gangs can corrupt people and how bad of a lifestyle it is.
Conclusion
We have talked lots about gang violence and now I hope you can clearly see just the potential of danger to the public these organizations have.

I hope that you have a better understanding on what is actually going on and maybe are thinking a different way now about gang violence. We have talked about all of the illegal activities they do from drug trafficking, gun trafficking, human trafficking, and even murder. We have even talked about poverty and how gangs thrive in poverty stricken areas. We have even seen just what these gangs do to the public and that they have the potential to seriously hurt or kill people. All I want is for gangs to be less successful than they are because right now they are way too successful and too many people have a fear of crime. All we have to do is help fight poverty which is the main factor in the birth of these gangs. From creating better schools and having better teachers, to letting kids participate within the community which makes them feel like they can actually do something with their life and be successful, we can help fight against poverty. We can also help make children have a happier home life and make the parents feel safer to where they don’t have to be scared for their child’s safety twenty-four-seven. Just know that even though you may not feel like you can make a difference in someone’s life just because your one person, but if we all come together as one and fight against poverty and gang violence, then we can do extraordinary

things and we can make a difference in this world. All we have to do is just come together and fight.