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Peer pressures among teenagers
Abstract on the effects of peer pressure affecting teenagers
The effects of peer pressure on adolescents
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On the story of Eduardo Corona I learned that A lot of people that grow up in a bad environment start to join gangs and start selling drugs to get lots of money. Only because they don’t want to be poor no more, or some people just grow up being influenced by family members or friends. Many people sometimes just want to fit in and try to be cool so people can respect them. But then again some people don’t want to be in gangs other gangs just make them join and if they don’t join they will kill their family or just kill them. Many people just think that gang members are horrible people but they never really think why they start off to being gang members. People join gangs because sometimes they feel hopeless. People don’t believe in them so they just don’t believe in themselves and that’s what brings them down and it makes them doubt themselves so they feel useless so they just join gangs. And this is what happen to Eduardo Corona he got influenced by his brother and sisters and even friends. So since Eduardo saw his brother and sister dropping out of school and joining gangs that made...
The book emphasizes the idea of how difficult it is to leave the gang lifestyle. There are frequent cases of relapse by individuals in the book, who were once out to again return to gangs. This case is brought by what gangs represent to this in the book and what leaving entails them to give up. The definition of gangs presented to the class was, three or more members, share name, color, or affiliation, or must exist in a geopolitical context. To members associated with gangs, this definition can include your family members, neighborhood, everyone that they associate with. Take for example Ronnie from Jumped in by Jorja Leap it states,” Ronny’s role models are gangbangers. His family is a hood. His mentors are older homies in county jail.”(102). Ronnie and other gang members like him do not
Rodriguez’s situation was that “his parents are immigrants to the United States and several of his siblings were born in the United States in the State of Texas.” His dad was well educated back in their country, Mexico, but they’re being declined because of the existence of bigotry. “His parents were having a tough time finding a job because of their situation – they have found several jobs but are paid below minimum sometimes.” Rodriguez’s parents have multiple jobs just to survive on their daily basis. Rodriguez’s family situation has affected them all – Luis was affected the most and went astray as he was so desperate into fitting into the society and is able to help his parents. No matter how hard life will be, there are ways to avoid gangs and criminal behavior – government programs and other resource center helps a family to survive and even lend a hand to parents and educate them of how to suppress their child to go astray and be involved with crimes and gang
Kershaun, Kody’s younger brother, joined while Kody was serving time in prison. Although he was not the one to initiate Kershaun, it could be suggested that Kody provided an image for his brother that appealed to him. Many juveniles join gangs because they see the rewards their older siblings are receiving, because they too are in gangs (Lilly et al., 2015). Other juveniles join because their friends have joined, to fit in, or because they need some type of security and stability. A gang provides both of those things, but only for members of their set. A gang is similar to a family, the original gangsters (OG’s) such as Kody could show new members the ways of the streets. There are traditions, rules, and expectancy for each gang. Those in their set should always have one another’s back. If a Blood shot and killed one of the Eight Tray Gangsters, several members of the Eight Tray Gangsters would find that Blood, or someone important to that Blood, and get retribution for their deceased member. This creates a distorted sense of security and stability. However, it also creates a new generation of delinquents. From the gang perspective, if their new recruits were correctly taught the criminal values of the gang, they will be able to defend the streets while other members of the gang are incarcerated. The youth living in this environment, or zone in transition were much more susceptible to join gangs and engage in criminal behavior. Criminal acts and deviance is considered a social norm in this area. Kody’s mother was dumbfounded by how her children got tied up in gangs. She questioned Kody once by saying, “I wonder if that’s how I lost you and Shaun to the streets. You guys have turned from my darling little ones into savage little animals and I just don’t know what to do no more, I really don’t (Shakur, 1993, p 332).” However, Kody knew it was not her fault or their absent
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 sheer 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
Ideas of community, social progress, and culture are an ever-evolving social work issue. How do we as social workers choose to approach needs of groups and communities at the macro level? In order to grasp an understanding of true helping systems it is important for one to have a range of knowledge to justly participate within the formal helping structures an models that comprise of the social work field. In attempt to create our identity as active justice based social workers it is essential for one to conceptualize the framework of intersectionality. According to Kirsten-Ashmen, “Intersectionality involves the idea that people are complex and can belong to multiple, overlapping diverse groups “The intersectional perspective acknowledge the breath of the human experience, instead of conceptualizing social relationships and identities separately in terms of either race or class or gender or age or sexual orientation”; rather an intersectional approach focuses on the “interactional affects” of belonging to multiple groups (p. 48).” In order to remain committed to intersectionality I will apply theories and models to a progressing community in the city of Boston. A critical analysis of the strengths and weakness within each theory related to the specific community will be discussed. I will expose the intersecting layers, allowing for identity development through the lens of the macro social worker. I will begin by discussing my experience through the research process with my team members. After giving a detailed description of the project we can further explore the empowerment theory and systems theory to better explain the development of Dudley Street. The two theories are able to give an understanding of Roxbury’s forward progre...
Gangs have been in existence since the beginning of the Roman Empire. There were speeches made by Roman orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero, which references groups of men who constantly fought and disrupted Roman politics (Curry, 2013). The history of street gangs in the United States begins with their emergence on the East Coast around 1783, as the American Revolution ended. Though many believe the best available evidence suggests that the more serious street gangs likely did not emerge until the early part of the nineteenth century (Sante, 1991). Although our country has had their share of feared gangs like in the 1980’s with the turf war between the Bloods and Crips, back in the 17th and 18th century the Mohocks of Georgian, England were one of the most feared gangs. What draws juveniles to the gang lifestyle? Many people will say that most gang members are children from impoverished communities, single family homes where there was no father present, or maybe there is a more psychological/sociological answer? By appearance and presence most gangs cause fear, crime, and disillusionment in the communities they occupy. Throughout history joining a gang has been perceived as a life without any reward, yet by joining this lifestyle many juveniles are able to gain the needed stability and security in their lives.
The gang and the community are intertwined as the gang encompasses many of those that live in the area, as presented in the ending of the film. The ending is important because it sets up the permanency of label theory, and when the role of delinquent becomes evident. Throughout the movie the main character Montoya Santana speaks of respect and his gang, until the end where it states how he regretted his role, as a kid turning to gang culture for respect. In the movie it states,” You know, a long time ago, two best homeboys, two kids, were thrown into juvie. They were scared, and they thought they had to do something to prove themselves. And they did what they had to do. They thought they were doing it to gain respect for their people, to show the world that no one could take their class from them. No one had to take it from us, ese. Whatever we had... we gave it away” ( ) This quote connects of labelling theory because it relates the role of gang members they had to play at juvenile detention and extended to that identity being the basis of them growing up. Proving themselves became the bases of their identity being labelled as criminals at such a young age created a need for a role to protect themselves the only way they knew how. They come from a place where gang was the only prominent role in their
Some kids have no other choice but to join the gangs at an early age. Lack of parent supervision has been shown to be linked with both boys and girls joining a gang. Even though most have men to prove they are the violent ones, not every gang member is shown to be violent. While the rest of Luis’s gang members treat women with disrespect, Luis seems to respect everyone no matter what gender they are. Being told his own mom the pain she had to go through influenced his ways of viewing and treating
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.
There are many theories that explain why people join gangs. There are also many contributing factors to include when explaining why people join gangs, especially adolescents. A few theories that support why adolescents join gangs are: the strain theory, the general strain theory, the social control theory, the differential association theory, the labeling theory, the rational choice theory, the social learning theory, and the routine activity theory. (Delinquency in Society)
While they probably tried to follow conventional methods, at some point their opportunities were blocked which left them with a feelings of injustice which then turned them onto their illegal pursuits. For example, in high school Pablo showed great athletic ability in football. He was given a partial scholarship to play in college. However, he had grown up in the New York public schools system which didn’t have the resources that suburban schools did because they rely on money from property taxes. Because of this, Pablo was not able to keep up with his school work in college. His legal opportunity to make a living was blocked. This, plus the economic strain he felt showcase his overall strain and sense of injustice which led him to start selling drugs. He knew he needed money, and he saw how profitable it was for his friends. However, he was soon arrested which lost him his scholarships and ability to make a career out of
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.
As he exclaimed, “Gangs are not alien powers. They begin as unstructured groupings, our children, who desire the same as any young person. Respect. A sense of belonging. Protection”(pg. 250). Gangs represented power and trust to many of the teenagers because each gang was in charge of an area of territory and the trust within the gang gave protection to its members, thus symbolizing a second family. Many of the new members had to do something illegal or immoral in order to initiate into that particular gang. Some had to allow the gang members to beat them up while others had to go to the extent of violating a law. Once someone was in the gang, the member could not opt out and was considered a recidivist because the gang member was continuously falling back into criminal habits. In continuance, the social structure at that time period was based on racial oppression, and prejudice. Rodriguez felt the needless choice of being associated with a gang. He had to make a decision of which gang to join in order to survive the discrimination and the maltreatment presented by the society he lived in. Once he joined a gang, he became limited and forced to commit criminal actions. He described his wanting to resist one of the situations as the following, “I didn’t want to do this. But once you’re asked to do a hit, you can 't refuse, can’t question or even offer an
Many must wonder why gangs continue to form in societies across the world, and why individuals
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.