Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
How do gangs effect communities essays
Gangs and their negative impacts
Gangs and their negative impacts
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: How do gangs effect communities essays
The real America is filled with abandoned houses, prostitution, and citizens that have no hope on life. How can this lifestyle become a normal living condition? Some say there is no chance on restoring the communities that were destroyed from drugs. Is our government aware of the hardship and poverty while they send troops to war? The infestation of drugs overtaking communities results in corruption in neighborhoods, destroying families, weakening the school system and increasing the crime and violence rate. The usage of drugs in major cities, and certain urban areas have transformed them to become an eye sorer. The type of place where unfamiliar faces will be scared to drive through at night. The ghetto is filthy and nasty looking; drugs have caused the used to be new, to look like a complete city that needs to be rehabbed. Some say the ghetto is a beautiful place and there is nothing wrong with it, certainly you would have to live there to feel that way. Recently real estate tycoons have made a fortune on rehabilitating houses. So how do drugs make our neighborhoods look so bad? “When it comes to drugs, think of it as real estate. Location is very important, just like your property value goes up and down, so does the drug market” (Local dealer 1, 2008). Local dealers compete in price and product, drug houses are being set on fire to force users to purchase from the arsonist that funded the fire. Once these houses have been burnt, that puts the house out of business until they move to another location and establishes their clients; I guess it’s like a store. Most big time drug dealers have more than one drug house; the more houses the more money. ... ... middle of paper ... ...must purchase them from someone more successful than them, and to take their position they must kill them, and keeping the money and drugs from the transaction. This is how some dealers become heartless, doing whatever it takes to make the money, and take over the streets where the money is. It is a shame that people have been choosing this lifestyle, some even forced into this vicious cycle. Even, I have experience the effect of drugs in my city that I was born in, have you? NA May, 2008 "Uniform Crime Reports" (FBI, 1934-1990) NA Dealer 1 May 2008 Chooses to remain anonymous NA Dealer 2 May 2008 Chooses to remain anonymous Gordon. E Kenny PhD 1990 (National Household survey on drug abuse) .National institute on drug abuse. Gordon. E Kenny PhD 1997 Uniform Crime Reports (FBI, 1934-1990) NA http://www.rapdict.org/Detroit May 2008
Law enforcement must turn their attention to the people buying the drugs. To stop drug users from using drugs is for them to seek help through rehab or other social agencies. Most drug users turn to drugs due to personal problems they are afraid to face which has negatively affected their financial means and relationship. Therefore, by sending drug users to rehab centers and not jail would encourage them deal with their underlying problems, get clean and be productive in life to overall improve their well-being. The fourth goal is to restore the quality of life in urban communities by ending street level drug dealing. To disrupt the sale of drugs being pumped into the community, law enforcement must patrol the streets of high drug-dealings to discourage the sale of drugs and target dealers in those areas. This would deter the selling of drugs in these areas, decrease drug consumption and reduce drug-related crimes. The fifth goal is to help prevent children from experimenting with drugs. Most adult drug users started exterminating with drugs in their preteen or teenager years. Teens are more prone to using drugs because they are impressionable. They want to fit into a popular group or to deal with problems at home. Children must be taught the dangers of drug use and its consequences as preventing early use of drugs may go a long way in reducing the potential of drug use and can
The law enforcement does not look for the increase in drug activity because but the law enforcement doesn’t focus on the high income neighborhoods in search of drugs, what they do is focus on the poor low income neighborhoods because that is where they think drugs are being abused. The drug policies are very discriminatory and attack those that are non-white, or those who live in a neighborhood where everyone thinks drugs are abused there. According to the article “Race, Drugs, and Law Enforcement in the United States” it uses statistics from Seattle that show a clear example of the discrimination of the supposed war on drugs. “A recent study in Seattle is illustrative. Although the majority of those who shared, sold, or transferred serious drugs[17]in Seattle are white (indeed seventy percent of the general Seattle population is white), almost two-thirds (64.2%) of drug arrestees are black”(hrw.org 1).
Many people who sell drugs are people whom don’t want to live in poverty and have no other means to get food on the table. Ricky Ross is a great example of this since he himself said that he would have never imagined becoming a drug dealer and actually wanted to be a cop or a firefighter growing up. However, he needed a way to get food on the table without having to steal it from stores and get himself out of poverty. When crack cocaine hit the streets and was being advertised on every new media outlet as being the cheapest and strongest drug out there and people should stay away from it, he got into the drug business and started using marketing tactics and making turning himself into something of a person to look up to on the streets because of his success. Several people throughout the film said that the war on poverty was replaced with the war on drugs and the war on drugs is America’s last hope in combating poverty and those who live in poverty. Drugs come from poverty because it inspires crime and thus reducing confidence and pride in low income areas. It is also known that the war on drugs give people the power to sell drugs in particular neighborhoods, where it is harder for the people in the city to keep drug dealing from being done out in the open and paraphernalia from littering the streets thus making it a norm so drug dealers can go to these areas know they’ll get
...f actual reality. They are no longer able to face day to day activities without having that drug in their life.
John seems to be getting himself involved in the wrong crowds. At his last check-in there was a
The reason with the old ways do not work, Alexander say, is because “self-destructive drug users are responding in a tragic, but understandable way” (226). It is not their drug- problem that caused the dislocation, but the dislocation that cause the drug problem. He uses the term dislocation to describe the lack of integration with “family, community, society and spiritual values” (226). Alexander goes on to explain that history proves that inability to achieve health opportunities can take on the form of violence, and damaging drug use. Therefore, the “drug problem” (226) is not the problem. The problem is more the “pattern of response to prolong dislocation” (226). Alexander supports this by explaining the reason for the dislocation as being globalized by a society that is market driven which can only be established by the displacement of tradition, economy, and relationships. This has been seen in history before in England during the 19TH century, when “a brutal, export-oriented manufacturing system” was accompanied by work...
In a culture with such diverse commonalities, the differentials that set precedent come from social norms. These norms set the template for what acceptable behavior is. Being known as having a melting pot of a population we can expect that the norms are influenced through religion, values, ideas, and self views. Deviant behaviors occur when these social norms are disrupted and acts are seen to go against what we have always thought as wrong or weird. Deviance is a broad term that encompasses the idea that we know what is right from what our neighbor does. For example, trends of fashion change quite rapidly. If you don’t believe me watch shows on television that reminisce about the 70’s 80’s and so on. Today we look at what was worn in the previous decades and find it hard to imagine people dressing like this now. However, in the days that style was popular it was seen as the way to dress. Norms change to fit what the popular trend is now. Deviance likewise counters with what is unpopular. There are far more serious deviant acts than dressing from the wrong decade; they are also heavily tied to the law. Laws are more inflexible than behaviors of changing times. They are intact from the idea that if caught participating in such acts you could face serious punishment and rightfully so. Let’s take a look at one form of deviance that persisted in our culture for many years.
Drug arrests occur too often and are taking up a majority of general arrests in America. “Drug arrests were the single largest category of arrests, accounting for more than 10% of all arrests in the country” (A drug, 2015). One out of ten of every arrest in the United States of America is a drug arrest. This over focus on drug arrests needs to stop as it is taking focus off of more damaging violent crimes. Overall drug arrests are up 8.3% from a decade ago” (A drug, 2015). Drug crimes are increasing because of the American government increased focus on drug crimes, despite the fact that it is not helping the problem. Even though drug arrests are going up, drug use in the United States of America is “... plentiful and widely used as ever” (Grenier,
The consequences that follow the use of any drug are unfavorable. Although many individuals may see drug addiction as a mere lifestyle choice, it is a problem that many individuals suffer from and inevitably a growing issue that leaves major social and economic impacts.
Past and Current Trends of Drug Abuse in the United States. Drug abuse has changed over the years due to the trends that Americans face from the encouragement of different cultures. The abuse of substances creates many health problems. The following will discuss the past and current trends in drug use and the effects these drugs have on the health of the individuals who abuse the drugs. The use of cocaine in the United States has declined over the last twenty years, while the use of crack has increased.
Some people are likely to generalize about the causes of drug related crimes and say that they are simply related to people who do not do any good for our society. However, in certain instances drugs can be used as a source of income for people and they commit crimes in order to facilitate that goal (Nurco, 1998). These people have no way out of their drug lives and therefore may not necessarily choose this life style but are brought up into it.
Not only has the drug war failed to reduce violent and property crime, but, by shifting criminal justice resources (the police, courts, prisons, probation officers, etc.) away from directly fighting such crime, the drug war has put citizens’ lives and property at greater risk, Benson and Rasmussen contend. “Getting tough on drugs inevitably translates into getting soft on nondrug crime,” they write. “When a decision is made to wage a ‘war on drugs,’ other things that criminal justice resources might have to be sacrificed.” To support this conclusion, Benson and Rasmussen compare data on drug law enforcement and crime trends between states, and debunk numerous misconceptions about drug use and criminality.
Drug abuse dates as far back as the Biblical era, so it is not a new phenomenon. “The emotional and social damage and the devastation linked to drugs and their use is immeasurable.” The ripple of subversive and detrimental consequences from alcoholism, drug addictions, and addictive behavior is appalling. Among the long list of effects is lost productivity, anxiety, depression, increased crime rate, probable incarceration, frequent illness, and premature death. The limitless consequences include the destruction to personal development, relationships, and families (Henderson 1-2). “Understandably, Americans consider drug abuse to be one of the most serious problems” in the fabric of society. And although “addiction is the result of voluntary drug use, addiction is no longer voluntary behavior, it’s uncontrollable behavior,” says Alan Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Torr 12-13).
The link between drug use and crime is not a new one. For more than twenty years, both the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute of Justice have funded many studies to try to better understand the connection. One such study was done in Baltimore on heroin users. This study found high rates of criminality among users during periods of active drug use, and much lower rates during periods of nonuse (Ball et al. 1983, pp.119-142). A large number of people who abuse drugs come into contact with the criminal justice system when they are sent to jail or to other correctional facilities. The criminal justice system is flooded with substance abusers. The need for expanding drug abuse treatment for this group of people was recognized in the Crime Act of 1994, which for the first time provided substantial resources for federal and state jurisdictions. In this paper, I will argue that using therapeutic communities in prisons will reduce the recidivism rates among people who have been released from prison. I am going to use the general theory of crime, which is based on self-control, to help rationalize using federal tax dollars to fund these therapeutic communities in prisons. I feel that if we teach these prisoners some self-control and alternative lifestyles that we can keep them from reentering the prisons once they get out. I am also going to describe some of today’s programs that have proven to be very effective. Gottfredson and Hirschi developed the general theory of crime.
Illegal drugs are used by people as a way out when feeling down about themselves. As the effects of the drugs may stay the same throughout, causes show that there are a large number of reasons for use. Being lonely, isolated, and frustrated in life help start off the drive to escape. In many cases, using drugs is a coping mechanism, especially in teens. Emotions become numb as people try to escape the pain of reality. This is seen in the youth of today as they deal with everyday pressures.. Drug abuse can make people think they are re-creating their former negative self image. This rebellious action gives the attention that is desired. From trying to fit in to hiding from problems, people will always have a choice. In the end, the reality of drug use is damaging to the user's body, mind and relationships.