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Challenges to ending gang violence
Issues of gangs
Challenges to ending gang violence
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The Gangster Disciples and the MS13 are two of the most notorious street gangs formed in the United States. These two groups are involved in a wide range of illegal criminal activities and have inflicted fear amongst many people. This paper will illustrate both the Gangster Disciples and MS13’s origin, history, crimes, their locations and the number of members included within each of these organizations. I will also explore the connection between rational choice theory and the arousal theory in connection with the two gangs; as well as compare and contrast the two gangs. Gangster Disciples The Gangster Disciples formed in the South side of Chicago, Illinois in 1960’s by Larry Hoover and David Barksdale. The Gangster Disciples gang can be seen
This book review covers Policing Gangs in America by Charles Katz and Vincent Webb. Charles Katz has a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice, while Vincent Webb has a Ph.D. in Sociology, making both qualified to conduct and discuss research on gangs. Research for Policing Gangs in America was gathered in four cities across the American Southwest; Inglewood, California, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Las Vegas, Nevada, and Phoenix, Arizona. This review will summarize and discuss the main points of each chapter, then cover the relationship between the literature and class discussions in Introduction to Policing and finally it will note the strengths and weaknesses of book.
Franco, C., (2007, May). The MS-13 and 18th street gangs:Emerging transnational gang threats, Retrieved from http://opencrs.com/document/RL34233/2007-11-02/download/1006/.
The Gangster Disciples is a violent gang which began in the Chicago, Illinois area. In the 1970's, the leaders of two different Chicago-based gangs, the Black Disciples and the Supreme Gangsters, aligned their respective groups andcreated the Gangster Disciples. Once united, the Gangster Disciples recruited heavily in Chicago, within Illinois jails and prisons, and throughout the United States. The Gangster Disciples are active in criminal activity in approximately 24 states. The Gangster Disciples employ a highly structured organization. Members are organized into geographic groups; each called a "count" or a “deck." Members in good standing are considered to be ”on-count" or ”plugged in." A meeting of a particular count may be referred to
The first gang that caught my attention was the 18th Street Gang which was formed in the late 1960’s. The name of the gang was originated from a street in the Rampart section of East Los Angeles. They were also known as “Children’s army” because they recruited elementary and middle school kids as a part of their gang. They show no clemency for their own members, you might be a really good friend of the leader but if you say the word “I’m out” they will menace you and your family. Also if you disrespect a leader or the big boss or another member of the gang you have a very sure beating of 18 seconds or you can even get killed depending on the circumstances. Some people say gang activities in the 1960’s were less dangerous, but this gang is a serious exception. Their criminal activities included auto theft, carjacking, drive-by shootings, they sold drugs, arm trafficking, extortion, rape and murder for hire. The 18th Street Gang extended across North America having more than 30,000 members. First it began with an ethnicity of Hispanic members, but throughout the years they included African Americans, Asians, Caucasians, and Native Americans.
Individuals generally join a gang as young adults but, are sometimes recruited as early on as elementary school. Society generally sees gangs as dangerous groups to stay away from, but for a young person on the street, a gang offers a sense of family. Gangs present the benefit of protection and being part of a pack. When Latin Americans came to the United States as illegal immigrants they had very few resources and were essentially homeless. A simple solution was to join a gang. Mara Salvatrucha 13 profited from this scenario, exponentially growing in strength and size (Illegal Immigrant Gangs Commit Most U.S. Crime, 2009). An initial reason for the formation of Mara Salvatrucha 13 was for the immigrant’s protection from other gangs, but eventually ended up greatly surpassing their competition in both size and strength (2009).
The Crips, as we learned in module 3 are one of the most notorious black or predominately African American gang founded in Southern Los Angeles, California in 1969. This gang was co-found by 16-year-old Raymond Washington and Stanley Tookie Williams III. Even before the Crips however, there was a gang known as the Hoover Groovers. The Hoover Groovers would later form an alliance with the Crips and change their name to Hoover Crips.
Surprisingly, little has been written about the historical significance of black gangs in Los Angeles (LA). Literature and firsthand interviews with Los Angeles residents seem to point to three significant periods relevant to the development of the contemporary black gangs. The first period, which followed WWII and significant black migrations from the South, is when the first major black clubs formed. After the Watts rebellion of 1965, the second period gave way to the civil rights period of Los Angeles where blacks, including those who where former club members who became politically active for the remainder of the 1960s. By the early 1970s black street gangs began to reemerge. By 1972, the Crips were firmly established and the Bloods were beginning to organize. This period saw the rise of LA’s newest gangs, which continued to grow during the 1970s, and later formed in several other cities throughout the United States by the 1990s. While black gangs do not make up the largest or most active gang population in Los Angeles today, their influence on street gang culture nationally has been profound.
In the 1960's another group was being formed to rival the Black P-Stone Nation. The Black Gangster Disciple Nation was started by a man named David Barksdale. The Black Gangster Disciple Nation {BGDN} fought bloody wars ont he Chicago south side over turf and drug sales. King David Barksdale was assassinated in 1974. As a symbol of honor and remembrance the six-pointed Jewish star {Star of David} was adopted by the BGDN as well as crossed pitchforks pointing up. Following Barksdale's death, the leadership of the Black Gangster Disciple Nation was taken over by two men; King Larry Hoover and King Jerome 'Shorty' Freeman. They divided the Gangster Nation into the Black Gangster Disciples, led by King Larry Hoover, and the Black Gangsters, led by 'Shorty' Freeman. Both of these men were soon incarcerated but continued to run their groups from inside the penal system.
Stanley Tookie Williams, generally acknowledged as co-founder of the Crips, [2] started his own gang called the Westside Crips. The Crips became popular throughout southern Los Angeles as more youth gangs joined it; at one point they outnumbered non-Crip gangs by 3 to 1, sparking disputes with non-Crip gangs including the L.A. Brims, Athens Park Boys, the Bishops and the Denver Lanes. The Crips eventually became the most powerful gang in California. In response, all of the other besieged gangs, including the Pirus, formed an alliance that later became the Bloods.
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 presence of gang violence has been a long lasting problem in Philadelphia. Since the American Revolution, gangs have been overpopulating the streets of Philadelphia (Johnson, Muhlhausen, 2005). Most gangs in history have been of lower class members of society, and they often are immigrants into the U.S (Teen Gangs, 1996). Gangs provided lower class teens to have an opportunity to bond with other lower class teens. However over time, the original motive of being in a gang has changed. In the past, gangs used to provide an escape for teens to express themselves, let out aggression, and to socialize with their peers. It was also an opportunity for teens to control their territory and fit in (Johnson, Muhlhausen, 2005). In the past, authorities would only focus on symptoms of gang violence and not the root. They would focus on arresting crime members instead of preventing gang violence. Gangs are beginning to expand from inner-city blo...
At the age of thirteen-year-old, Jonathan (a pseudonym) knows all the names and shapes of the weapons circulating his neighborhood. Jonathan lives with his brothers and mother in a poor-income neighborhood of a metropolitan area. As a result of a lack of father’s presence in his life, his uncle serves as his male role model. In many occasions, when his uncle “goes out and steal” at the nearby stores, Jonathan is often his look out. Despite the criminal laws and police regulations, crime rates in these poor urban neighborhoods are escalating with incarceration rates and death rates follow suits. According to Elijah Anderson (1994), an American sociologist at Yale University, the inclination to violence is derived from the situations of life among the urban poor; these circumstances could be the lack of paying jobs, the stigma of race, the rampant drugs use and drugs trafficking, and the lack of hope for the future. Accordingly, who or what is responsible for the problems displayed in these African American, urban poor communities? The answer comes down to choices. The behaviors of these African American can be attributed through the individual’s disposition and the situational influences; thus, two theories hold the key explanation to answer the inquiry of this phenomenon: Rational Actor Theory and Structured Socialization Theory, respectively.
Many have attempted to explain gang involvement in today's society. However, there is an underlying activity of youth joining gangs that does not seem to have enough media coverage or thorough explanations. As the name suggests, youth gang membership is about the juvenile population creating and joining gangs. Research indicates that youth gang membership exists in contemporary north America (Bernburg et al. 2006; aLilly et al. 2011; Maclure and Sotelo 2004; Sims 1997; Wiley et al. 2013; Yoder et al. 2003). This paper will examine the factors associated with youth gang membership using Karl Marx's conflict theory and labeling theory in comparison. Although conflict theory helps explain why a troublesome economy and coming from a low-socioeconomic status contributes to gang involvement, the theory has its limitations. On the other hand, labeling theory is unable to fully explain youth gang involvement based on the aforementioned factors. That being said, it can give a better explanation based on the factor of government intervention in the lives of citizens such as the context of stop-and-frisk which lead to unwarranted searches.
Hallswort, S. And Young, T. (2004) Getting Real About Gang. Criminal Justice Matters [online]. 55. (1), pp 12-13 [Accessed 10 December 2013]
Many stereotypes of gangs have been fabricated. The problem is that a majority of gang members do not fit these stereotypes, which, in turn, makes it hard for the to be caught (Klein). Traditionally they organize their group around a specific neighborhood, school or housing projec...