A Common Agreement Within The World That Deals With Men And Men

Gangs have been a growing issue across the United States for many decades now. Youth gang violence may have started around the ‘50s, but did not become a serious issue until the ‘80s and from there went through a downward spiral in some cities like downtown Los Angeles, which was where the notorious Bloods and Crips gangs both started. First, let’s simply define a gang as a group of people, mostly men ranging for ages 14-30, who claim territory and use it to make money for themselves and their neighborhood through illegal activities such as trafficking drugs and weapons. There are many reasons and components that are factored in when conducting research to hypothesize “why do people join gangs?” That is why it is necessary to compare and contrast all the social, biological, psychological, developmental, and substance abuse aspects and relate it to joining a gang. It is also important to touch base on the differences between males and females that join gangs, such as power differentials, social learning differences and social stratification differences.

Anderson posits that this is a major reason why they join gangs; they want to earn their “manhood” or at least learn what it means to be a man. This leads to them getting a twisted idea of what it is to be a true man (Anderson 14-16). Another issue that Anderson discusses is the growing intensity of girls becoming more violent in reaction to different types of threats to respect such as rumors and gossip. While Anderson does say girls are less prone to killing others based on these issues, there is still a rise in fighting amongst those in the areas these gangs run rampant (Anderson 16-18). Finally, Anderson ends his article with a final component in which gang members try to earn a reputation for being “bad” as they call it. This comes down to the willingness to perform risky behaviors, and how little they fear death as a result of their activities (Anderson 18-19). Anderson terms this kind of culture to be an oppositional culture (Anderson 20).

Abstract: This paper will discuss the correlation of youth gangs and how the cognitive and social learning theory comes in to play, and why female and male juveniles end up in the system. It will touch bases on how youth surroundings have a lot to do with the decisions they choose to make and the life style they end up living. Gangs usually recruit youth off the street, if a child sees that being a part of a gang is an everyday thing and is normal then they will be influenced more to do that. The cognitive theory ultimately states that a child learns from observing and from there environment. This essay will touch on the different statistics and the reasoning for youth gangs and gangs in general, it will also show statics of youth who are apart of gangs and are incarcerated. It will also show how it correlates with the cognitive theory and social learning theory.

The Book, My Bloody Life, the Making of a Latin King by Reymundo Sanchez is sad, horrifying and eye opening. Consequently, it makes a person think about the role of society and the social reasons or theories that can explain involvement in gangs or gang activity. I think there may be several theories used to explain involvement in gangs, but I think the best theory used to explain why there are gangs is the “control or social bond theory”. Sanchez illustrates several instances of this theory throughout his book. I will discuss some of these instances and show how they are an example of control/social bond theory.

Even so, early on in my reading on this ethnography, I identified the role gender plays not only for the ethnographer doing the research, but also for the gang members. As the gang members matured into adulthood the similarities in these gender roles that match most societies became apparent,

Although it has been well known that males tend to make up the majority of gang members, an increasing number of female gangs have been showing up; Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Manitoba are just a few of the provinces where female gangs are popping up (Statistics Canada, 2008). Often the study of the female youth gang rate is neglected within research and the correlation between the gangs and social economic facts are forgot about (As cited in Jacob, 2006). Gangs and Girls: Understanding Juvenile Prostitution by Michel Dorais and Patrice Corriveau discusses how “gangs often use girls as accomplices

They’re becoming much more autonomous.” Coinciding with the notion of female liberation and increased equality in other parts of society, the media have often used the concept of “liberation” to explain the rise in female gang involvement (Miller 4; Pearson).

Many people recognize that gangs have been around for what seems like forever. What they don't realize is that the numbers are increasing to amazing proportions, there were 28,000 youth gangs with 780,200 members in the United States (in 2000) and 20% to 46% of those members are female (Evans). And what is even more shocking is, in Chicago alone there are 16,000 to 20,000 female gang members (Eghigian). These girls start out as ?groupies?, become members, and sometimes even leaders of all-girl gangs because of troubles in the home, a need for money, for the social scene, or just because it is all they know.

From my perspective, the most surprising gang myth was that gangs, drugs, and violence were linked. I was under the impression that gangs made their income from the sale and distribution of drugs to fund their activities. It was unique in that Coughlin and Venkatesh (2003) actually stated that drugs were secondary to that of identity, protection, and recreation (28). Though from just these two chapters, I can see there is a pattern to why youth join gangs and the gang’s desire for identity as a primary goal. All of the offered criteria of identity, protection, and recreation signal to me that of any troubled teen/youth trying to establish their way through not only a changing environment of high school, but also a changing body of hormones. I was curious in the details regarding to the fact that few gangs control distribution, in that if not them then who actually

Gender stereotypes leads kids to gang affiliations. Gangs are growing around the world and are consider to be a group of criminals. According to the National Institute of Justice (2011), “The federal definition of gang is: an association of three or more individuals identifying themselves with a group identity with slogans, signs, symbols, style of color of clothing, and that have a purpose to engage in criminal activity” (para.3). There are 33,000 violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs with 1.4 million members that are criminally active in the United States (Federal Bureau of Investigations, 2017). Gangs are related to bullying from stereotypes, assaults, thefts, and harassment. Unfortunately, a child in gangs is exposed

Two sociological theories that may be used to analyze the lives of the girls presented in the documentary, Gangsta Girls, are the differential association theory and the labeling theory. Edwin Sutherland came up with the differential association theory sometime in the late 1930s. His hypothesis proposes that we learn to be deviant through or associations with deviant peers. Essentially, this theory is self-explanatory as it suggests that basically peer pressure can enable you to perform acts that are considered deviant in nature. This factor of peer pressure is what acts as a catalyst for you to exhibit deviant behavior. An example of this could be your friend telling you to cut class with them. Since they’ve done it before, you may feel more

Many of the research that has been done on gang membership have been concentrated on the male population. The minimal work that has been done on female gang membership is reference to the young women has secondary roles or as sex objects in the gangs. However, women roles in gangs are changing in a steadily pace in which female gang member are committing more serious criminal crime and delinquency. The delinquency has been linked towards both serious and minor forms criminal activity. The delinquent behavior for gang members has been established by many factors in particularly in the neighborhoods one lives in. The neighborhood that female gang members live in has a differently impact and development toward them rather than compared with male

Through in-depth interviews with 20 female gang members in Columbus, Ohio, Miller (1998) found that women often have difficulty being accepted as gang members. Many attempt to show “masculine” leadership qualities, such as being tough, able to fight, and being willing to engage in criminal acts for the gangs. Beliefs that women are weaker than men, however, mean that women have a harder time proving their commitment to the gang. Nevertheless, women might also gain acceptance through connections to influential, high-status men – a route to acceptance that is less available to men (Miller 1998). Women’s participation in crime within the gang is also different from men’s. Though girls are involved in less serious forms of delinquency, gang boys are still more likely to be involved in the most serious forms of crime, such as drive-by shootings and gun assaults. This is due both to the deliberate exclusion of girls from these types of crimes and the fact that young women themselves often use gender as means of avoiding crimes they find dangerous or morally dubious (Miller and Brunson 2000). The lesser involvement of girls in more serious forms of crime, however, can lead to the devaluation and mistreatment of female gang members because they are perceived as less valuable to the gang. Female gang members are also more likely to be sexually mistreated than male gang members (Miller 1998). Given these

Abstract: This review studies in depth research done on street gangs. Social issues have social scientists turning away from including this in their research around this time. Sociological views have been changed dramatically in the past 40 years due to gender and racial studies. Also, women have started to join gangs since America has been changed with woman equality laws passing.

Joanou’s (2006) Movie Gridiron Gang relates to Hard and Lazloffy (2005) information regarding youth involved in gangs’ memberships. According to Hard and Lazloffy (2005) the amount of youth involved in gangs has amplified considerably over the years, which has also contributed to the escalation in homicides, aggravated assaults, rapes and other forms of violence types of adolescents’ crimes rates. According to Joanou (2006), most of the adolescents inmates at Camp Kilpartick where gang members that committed some type of crime that involved violence. Also according to Hard and Lazloffy (2005), most young teens join gangs because they offer a buffer against violence, but the buffer against violence comes with the price of them having to commit crimes, which creates an unending vicious cycle of violence, and this cycle of violence is seen throughout Joanou’s (2006) movie.