Group Question: How does gang violence affect inner city communities?
Individual question: How does the justice system promote racial prejudice in inner city communities?
Introduction:
Urban centers throughout the United States of America and the world have experienced violence within the inner city communities. Many of the inner-city communities families are low-income due to the unemployment and literacy rate is high.The spread of gang membership within the communities has influenced many young adolescents. Activities such as drug dealing, theft, assaults, and murders drive law enforcement to prevent crime. The justice system is starting to charge minors as adults. The charges pushed by the judicial system are affecting families psychologically
…show more content…
and physically.With lots of violence in communities, law enforcement are working harder. However, there are flaws within the performance of the law enforcement. Law Enforcement: Racial profiling affects minority groups that perpetrate violence, in which law enforcement assumes that the minorities are criminals.
Low-income communities often overlook minority groups such as Hispanics and African-Americans and categorize them as criminals. Professor Mark P. Denbeaux, from Seton Law School Center for Policy and Research, explained how the Bloomfield police demonstrated racial discrimination while writing traffic tickets to generate revenue for their individual purposes. Bloomfield, New Jersey is home to 73% African-American and Latino residents. The people of Bloomfield feel threatened, mistreated, and are displeased about the situation. The racial discrimination is a trend within the traffic police department. Police search for firearms, drugs or substance abuse. Due to history of gang affiliation, police target minority groups. These factors contribute to the mistreatment of minority groups which caused tensions with the judicial system. The discrimination can be prevented by hiring officers who are minority as well as, better training of officers. News outlets such as, Vice News, have reached out to cover the issue. The news reporter rode with a black male at night through the streets of Bloomfield, NJ. There vehicle was immediately pulled over for a search. To prevent being pulled over, citizens can drive around neighborhoods where ticketing is …show more content…
common. Teen Gang Members: Many teens between ages 13-21, in low-income communities, experienced affiliation with gangs. Some of the reasons are abusive homes, low-income, and peer pressure. In Chicago, Illinois, Vice Lords, a gang that consist of African-Americans, use violence when they run into rival gangs. Gang members shoot, argue, or fight their opponents on the streets. The recruitment of Vice Lord members start off at the age of 11 or lower, in low income neighborhoods of Detroit and Chicago. Family problems such as, single parents, abusive parents, drug abuse, and many other factors play a key role in teens joining gangs. The American Journal of Community Psychology, stated, parents who provided maternal support and restrictive control to their children allows the child to be influenced by street gangs. Children and their parents should attend counseling programs to develop a stronger bond between the parent and child. Parents could also put their children in extracurricular activities. For example, basketball, football, boxing, or clubs. Drugs, such as marijuana, are fairly easy to get and drive a huge profit. However, marijuana has medical benefits. Nancy Comeau, Addictive Behaviors, explains how the relations of anxiety, stress, and sensations are the motives for the use of marijuana in adolescents. Anxiety and stress are part of most teenage lives whether if it's with violence at home or school. But, drugs are not good for the human body, local advertisements of the effect of drugs can influence teens not to do drugs. Adolescent teens are being charged as adults due to criminal activities. The teen mind is still developing and will become worse due to the actions of prison. Teen prisoners face depression and violence within the cell walls. This leads to suicides and long term mental breakdowns. The families of imprisoned teens experience depression and frustrations. Depression is caused by long-term isolation from society. The violence in prison is horrendous. Prisoners fight violently and sometimes murder their own imates. Officers of the facilities are already help prisoners with depression, but a way to prevent the suicidal thoughts of the teens is to separate them from adult prisons. Prisons can provide programs to help rebuild the teen so, when he or she leave as a better person. Police Department: Throughout the world, gang involvement has caused tensions between the law enforcement and gang members.
The mass killings, theft, and overall violence has given a stressful tone to the police. The Los Angeles Police Department, explains how preventing gang violence within the inner-city communities is comparable to uncontrollable fires. This shows how murders and thefts are occurring often throughout gang involved cities is hard to prevent and do not have enough resources to resolve the crimes. Law enforcement agencies have been trying to employ a variety of ethnicities to provide a variety of officers. Julia Llewellyn, Telegraph UK, interviewed a African police officer and explains the struggles of being a minority police officer in London. Officer Pc Charles Kayode, admits that the black public is hostile which shows how the Africans are racist to the whites, as well. Kayode gets racist comments on duty, but does receive positive feedbacks. Besides protecting the community, the main priority is to rebuild relationships within the black communities. Gang members and many people see the police, as a threat. Therefore, the relationship between the police and minority groups are tough. However, to upscale the relationship, racial profiling has to be stopped. The media plays a role into the discrimination. Corliss L. Green, Ethnic Evaluation of Advertising: Interaction Effects of Strength of Ethnic I dentification, Media Placement, and Degree of Racial Composition explains
how African-Americans are targeted more than Whites in media. Unfortunately, the media can not be changed, but the police, judicial system, and gang members can. Conclusion: Gangs have played a huge role on what people think about minority groups. Racial prejudice will not go away completely, but judgement can be prevented by understanding the police or gang members. Although, violence will always be going on, society will have to find ways around or engage in the problem. Drugs, guns, racial discrimination, and depression comes with it’s consequences. There are flaws within the law enforcement’s performance and gangs violent activities, but relationships can be built between groups and law enforcement.
Over the past 60 years there has been a recent phenomenon in the development and rise of gangs and gang violence. This is exceptionally apparent in South Central Los Angeles where the Bloods and the Crips have taken control of the social structure and created a new type of counter culture. Poverty in this area is an enormous problem caused by a shear lack of jobs; but just because there is a lack of jobs doesn’t mean that there will be a lack of bills to pay, so sometimes selling drugs in order to keep a roof over your head seems like the most logical option. Crime often times flourishes in these regions because the inconvenient truth is; crime pays. Senator Tom Hayden stated “It’s been defined as a crime problem and a gang problem but it’s really an issue of no work and dysfunctional schools.” this statement is in fact true, but with an exception it is a more broad issue than just involving school, and lack of jobs but goes beyond into social structure as a whole and more specifically the judicial system, this can all be supported by three sociologists Chambliss, Anderson, and Durkheim.
Do the institution and also those officers serve it act discriminately to different race group? On the one hand, it has to be admitted that some actions taken by the police are leading to the greater involvement of young black people in the criminal justice system but they cannot be recognised as discriminative behaviours. For example, the police tend to give priority and more effort into certain crime categories and some deprived areas, depending on local and central first concern. As a consequence, some criminals of ethnic groups and ethnic minority residences living in certain areas are inevitably more likely to come into contact with the
Recently, there has been a rise in criminal activity amongst the youth in Columbus Georgia. The percentage of juvenile criminals increased by almost 9.5% in the year 2012-2013(Chattahoochee Valley Struggles with Black on Black Crime). Many of the crimes committed involved adolescents as young as fifteen, and have become increasingly more violent. In 2012 a sixteen year old woman was shot and killed by her eighteen year old boyfriend, a few months later a nineteen year old boy was shot while walking to his home. (Chattahoochee Valley Struggles with Black on Black Crime). Due to the overwhelmin...
...amily members have area rugs; don’t clearly delineate changes in the grading of floors, and lack bathing/toileting facilities that accommodate for easy access. Often modifications have to be made by family to the organization of living space and their health behaviors.
According to Dr. Carl S. Taylor, the relationship between minority groups and police in the United States has historically been strained. Some cities have a deep and bitter history of bias and prejudice interwoven in their past relationships. The feeling in many communities today is that the system pits law enforcement as an occupying army versus the neighborhood. Dr. Taylor wrote about easing tensions between police and minorities, but stated “If there is any good news in the current situation, it is that the history of this strain has found the 1990’s ripe for change.
My topic is gang violence in Los Angeles and it has so much history behind of why, when, and where it started. Los Angeles had it’s first appearance in the news in 1973 when a of only 17 was shot dead by a school security guard for verbal fighting the security guard often. Gang violences historical development can vary depending on the ethnicity of the gang. Most of the Los Angeles gangs are at Echo Park that has 5 known gangs called EXP (Echo Park Locos), CRS (The Crazys), Frogtown, Big Top Locos, The Head Hunters. These gangs have similar crime records like robberies and shootings. The biggest crime records that are known are done by EXP which are the most park known gang in that particular area. This is not the only area in Los Angeles ruled by gangs there is also many places in the L.A. area that is ruled by gangs. There's a lot of history about gang violence in the Los Angeles area and most of them are about shootings.
Few social issues get as much media attention as youth crime. Statistics Canada reported a 3% increase in crimes committed by 12- to 17-yearolds between 2005 and 2006. In the last 15 years, the rate of violent crimes among young people has increased by 30% (Youth crime, 2008). From gangland-style killings in Vancouver to the senseless beating of an elderly woman in Hali-fax, Canadian cities are struggling with a wave of youth crime that was unimaginable a couple of decades ago. According to Statistics Canada, most Canadians believe that youth crime is on the rise and 77% believe that the sentencing of young offenders is too lenient (Youth crime, 2005). Many experts attribute the spike in youth crime to the increased number of street gangs - often the perpetrators of youth crime (Catalano and Hawkins, 1996). Research indicates that youth seek comfort from those who welcome them and reinforce their sense of belonging. Unfortunate-ly, some youth have no choice but to turn to street gangs in order to satisfy their need for approv-al, belonging and self-worth (Clark, 1992). Street gangs are not just issues in big cities. Over the last few decades, there has been an increase in the presence of street gangs in non-metropolitan and rural communities. For example, in 1960, there were 54 cities in the United States with a gang population. In 1995, there were street gangs in approximately 800 cities and towns across the United States (Swetnam and Pope, 2001). There is no consensus among experts on how to reduce youth crime. Criminal involvement usually starts before the age of 15, with first-time of-fences declining markedly once young people reach 20 years of age. Young people who become involved in criminal activities before the age of 14...
In America, police brutality affects and victimizes people of color mentally and socially. Social injustice has become a major issue, which involves the principle of white supremacy vs minorities. The current police brutality that has been occurring is culturally disconnecting ethnicities from one another. According to Cincinnati Police Chief Jeffrey Blackwell, “.the cultural disconnect is very real; you have the weight of generations of abuse on African Americans,” (Flatow, 2016). For example, over the past four years, there have been countless acts of police brutality.
In the line of police force it is imperative to think outside of the box. Many people confuse a police officer’s curiosity as racial profiling and racism. However, this is how a police officer often finds the majority of their evidence. In many neighborhoods, there a dominant races that live within the community. For example, if a wealthy white man was driving around a predominantly minority-based community, it would be acceptable for a police officer to grow skeptical at this situation. It is obvious that man is out of place, and it is the police officer 's duty to further investigate the
= Gang Violence in California The City of Los Angeles is the “gang capital” of the nation. There are more than 450 active gangs in the City of Los Angeles. Many of these gangs have been in existence for over 50 years. These gangs have a combined membership of over 45,000 individuals.
he had nothing to do after school. Both he and G-Ball joined a gang by choice.
Over the past half century, violence in the United States has increased dramatically. Children who were raised in a tough, low-income neighborhood often fail to escape exposure to violence. They may witness homicides, assaults, and some may even have had a friend who had been killed. According to recent research, these children have higher violence rates than those kids who grew up in a non-violent neighborhood.
Finally, the most important motive for gang violence is for respect. The majority of gangs kill rivals to demonstrate intimidation; as a result, gangs understand such action earns them some sort of honor in the street world. By ending another frenemy gang member, the gang is regarded as ruthless and is considered a top-tier organization. Also, they use discipline over their fellow members to assure their making their money or defending their turf to let the competition know they’re a well-respected gang. Furthermore, respect comes a long way within a gang, as stated by Community Corrections “Maintaining respect is an important objective for gang members and is significant in the way gangs operate. To lose a fight, to get confronted by an enemy,
Stopping gang violence requires more than just the law enforcement in solving gang problems. Gang involvement among youths remains to be a prevalent problem to parents and society. It is often associated with violence and other criminal activities within the community. Though reasons remain to be varied, youth participation continues to increase through out the years. In seeking then to understand the motivation for youths joining gangs, it is essential to look at good family function, which promotes healthy development, as well as looking at how poor family function, is related to poor outcomes for youths. The questions to also keep in mind when it comes to family function is which aspects of parenting are risk factors to youths joining gangs as well as how can we help future families in decreasing those risks? Preventing youths from joining gangs in the first place is crucial in realizing on how to reduce youth gang activity. Which leads us to the question “can we stop gang violence?” My answer to this question is yes; we can stop gang violence with effective parenting. Although, school-based programs as well as community-based prevention programs may reduce gang violence, effective parenting stops gang involvement early on from childhood to adolescence.
Juvenile Delinquency has been a big issue since the mid-1980s. It has declined since the mid 1990s. the number of juvenile homicide offenders has tripled between 1984 and 1994. some states started taking tougher legislative as far back as from the late 1970s. since the beginning of the legislation; reformers have been trying to prevent and make less punishing procedures the importance of education and employment. We could focus on the minority children since there is a higher percentage of juvenile offenders come from minority family. Polices began to change in recent years to treat juveniles as adults. Many factors that changed in our society today, which has influenced the increase in juvenile crime such as, increase in guns, drugs, and from violent inspiration in our communities. The difference between the settings in our society is what increased the increase in juvenile crime. More single parents home is an example of a setting that has changed since the late 1990s. These structural changes in the lifestyle and the development of a child can affect his/her