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Organized gangs in the united states
Introduction to gangs
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The United States is called the land of immigrants because people flocked here all over the world looking for a better opportunity than they had back home, with that they bring their culture, creativity, culinary prowess, and their ways of life. Gangs are defined in the Webster dictionary as “an organized group of criminals”, these criminals are led by a defined leader who runs a territory in a city to engage in illegal activities. There have been reports in 2004 that there are as many as 26,000 street gangs across a district of 3,000 jurisdictions. As opposed to what individuals think, it looks totally ordinary in the daytime. When people normally think of gangs they think of them as thugs, who “sag” their pants and have guns and sell drugs and these are true but there are other types of criminals like the ones that use their organizations name to take from the people in turn for protections and people ok with it because sometimes things happen that the people can’t go to the cops for. …show more content…
When someone comes from a low income family they look for a way out and when they see the fast cars they see a reason to join the gang, so they can escape from the financial troubles they are in. When a person grows up in a bad neighborhood they may see gangs around them all the time for teens and youngsters, it can also be because of impact from bad friends. Youths normally need to be acknowledged by their friends. joining these groups can be a form of peer pressure or to just to “prove” themselves. Education can be one of the biggest impacts in a child’s life, so they can learn from others mistakes but when kids don’t want to come to school they become dumb and think that making money
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.
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.
Gangs are a group of boys and believe it or not girls too, that frequently get together to make all types of vandalism and actions that are not admitted by the law. Gangs have been part of the world for a very long time; they have also evolved through time. For example gangs in the 1960’s are not the same as the gangs we see today in our days. Many gangs were made before and after the 1960’s but the major gangs in this time were: The Crips, The Latin Kings, KKK, The Bloods which were enemies of The Crips, and the 18th Street Gang.
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).
Female youths join street gangs on the basis of gender conflict, lack of family support and
Historically, gangs began to develop around the time frame of the 1970’s. Irish gangs have been known to be the first initial gang, followed by the Germans, Jewish, and Italians (Pacheco, 2010, p. 10). Gangs are larger in population and tend to be more prevalent in the United States, compared to other countries. In 2008, statistics showed that there were 20,000 active gangs and more than 1 million gang members in the United States (Pacheco, 2010, p. 12). According to Pacheco (2010) there are different types of gangs. Although these gangs are formed for individual purposes, broken up, they can form a multitude of different types of gangs. There are your traditional gangs (Crips, Bloods). Business, profit gangs, which are generated around financial gains. Hate group gangs, which their purpose is to target different ethnic groups, races or homosexuals. Copycat and delinquent social gangs, which seem to be the least relevant. Street gangs, which are prone to target younger individuals, but the actual ages of the gang members vary. Third generation gangs which are known as “terrorist”. Hybrid gangs are new to this generation, they could be considered the “hipster” of gangs. Then there are prison gangs. They are usually small in population and are structured along an individuals ethnicity (Pacheco, 2010, pp. 12-15). Gangs serve a multitude of purposes for their members. The gang becomes their family. They are able to trust them, rely on them, and the gang gives them a sense of self and importance. Gangs have the ability to offer status, refuge, protection, and opportunity of stigma free life within this population (Tower, 2013, p. 82). In the PBS show Interrupter ex-gang members and ex-gang enforcers joined together ...
With an average of one murder per hour, El Salvador, a relatively small country of about six million people, is on its way of becoming the country with highest homicide rate in the world. The violence that has become a Salvadoran social norm derives from many different factors, with the main factor being the high rate of gangs. With over 60,000 gang members actively involved in gangs, the nation has been taken under a sort of violence and mass death only caused by wars (Vice News, ‘Gangs of El Salvador’). Yet, I argue that this war does not continue on because of the high position gangs hold in Salvadoran society today, but is found in its impoverished youth. It is in the impoverished youth that violence is found, not because they partake in
Across the United States and Europe, suburban gangs are growing as never before, estimations that in a typical inner city American community of 50,000 or more, there are 200 to 500 gang members. Some even larger organization called super gangs, which have more than 1,000 members spread over several states, have been known to operate in small town America. You cant say that any community is insulated from this activity," There's no restriction on where gang members can live. Gang members living in the suburbs share traits with recruits in the cities, and many of those factors have been exacerbated by tough economic times, The list of factors include divorce, separation, physical abuse, sexual abuse and having a parent with
Street Gangs are becoming popular in many cities across the country. According to the Department of Justice's 2005 National Gang Threat Assessment, there are at least 21,500 gangs and more than 731,000 active gang members (Grabianowski). Gangs bring fear and violence to neighborhoods, drugs, destroy property, involve youth in crimes and drive out businesses. When you have gangs in a community, it affects everyone in the community. An alarming amount of young adults are joining gangs and becoming involved in illegal activity. Most gangs have a rule that when you join the gang you are a member of the gang for life. Gangs can be removed from our communities with more community involvement and education.
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)
Throughout the centuries, gangs have been rapidly growing. As early as the 1730s different groups of people in Europe began forming gangs. At first they were composed of people upset with the government who started riots to rebel against the government. Decades later, gangs began to spread worldwide very quickly. Gangs made their way all the way to the United States, or the 13 colonies at the time. They were largely created by people upset with the government. There were gangs for federalists supporters, and gangs for people who supported the Anti-federalists (“Gangs” 2015). As centuries passed, people formed gangs for different reasons. Beginning in the 1940s in cities like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and Detroit, gangs of white
Social Class Most of the gang members that have been reported come from the lower social economical class. When these kids are out in the streets they have nothing better to do so they begin to commit delinquent behavior. Since these economically challenged kids have no money to go anywhere, they tend to hang around their neighborhood. These kinds of groups encourage each other to commit criminal activity. They feel that if one does it, all of them can do it too.
Children are very easy to influence, they want someone to look up to and be a leader for them. If a child is growing up in an unstable household where the parents are always out working and trying to make ends meet, they might get involved in gang activities since there 's no on at home to tell them the difference between right and wrong.
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.
Additionally, the need for the young people to have a sense of protection mainly drives them to join gangs. Many societies with high reported cases of mob activities frequently see youths link with a bunch of criminals just for endurance. For many, it is better to connect with the mob that to stay vulnerable and defenseless in their localities (Klein & Maxson, 2006). For many being connected to mob guarantees sustenance in case of assault and retaliation for wrongdoings. While the young people with a good family unit often feel protected hence they desire not to link with